Citizens Advice Postal Operator Liaison Meeting

6th October 2017

Introduction

Anne Pardoe

Ofcom

Gianpiero Roscelli

Citizens Advice consumer service

Jess Hawker Meadley

Citizens Advice consumer service

● Overview of content and actions from April 17● Updates from the service● Projects for the post advice service● Quarter 1 and 2 figures● Next steps

Consumer Service Actions from April 17 meeting

Action Complete

Circulate Post Scope Grid for partners

Slides are available on the Citizens Advice consumer service partner pages.

Citizens Advice consumer service Transition Progress update

Delivery centre summary

● Seven local offices across eight sites delivering the service in England and Wales

● CAD continue to deliver the service from Glasgow and Stornoway

● Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland provide overall management of service, including:

○ Grant and contract management

○ Quality

○ Partner engagement

○ Customer satisfaction

● Transition of the service is now closed ● The implementation management and project team is no longer in place, and

we now have individual grant managers appointed with each centre● Wait times have decreased significantly from the start of the year, as volume

moved from existing centres to the new ones● Contingency measures remained in place with additional options ready for

deployment as required until the end of transition● Agilisys delivered some aspects of the service through until the end of July● Complaint levels from clients have remained low and consistent

Transition Complete

Progress update

● Overall progress has remained on course throughout the project, with milestones achieved and centres coming on-line as per original plan

● Each delivery centre has their own strengths and challenges and we are adopting an individual approach with each to work with them and also share best practice

● This is underpinned by performance management framework, with monthly grant management meetings and quarterly audits

● Each new centre has a designated grant manager to manage the relationship and take ownership of any issues that are identified in conjunction with the centre involved

Performance update

● Agilisys finished in July and the service is now wholly delivered by Citizens Advice

● Each delivery centre is taking their agreed volumes and the transition project is closed

● Work continues around balancing quality with adviser performance levels, to ensure there is appropriate resource levels at each centre for their forecasted demand

● Operations working groups (held quarterly with all delivery centres in attendance) are used as a means to work on service wide challenges or opportunities, and also sharing best practice

Quality update

● Quality performance is encouraging given the number of new advisers, with a result very close the the target level

● The additional quality management measures we had in place are now being phased out as we return to BAU and centres take responsibility for quality management at a local level

● Quality assessors are undertaking benchmarking and consistency sessions with us, and working towards peer review other centres

Citizens Advice consumer service development plan

● We have formally closed the project and undertaken a lessons learnt review

● We have commenced work on the service development plan for the next three years

● Our focus is now to develop the service to enhance it’s value to clients, partners and stakeholders

● A summary of the key areas are on the next two slides. This gives insight into our approach, strategy and priorities for the next 3 years

Citizens Advice consumer service development plan

Citizens Advice consumer service development plan

Post development work

● We have begun work with the centres to refine quality and the application of business processes

● Supporting centres with performance including service level and abandonment attainment through regular calls and performance reviews

● Following an issue with case coding in July which impacted on out of scope recording we have implemented a robust review of cases coding

● This issue was caused by confusion in the out of scope recording process and was highlighted when one centre took a higher volume of calls

● All cases were checked and when needed additional systems training was delivered. We will continue to monitor moving forwards

Service statistics Q1 & 2

Post Stats Q1

● Volumes include calls, letters, webmail forms and reply emails● Out of scope is cases coded with an out of scope issue code or feedback code● Cases are specific enquiries with unique reference numbers

Month Volumes Out of scope

OOS % cases

April 461 114 31%

May 525 86 23%

June 526 51 21%

July 501 7 4.79%

August 570 120 32%

September 624 160 25%

Post Contacts

Trends - Post Flare

Quarter 1 (Apr - Jun 17)

Quarter 2 (Jul - Sep 17 )

Quarter 3 (Oct - Dec 16)

Quarter 4 ( Jan - Mar 17)

Lost mail (104) Lost mail (80)Lost Mail - premium services (70) Lost Mail (98)

Damaged Mail (26) Damaged Mail (20) Other (60) Other (52)

Misdelivery (24) Delayed Mail (20)

Postage Surcharge (incl customs clearance/local collect fees) (27) Delayed Mail (35)

Delayed Mail (21) Misdelivery (17) Misdelivery (25) Damaged Mail (22)

Discarded/Dumped Mail (14)Receiving unwanted mail (7) Delayed Mail (24)

Attempted theft/tampering (19)

Track and Trace (11)Discarded/Dumped mail (7)

Attempted theft/tampering (21)

Redelivery failures/problems (times) (13)

Redirection Failure (inc delivery to orig address/wrong address) (7)

Post Office counter products/services (7) Damaged Mail (15)

Redirection failure (address) (12)

Redelivery failures/Problems (6)

Redirection Failure (inc delivery to orig address/wrong address) (6)

Royal Mail Complaints Process (13) Misdelivery (11)

Post office counter products/services (6) Track and Trace (6)

Failure/Delay to set up redirection (9) Track and Trace (9)

Attempted theft/tampering (5)

Attempted theft/tampering (6) Track and Trace (8)

Royal Mail’s complaint process (7)

Post client Q1 by nation

Nation Volumes %

England 318 87.60%

Scotland 23 6.34%

Wales 21 5.79%

Anon 1 0.28%

Q1 Trends - Post Flare

Scotland England Wales Anon

Collection Problems (12) Lost Mail (86) Lost Mail (6) Damaged Mail (1)

Delayed Mail (3) Damaged Mail (23) Damaged Mail (2)

Lost mail (1) Misdelivery (22) Discarded/Dumped Mail (1)

Misdelivery (1) Delayed Mail (19) Delayed Mail (1)

Other (1) Discarded/Dumped Mail (13)Post Office counter products/services (1)

Track and Trace (1) Track and Trace (8)Redelivery failures/Problems (1)

Failure/Delay to set up redirection (7)

Attempted theft/tampering (1)

Redelivery failures/Problems (5) Misdelivery (1)

Post Office counter products/services (5)

Attempted theft/tampering (4)

Post client Q2 by nation

Nation Volumes %

England 239 88.52%

Scotland 14 5.19%

Wales 17 6.30%

Anon 0 0%

Q2 Trends - Post Flare

Scotland England Wales Anon

Lost mail (10) Lost mail (66) Lost mail (4)

Postal Surcharge (1) Damaged mail (17) Delayed mail (3)

Delayed mail (1) Misdelivery (16) Damaged mail (2)

Damaged mail (1) Delayed mail (16) Postal surcharge (1)

Receiving unwanted mail (7) Discarded/dumped mail (1)

Post Office counter products/services (7) Misdelivery (1)

Failure/Delay to set up redirection (6)

Attempted theft/tampering (6)

Redirection failure (6)

Discarded/dumped mail (6)

Presented by: Jess Hawker MeadleyDate: 6th October 2017

Parcel Delivery

Delivery services in the online shopping market

Parcel Delivery Report

In June this year we published a report looking into parcel delivery services in the online shopping market.

The report found that many people are experiencing problems with online delivery but are unsure of their rights and how to resolve problems.

Most shoppers have experienced problems

Parcel delivery services are increasingly important to how we shop and live but most online shoppers have experienced problems with parcel delivery in the last year.

● 69% of online shoppers have experienced at least one problem in the past year.

● These problems are causing inconvenience (55%), stress/anger/annoyance (34%), and loss of time (26%)

Many consumers take no actionAccess to redress is limited by low uptake and enforcement of consumer rights.

● Only 38% of consumers who experience problems take any form of action (either contact or complaint).

● 33% of consumers say the problem they experienced means they would either shop less often or never shop again from the retailer in the future.

Many consumers take no action

Consumers are not always clear on their rights

Awareness of rights is patchy and consumer rights information isn’t always easily accessible.

A third of retailers do not explain consumer rights information in clear terms or split up the information and spread it across different pages on their website.

Company complaints processes can be frustrating

● 44% of online shoppers have further issues when trying to resolve a problem.

● 26% lost time resolving the problem, spending an average of 2.5 hours.

● 35% are satisfied with the quality of action taken by the retailer or delivery company to resolve the problem.

Areas for further exploration

1. Reducing the number of consumer problems:

● Shared or community run delivery infrastructure.

● Increasing number of delivery lockers in new-build homes.

● Increasing consumer choice over how and when parcels are delivered.

Areas for further exploration

2. Improve consumer rights awareness and uptake:

● Voluntary certification for parcel delivery companies.

● Consumer awareness campaign.

3. Ensure consumer rights are upheld:

● Incentivising retailers to provide key information at particular stages of the transaction.

● Ensuring complaints processes are simple and easy to navigate.

Thank youCara Jonescara.jones@citizensadvice.org.uk

To download the full report: Delivery services in the online shopping market

Consumer Council Northern Ireland

Michael Legg

Consumer Council (NI)Contacts 2017/18

2017-2018 Number of Contacts

Quarter 1 8

Quarter 2 7

Consumer Council (NI)Contacts 2017/18

Type of Complaint Q1 & Q2 (2017-18)

Mail Delivery 9

Royal Mail procedures 3

Post Office 3

Citizens Advice Scotland

Location based surcharging in Scotland

The Issue

The Issue

The Issue

Half an hour drive from central Glasgow

The village of Newtonmore, almost the geographical centre of Scotland

The Isle of Wight

Major urban centres of Inverness, Aberdeen and Belfast. Populations of almost 60,000, over 200,000 and over 670,000 respectively.

Land’s End

A farm in Wales

The Issue

Seamount Court, a nineteen storey high-rise in Aberdeen

Photo by John Dale: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johndale1971/5863310287/in/photolist-9W7ZSF

Timeline - research

2015

The Postcode Penalty: The Distance Travelled

A review of the issue since 2012

2014

The Postcode Penalty: The Business Burden

A survey of 247 businesses on the impact of surcharges

2012

The Postcode Penalty - a survey of more than 3000 Scottish consumers on issues with delivery of online goods

2011

Free delivery* Report following work by Skye and Lochalsh

Citizens Advice Bureau to take the issue nationwide

2016-17

The CFU’s most recent research on prevalence, impact, and

industry understanding

Timeline - action

2017-18

Consumer Protection Partnership reviewing existing evidence on parcel delivery

surcharging.

2014

Statement of principles for parcel deliveries launched by UK

Government

2013

Statement of principles for parcel deliveries launched by

Scottish Government

2012

Issue raised in Scottish Parliament

The future

Co-operation with industry, within industry and across the

public and private sectors?

Today - progress

• Aimed at retailers • Entirely voluntary• Mostly ignored

Today - the good news

Fewer retailers charge extra for delivery based on location.

Fewer retailers refuse to deliver to Highland and Island addresses.

Today - the bad news

Where retailers do charge more based on location, the amount they charge has increased since 2012.

Despite obvious cost factors, like fuel prices, going down over the same time.

Today - the stalemate

Latest Research Findings

30% Over 50% of consumers in these areas said extra delivery charges put them off shopping online frequently or always, with 83% saying

they would buy more online if there were no delivery charges.

50%consumers are charged on

average an extra

for the Scottish Islands, this rises

to an extra

59% say they often or always find the item elsewhere online if faced with an extra charge - retailers should know that charges

are driving potential consumers to their competitors.

Price blending

• It is more expensive to deliver to some parts of Scotland from Midlands

distribution centres, than to England or Wales. There are just more miles.

We did not find evidence that higher prices are the result of profiteering by

any party.

• However, it’s not accurate to say the prices just reflect the costs incurred.

• For example, it costs more to deliver to one end of London than the other,

depending on where the delivery hub is located. The prices charged for

delivery to certain areas are a result of decisions made by operators on

where their “price blending” boundary stops.

Latest Research Findings

• Our interviewers with operators found some support for the idea of a

collaborative PUDO network in conjunction with, for example, local

authorities.

• This research also found that a range of factors were responsible for

inflating the cost of delivery to the Scottish Highlands and Islands, including

distance from distribution centres, low population density, sea miles and

poorer infrastructure. Any efforts to reduce costs, which in turn can reduce

the prices paid by consumers, will require a broad approach.

The Way Forward

• Improving accuracy and transparency of information on retailer websites

• Exploring if access to Universal Service prices can be offered

• Discussions between industry and the public sector, particularly around;

• A carrier-neutral PUDO network exploiting existing (public) infrastructure

and logistics

What’s up for grabs?

Happier consumers

Lower delivery costs

Increased business

Improved efficiency

Creating a less costly operating environment

End

Questions?

AOB

Thank you for watchingDate: 6th October 2017