Royal Mail Collections

[Stereo Steve]

Go cloth Lee. Change your nappy, change the world.

[leehack]

It was contemplated, but given he has 8 No.2's a day and i have an issue with brown stuff, we have decided to have a solar panel instead.

[chris ashdown]

Reading this makes me realise how lucky we are

We delivered our packet post each afternoon 16:00 ish to our local small post office/ shop rather than pay the collection money

When we got up to 3 or 4 sacks a day the postment called on us and asked if they could collect directly from us as it was a pain having to drag the bags all through the shop and half way down the street when they could just pick up from inside our door

So far after 4 months this works well but any snags and we are prepared to take them down the post office

Hope the big bosses are not reading this and pull the plug

[siwalker]

I wanted certs of postage simply to prove we sent an item, if it goes lost, but you've explained that its covered

Check with RM - as Miranda seems to disagree and we've never bothered trying to claim anything.

i may well come and visit, if thats Ok. i'll be in touch, I never need an excuse to go off on an afternnon jolly, probably leave it til Sept as traffic will be easier. Poxy Grockles

blimey you've moved!! i was born in Tiverton. I was looking forward to a trip to Dartmouth

You did well to get out, but we feel that Tiverton is up-and-coming
Problem was that it's hard to find decent commercial premises anywhere in Devon, and certainly not in/near Dartmouth. The handy side-effect of moving is that property is somewhat better value in glorious mid-Devon. Dartmouth is also suffering badly from second-home blight and from being just too damn far from anywhere, especially in grockle season. No grockles in Tivvy
Give me a bell anytime on the sales number and if you come up near knocking-off time we'll buy you a beer or two after the guided tour.

Cheers,
simon

[trstr]

OBA vs EPRO

We use E*Pro, the last I heard was that introduction of OBA was put back to September, probably because of the strikes.
We get one collection a day and two a day, seven days a week in December as it needs a 7 tonner plus a van to clear. This is all free but then we do spend 40 grand a year with RM, the biggest problem is getting compensation for lost packages (about 25 a year), this usually takes up to 6 months even though we have a fixed profit margin formula.

OBA is a nightmare. Crashes every day at 4pm. EPRO now available until 30 November. Why didn't they test it properly. But you have to be careful with EPRO now. They apply the top up to each service rather than your full order amount.

[trstr]

Anyone get their Royal Mail Collections for free?

We've just had our annual invoice of £480 and before I 'try' and haggle, it'd be useful to know whether anyone has been successful in getting it cheaper.

TIA

Yes. Had to send a fax, and haven't had a letter yet, but chased it up and was told it was happening. Will find out on Monday if they don't turn up.

[trstr]

If it's any comfort we've spent £20k with them in the last 12 months, but that still only gets us a service provided almost grudgingly.

Anyone here use E*Pro and managed the transition to OBA? RM haven't even managed to provide us a login to OBA yet.


Exactly.

Cheers,
simon

NO. OBA is terrible.

[fleetwood]

OBA is terrible

just at the point of looking to switch over from paper based to online...this is not very reassuring ...

Along with the documented and on-going problems with A8, multi-user, ProTX and now Royal Mail online this year is looking to be a major upgrade headache!!!

[Darren B]

It all comes down to customer service, companies become complacent these days, they really are not bothered about the small guys anymore. They have a project it has to be implemented so the attitude is release when we said we would then fix it on the fly. why because they know most people with just put up with it, a few will leave but they dont care.

[chris ashdown]

Using Packetpost we were originally sending all on the signed for service, but after looking at the cost reduced the signed for to orders over £40.00 and or Flats and London or major city addresses. seems a reasonable compromise and not many probelms of nor receiving the goods

We also use jans Intergrated labels in the two format so one goes on the packet and the other is stuck in the post office signed for docket book instead of writting the address in

[siwalker]

NO. OBA is terrible.

Yup, we're using it now and it's a big pile of poo. We have to revert back to E*Pro frequently because OBA just falls over; times out or delivers a big mess of html code into the frame (ooh look - SAP J2EE). A bodged roll-out of Protx proportions.
You can tell it's going horribly wrong because they've postponed the E*Pro switch-off by two months. OBA support don't reply to emails.

Meanwhile the workforce is on strike; some turnip at Royal Mail Collections Admin is trying to tell me that despite having spent circa £20k in the last 12 months we don't qualify for free collections; and the costs inexorably rise while the service level inexorably falls. Nice one Leighton and Crozier - hope you enjoy your bonuses.

simon

[party_pete]

Is everyone who's using it, still having problems with OBA?

We have 'finally' got our OBA log in sorted but I haven't a clue how to use it and compared to EPRO it's a nightmare to work through with the time outs etc.

My money is on 30th November deadline moving to Jan 08.

[rmorrow]

Yes, the system is terrible! Downtime, awful interface, totally user-unfriendly and difficult to rectify any errors. We once got weight and number of packages mixed up (?!) and it took numerous phone calls and e-mails to sort the billing out.

The worst thing for us, unlike E-pro, it doesn't work out the average weight. OK, not difficult to do but when you have lots of different box / envelope sizes all weighing different amounts you have to do it manually. A pain when you have a number of different posting options, and you have to calculate for each. It seems a step back from E-pro IMHO! We complained about this right at the beginning and RM couldn't understand what the problem was...

There is also a really annoying 'bounce' when you put any data in so you have to enter one piece of information and then wait for the page to bounce before you can enter the next - it takes ages!!! Anyone else have this?

Bring back E-pro!!!

[party_pete]

Just got the following email from Royal Mail (we're doomed);

Just a quick email to ask how you are getting along with your Online
Business Account and to remind you that Epro will be switched to "read
only" on 30/11/2007.

If you have any questions we have a dedicated OBA helpdesk who can be
reached via the 08457 950950 Business Services line.

I have added in the link to the quick guide which can be downloaded to your
desktop and is useful for training purposes.

www.royalmail.com/get-to-know

[OriginalTouch]

Try Fastway couriers.

Pick up and deliver to most areas of the UK from £2.95 for up to 20kg. (Not much more expensive than a packet at the Post Office - no scales required!)

You buy tickets in advance - no minimum contract!

Best of all, drivers are contracted as business owners and actually take a bit of care!

We have been sending out parcels UK-wide on a daily basis for over 7 years and have tried many courier companies. Fastway wins hand down - cost and service.

To be picky, only negatives are:
- Don't cover all areas yet but coverage is improving (franchised)
- If don't cover an area, use the hub system and then your parcel is handed over, could be to a less scrupulous company, but then that would happen anyway (and anything's better than Parcelforce). Tickets prices rise slightly then but not much (£3.95/£4.95/£6.95)- and with no contract you can pick and choose what you send!