Royal Mail today announced it will roll out its Delivery to Neighbour initiative across the UKin late September, ending its status as the only British operator banned from delivering to
neighbours if a recipient is not at home.The move, subject to regulatory approval, follows a successful series of trials earlier thisyear and the current public consultation by postal industry regulator Ofcom. Although Ofcom’sconsultation is still running, the agency already said it is “minded” to approve the scheme and didnot block Royal Mail from notifying the public about the service.
The company will be delivering a leaflet to all 29 million addresses across the UK starting nextweek providing information about the new service which covers items that are too large to gothrough a letterbox or that require a signature. Customers will have the chance to opt out of thescheme.
Royal Mail said the initiative is part of a process of bringing its terms and conditions more inline with other delivery companies. Currently, Royal Mail is the only major delivery company inBritain not allowed to deliver to a neighbour as part of its standard practice. Undelivered largerpostal items and certain items requiring a signature have to be returned to a post office to awaitcollection or the company has to make a second delivery attempt.
Mike Newnham, Royal Mail’s Chief Customer Officer, said: “The results of the trial showed thatcustomers welcomed the convenience of having items delivered to a neighbour if they were not athome to receive them. We look forward to Ofcom’s decision on rolling out the initiative later thissummer but wanted to give all our customers early information about our plans and outline theiroptions.”
Approximately 748,000 households were involved in the trial in Edinburgh, Gatwick North, Hull,Norwich, Swansea East, Wigan and Bolton from last November, and around 220,000 items weresuccessfully delivered to a neighbour during the trial period. During the trial less than 1% ofhouseholds requested an opt-out.
Feedback from households in the trial areas revealed that 92% of customers whose item was leftwith a neighbour were satisfied with the overall experience, and 90% of neighbours who accepted anitem expressed overall satisfaction. When questioned about their reasons for satisfaction,convenience and ease were top of the list.
Research by Consumer Focus also found that delivery convenience was improved for people whoseundeliverable post was left with a neighbour as part of the trial. Its report, Everybody Needs GoodNeighbours, said: “Both recipients and neighbours reported that items were collected quickly andconveniently, with no reports of loss or damage. Almost all consumers whose post was left with aneighbour, or who received post on behalf of their neighbours, believed they had benefitted fromthe delivery to neighbour trial.”
