Canada Post wants to disappear off the map by cutting service
By Stephen Pate – Canada Post is adding reduced service to the litany of its mismanagement by slow, indifferent and out-right bad customer service.
My new Fender Telecaster guitar from Best Buy in Burnaby, BC had to cross Canada 3 times before arriving on PEI. During the 19 days in transit, Canada Post had no idea where it was or why.
Got a Canada Post story about bad service. Tell us below in the comments.
When they announced the Post Office was dropping home delivery, I figured the Post Office is crazy.
When times are tough in business, the best idea is to cut costs not services and find a way to increase revenues. Canada Post is adopting the let’s-cut-services-and-see- what-happens theory of business management.
From the get-go, this is not a rant about the people who work for Canada Post. If the service is bad, awful, pitiful – that’s management’s fault. Management are hired to make any business work efficiently and all problems land in their laps.
From the Canada Post CEO on down, they are failing the public and their employees and running the Post Office into the ground.
Increased revenue
The loss of home delivery will be hard on seniors and people living with disabilities. I will not be going down the street in winter or bad weather to collect bills and flyers. Hopefully, we still get parcels delivered but who knows.
Instead of dropping the home delivery service, why not use it as a revenue stream to pick up mail from homes. The Post Office could easily charge a premium for mail they pick up. There are other revenues sources.
The Post Office needs to stop listening to businesses who want cheap mail service. We don’t need to subsidize cheap letter service for businesses who have other options. Charging cost-plus or market price for mail service will force businesses to adopt electronic bill payment and statement delivery.
Fix the service problem
Delivery service from Canada Post is unreliable to unbelievable. A typical example of how bad it gets is an expedited shipment that left Richmond BC on December 28th bound for PEI, across the country.
Canada Post says the delivery is 3-7 days with Expedited Parcel. “Expedited Parcel service provides delivery next day local, 1 to 3 days regional, and 2 to 7 days national, between most major urban centres. ”
The parcel arrived in Montreal 3 days later, bounced around the Montreal Post Office for 5 days before they sent it back to Richmond BC. The logic of that escapes me.
Canada Post expedited service
Why? No one knows. Best Buy don’t know or won’t ask. Canada Post blames Best Buy which is an illogical response.
After bouncing around Richmond for another 5 days, the parcel arrived back in Montreal. It might get delivered this week, or not.
No one is responsible and it only took 19 days to cross the country three times.
If Canada Post makes this mistake repeatedly, maybe they might save a lot of money by not shipping parcels in the wrong direction.
Notice the date on the tracking page is Year/Month/Day. Obviously, the Post Office thinks more in years than days. it doesn’t really matter when I get this parcel, although it seems like a lot of travel and opportunities to get damaged.
Of four Christmas gifts to Toronto one parcel ended up in Edmonton and I had to fight to get it back. The postal code was on a computerized label.
I have a lot of interaction with the Post Office since I’m a compulsive online shopper. With my disability, I don’t go to stores in the winter and shop from home over the internet.
FedEx, UPS, Canada Post and US Post Office are my lifelines. Of them all, Canada Post ranks last in service. They lose things, are slow and have front line staff who are indifferent to the public.
On the week before Christmas, I went downtown to the main post office. Despite the long line up of people sending parcels and Christmas cards, only one person was at the counter. Any other week there would have been two clerks.
The same level of poor or indifferent retail counter service is repeated across the country. In Halifax Main Post office, I had to beg to get a mail box that wasn’t over my head, despite arriving in a wheelchair.
The problem is management.
Canada Post management are well paid and should be able to run a better business. Managers make $70,000 to $110, 000 annually. CEO Deepak Chopra made $661,000 in 2011.
“As it currently stands, Chopra earns a salary of $497,000.00 plus perks that include an additional 33% Personal Performance Bonus. With his personal performance bonus, Chopra earns $661,000 per year, the highest amongst federal civil servants and more than Prime Minister Steven Harper, who inked the legislation that will likely ensure Chopra’s reward.” CUPW
We are rewarding incompetence.
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