As you may be aware, in November Royal Mail announced a review of their 1,200 Customer Service Points to determine the optimum number of locations following a 50 per cent drop in footfall since the pandemic. After completing the first stage of the review, and considering a range of options, Royal Mail has decided to maintain the current estate of Customer Service Points as they seek to further improve their first-time delivery rates.
Following successful trials, Royal Mail will additionally roll out automatic next-day redeliveries for missed parcels in the coming months. This is designed to make it even easier for customers to receive parcels at home, without the need to travel to a Customer Service Point. This initiative builds on the introduction of a range of alternative delivery options for greater convenience in recent years, including free redelivery, delivery to a neighbour, the option to leave parcels in a Safeplace and inflight redirections through the Royal Mail App.
As footfall continues to decrease, the next stage of this review will focus on ensuring that Customer Service Point opening hours match customer demand.