South African Post Office impresses
There are only about 5 Post Offices around the world that run at a profit. South Africa’s Post Office is one of them. In terms of delivery, technology, services and functionality, SA’s Post Office is also rapdily moving up through the rankings, and headed for the Global Top 10 Post Offices in the very near future. Of course, everyone has some story of lost mail, or a grubby local PO (and these isolated incidents must be resolved), but in general the PO deserves serious praise for the past 5 years of turn around.
PO’s around the world should be quaking in their boots. If they understand the impact of the Internet, email, VOIP, cell phones, digital cameras, MMS and the like, they must realise that their days are numbered. I wonder how many PO’s around the world have active strategies to: (1) deal with the digital revolution; (2) bring their services in line with modern technology standards; (3) improve delivery times (how can an international “airmail” article take 6-8 weeks in shipping, for example?) and (4) connect with new generations of potential consumers who have no romantic attachments to snail mail?
With those strategic thoughts out the way, let me tell you one amazing story of service I just experienced at the Bedfordview Post Office, Gauteng, SA…
Last year, in early December, I sent out about 250 letters from the PO at Bedfordview. These were journals of an Association I belong to, the IASYM. In 23 of these, I included two copies. I checked with the counter staff, and they said the price was the same (R 14.15) for international airmail delivery, whether there were one or two journals in each envelope. Anyway, I paid the cash (how I wish the PO would accept credit cards!) and the letters were sent. A week or so later I received a note in my mailbox saying that the central postal clearing house (WITSPOS) would not send the 23 letters, as they did not have enough postage on them. The price for these thick and heavy items, I was told was R 79.50 each! Of couse, that didn’t make sense to me – R 14.15 for one, but R 79.50 for two? Why not just unpack them, and send them as 46 singles @ R 14.15 each?
So, I went to the Bedfordview PO ready for a fight. What I got was superior service of note.
Japie, the Postmaster himself, listened to my case, and said that he would personally help me (unbelievable). He would drive to WITSPOS himself and get the 23 items, so I could repack and repost them. Great. He even gave me his personal cellphone number so we could keep in touch!
Bad news followed. A day later, Japie informed me that WITSPOS would not release any articles already in their system. At first I was tense, then I realised that this is exactly the type of security you need in a postal system. But Japie had made a plan on my behalf. He had persuaded WITSPOS to let me come to their depot and physically repack the 23 items into separate envelopes, and post from there. Excellent! Japie would take me, and bring me back, he said. Wow. I couldn’t do it that day, so we agreed I’d phone him the following week to make a plan. All of this was happening in and around the December Christmas postal rush (and summer holidays), don’t forget.
When I eventually did phone him to make a plan to go and repack the items, he told me that he had convinced WITSPOS to send the envelopes at just the small incremental cost. All I need do is come into the PO branch and pay the minimal difference.
Above and beyond the call of duty.
And, as far as I know in 2005, not one of my letters – incoming or outgoing – got lost.
Way to go, guys!
Now, there’s just that problem of the digital revolution….
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These are the kinds of stories I wish more people could here. They reaffirm my decision to return to SA. Graeme I assume that senior people at the PO got this feedback from you about this service, in particular Japie’s line management?!
I asked the Graeme whether he had made sure that the PO knew about this case and he confirmed that they had.
At the risk of sounding like your grade 7 teacher, the reason for my question is to highlight something that Mike has been writing about a lot recently. The value of social software and citizen marketing and getting business to take it seriously.
Working in the industry or being tapped into this world to blogging, internet forums/communities podcasting etc, we make the assumption that the whole world is tuned in too and this is way too generous an assumption. I am regularly amazed at the number of people whose expressions glaze over when I start talking about internet communities and forums – partly because we like to keep our little group or sources of information to ourselves, but also because there are so many to choose from that people don’t know where to turn or have not got the time to go through everything that is available.
For business to start paying attention to what is on the web – they need to start understanding the power of it. When something like the PO story goes onto the public domain – not only does it raise the profile of the PO in a “word of mouth� way that they cant even begin to measure the benefits of (in the same way, the negative press Universal is getting on Barrie’s Nemo story), but the public recognition allows for an easier culture change within the organizations. You can be darn sure that something like this makes heros of the Japies in business and that raises the bar – which can only be a good thing for an organisation.
It is important that companies know that this is out there, and if we as consumers want them to take us seriously, it is up to us to let them know what we are doing and where we are doing it. If we don’t, we are just another voice in the crowd making a lot of noise but with no clear message getting through.
At the risk of sounding like your grade 7 teacher, the reason for my question is to highlight something that Mike has been writing about a lot recently. The value of social software and citizen marketing and getting business to take it seriously.
Bronwyn, could you talk a bit more about what is meant by “social software and citizen marketing”? Thanks!
Dragon, I think Bronwyn is referring to the shift in content creation with the Internet as a platform. The advent of a range of new technologies – things like, blogs, wikis, RSS and podcasts – are giving ordinary people like you and I the opportunity to add our voices to the global buzz. As a company, it makes sense to pay close attention to what is being said, as at any given moment the conversation may involve your brand, product, service or staff compliment.
Social software is the collective term for these new technologies and citizen marketing, or citizen journalism, or citizen publishing, are all exponents of the availability of these new vehicles.
Thanks Mike. Dragon if you want to understand more about this stuff then Mike is the person to speak to as this is much more his area of expertise.
Thanks Mike, I still have a thing or two to learn about RSS and podcasts. BTW, I inadvertently started my own blog the other day, thinking I was joining one. Maybe I’ll play with it a bit.
hi nice site.
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”