The quality of An Post's service continued to decline for the third straight year, according to a report released yesterday by communications regulator ComReg. Meg Shreve reports.
The survey reported that between January and December 2005 only 73 per cent of single piece priority mail made it to its destination within one working day, missing the 94 per cent target set by ComReg. This was a 1 per cent increase from the previous year. Between October and December 2005, delivery within one business day dropped to 63 per cent, compared with 67 per cent during the same period in 2004.
"ComReg is concerned that quality of service performance is falling well off the target of 94 per cent," commissioner Mike Byrne said in a statement. "This is the second successive quarter in which An Post's quality performance for next-day delivery has fallen by 4 per cent by comparison with the corresponding quarters in 2004," he added.
Letters mailed with Dublin addresses originating outside of the county experienced the lowest quality of service. Sixty-eight per cent of mail from outside Dublin arrived within one working day compared to 70 per cent in 2004. The report concludes that mail-processing problems at the Dublin mail centre slowed delivery, as 76 per cent of local mail delivered in the same county nationwide reached its destination in one day. This was a 1 per cent increase over the previous year.
The commission also surveyed the delivery rate within three business days. It found that 97 per cent of all national mail arrived in three days. Although this was a 1 per cent increase over the past two years, it still fell short of ComReg's 99.5 per cent target.
An Post questioned the report's findings. It pointed to a 2005 survey completed by Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC) that reported performance rates 10 percentage points higher than ComReg's results.
The PwC survey is "far more comprehensive than the ComReg monitor", a statement from An Post said. It added that the PwC survey almost doubled the amount of mail tested and used electronic transponders in 40 per cent of the tests to track results.
An Post also questioned the reliability of ComReg's survey methods and pointed out that an independent body has not audited ComReg. "An Post fully acknowledges that quality performance needs to improve. But the measurement should be fair, rigorous and transparent."