Canada Post - Don't really want to hear from customers.

[Buddyboy546]

Post offices are handing out slips of paper to customers asking for feedback. "Tell us what you think." I sent the following.

April 25, 2013

Dear Sir / Madam:
Today at my post office I was handed a slip of paper issued by Canada Post inviting me to “share your thoughts” by going to canadapost.ca or writing in hard copy. I went to your web site. There was no mention of this invitation and no way to contact you via email. I spent about 10 minutes searching your site for even a web contact form, but none. I finally called your customer service telephone number. As expected, I had to sit through a myriad of advertisements and options before, in frustration, I hit 0 and spoke to Beverley, a most professional lady. I spent approximately five minutes with her asking how I could contact you via your web site, looking though multiple pages and options. In the end she conceded the only way to do so is by telephone or mail. I asked if someone could send me a contact email address to share my thoughts. The answer was no, Canada Post does not do that. Clearly she was a delightful lady working for an organization with challenged leadership. She was totally unaware of the “Share Your Thoughts” campaign.

Thought #1
Customer needs should always be paramount. Recognize that organizations that try to shield themselves from customer contact are disliked and avoided where possible by those customers. Provide an email contact on your web site.
Thought #2
Companies that disrespect customers by forcing them to sit through a long series of advertisements and options when they call, especially when they have been forced to call, can expect to lose the loyalty of those customers.
Thought #3
Companies that issue a formal, printed invitation to their customers to provide feedback should ensure that those customers should not be frustrated by difficult, even non-existent, feedback methods. If you want to enrage an already frustrated customer base, this experience suggests you have achieved your aim.

It is obvious that the service being provided by Canada Post is declining. As a boy in London, England, a letter posted in the morning would be delivered anywhere in London and around by the afternoon. Today, letters posted at 4.30pm in Wales by a government employee are delivered to your door first thing the following morning, several hundred kilometers distant. Compare that to Canada Post where relatively local letter delivery can take as long as a week.

Thought #4
Simple letter mail delivery is an obvious benchmark for the overall postal service. Unless that is perfected, all else will fail. Fast letter delivery should be priority one for Canada Post.

I have mailed a variety of parcels all over the world using Canada Post. A tiny parcel as small as a letter weighing about two ounces cost me about $14 to go to Toronto from Nova Scotia. A huge parcel the size of a filing box weighing about six pounds cost $24 to go the same route. This makes no sense to a customer and suggests he should find another way to send items.

Thought#5
There should be an obvious logic to letter and parcel rates. Where there is no such obvious logic, customers will feel duped and seek service elsewhere. Calling something expedited or priority when it is poorly executed anyway further frustrates an already suspicious customer.

Canada’s biggest manufacturing competitor is unsurprisingly China. Buy any manufactured item from eBay and, as often as not, it comes from China. A large proportion of items ordered from China are postage free. I recently looked around for a small electronic gadget finding that I could not get it anywhere locally for less than $10. I ordered the part from China via eBay and it was delivered to my door, an identical item, for $1.17 total cost (that is the cost of the item itself and the postage). It would have cost me about $6 to return the item to China via Canada Post. Clearly the Chinese government are subsidizing the cost of postage to maximize their manufacturing competitiveness. If Canada is to compete with places like China on an even playing field, our government will need to take the same approach. The fast growing utility of e-commerce will cost us all dearly if the Canada Post part of the equation here continues to be slow, inconvenient and expensive.

Thought #6
Canada Post needs to develop an e-commerce marketing initiative with the federal government such that parcel rates are subsidized by public funds. Increased volume will minimize the amount of subsidy in the long run. If the Chinese can and are doing it, what arguments will Canada Post come up with not to at least pursue it?

As a customer I am frustrated that there is no mail delivery to my door. I see customers around me being effectively harassed by Canada Post to move mailboxes, or even to have to go to distant facilities to collect mail on the premise of worker safety. I myself have to go to the post office to collect mail. This nonsense has to stop. Such safety needs occur in rare instances and should be addressed. To have this occur on a widespread basis as a matter of policy demonstrates that the customer and his or her needs are way down the totem pole.

Thought #7
Any initiative that does not place customer needs as the highest priority should be shunned whenever possible.

It is evident to me, as an informed customer, that the failures of Canada Post are coming from the top. Just about everything I have mentioned here that reflects negatively on the corporation is the result of executive management failure. Don’t kid yourself that I am a union type person or supporter. I am a retired senior manager from a large organization and personally taught customer service to new members over my latter years. I look at the way Canada Post is being run and shake my head.

These thoughts are a sampling of many more, and I welcome the opportunity to be able to share them through this outreach, even if I have been further frustrated by the time-wasting difficulties you have put in my way to do so.


Yours truly,

================================================== ========

Their reply is attached as a PDF. Following is my response to that:


May 10, 2013


Dear Mr. Cote:

Thank you for your response to my letter of last month concerning feedback submission problems and suggestions for the future of Canada Post. I described in detail the fact that you invited feedback through your website yet there was no way to do so through the website. Your response stated “the link is to the top right corner of our home page”. Have you actually checked that?

If you look at your home page, the only link to feedback I can see there is labeled “Website Feedback”. The only function of that is to provide feedback about the website itself. As you can see from the attached screen shots, there is no reference to feedback with respect to your written invitation handed out at Post Offices.


This is clearly a major reason why Canada Post is losing customers. Give an answer, any answer, and get rid of the enquiry. Your customer service telephone representative gave the same answer as you, until I insisted she work through the links she suggested and I proved there is no way to give feedback. Now you are giving me the same answer, saying it is there and implying the fault is mine in not finding it. A more helpful response would have been to name the button and exact route that would take me to the feedback page. If it is on the website and I am indeed missing it, I would appreciate a more detailed response. Clearly, though, if it is so inconspicuous I am again left with the impression that Canada Post really does not want to hear from its customers.

Finally, I note from your correspondence that there is no email address provided for me to send you this. As a paying customer I try to avoid doing business with any organization that makes it difficult for me to contact them. Canada Post is no exception.

Yours truly,


I thought I'd drop the Canada Post Ombudsman a line. He doesn't want to hear from you unless you have already opened a "ticket" with Canada Post. To open a ticket you have to register. Registration is more tortuous than on any other site I have been on. Once completed I tried to open a ticket, and tried, and tried. I'm still trying to figure out how to do so. If they are trying to pi** people off, they are succeeding, big time.

[Jezebel]

ok I see the problem has been fixed

[Peachykeen2007]

OMG - I hope I get this, received a envelope the other day that "someone" had sneaky sneaky removed my gift card out of it!

[jasperandchar]

All I can say is a sarcastic WOW!

[Buddyboy546]

"OMG - I hope I get this, received a envelope the other day that "someone" had sneaky sneaky removed my gift card out of it!"

Some years ago I used to receive mail from the U.K. regularly. Often times envelopes were delivered with a tiny tear along one edge, something that we initially thought was just a bit of damage from being handled, perhaps by a machine. In fact we came to realize that the tear was deliberately done somewhere along the way. It allows the handler to peek inside enough to see the distinctive edges of paper money inside. None there, the envelope goes on for delivery looking slightly damaged. If money were to be found, the handler rips the envelope open, takes the money and disposes of the remainder. In your case it was a gift card.

[nessa23]

very well written letter!!

Your 100% correct, they clearly do not care about their customers.

I, personally, have also searched and searched and searched on their website for an email to contact them. Nothing.

Pretty sad when an organization like this does not take customer feedback seriously. SUPER frustrating.... and with the amount of issues people are having lately, I can't believe they haven't gone out of business yet.

Get your sh** together CP!!!!!

[TrueNorthTreasures]

I particularly agree with thoughts #1, 2, 3, and especially #4. No consistency to rates, and not a lot of logic attached to them, either (at least, not that is apparent to me). I also find rates for sending small/light items within Canada and to Europe are simply exorbitant.

My mail reaches England more quickly than it reaches Ontario or Nova Scotia. Mail from NS typically reaches me (in northern BC) far more quickly than when I send it to NS. There may be valid reasons for these things, but combined with the many other "little" frustrations, the result is that I feel non-plussed with Canada Post in general.

I, too, tried for almost 30 minutes in vain to find an email address or contact form to ask a question and give feedback on the Canada Post website a few months ago. It was incomprehensible to me that a corporation this large (and in such crisis) would make it so difficult for customers to connect with customer service.

[Buddyboy546]

very well written letter!!

Thanks, nessa. I am still waiting for a reply to my second letter. Everything Canada Post does like this demonstrates how little they value their customers. If their existance were not guaranteed by charter, they would be gone in the blink of an eye. By the way, did you know that Purolator is 93% owned by Canada Post? I am still trying to figure out what Canada Post is doing competing against itself, other than to further its use of smoke and mirrors to try and look good.

My comments about China were not made in passing. I live in a very rural area with high unemployment. An entreprenneur friend wants to attract local businesses to build manufacturing around 3D printers, but the distribution part of the equation will be a deal killer if not solved.

[xox2010]

Very thorough letter and I completely agree with all of your points - especially about the rates. Absolutely a rip-off.

[Carlotta]

Canada Post does not WANT you to communicate with them by email. Email is taking all of their business away. They want you to write a letter and buy a stamp and mail it to them. That's why they do not have an email address.

And I totally agree. Their idea of customer service is a whole lot different than MY idea of customer service.

[walkonby]

I just found this site after typing in Canada Post profits in to Google??

http://www.canadapost.ca/ext/en/futu..._id=2&cpage=82

This is where you can leave comments, although not private email as you wanted.


I guess I should have listened to the details of the news last night about CP turning a profit for the first quarter of 2013. They sold a building in Vancouver! lol,,,,that is not actually turning a profit, or is it? I do not understand this company anymore. How do they brag that they are profitable when all they are doing is dumping real estate?


http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?nid=745789

Another article about CP profit came with the signing of the employees collective agreement, one that abolished the banking of sick leave, lowered the wages for new hires and includes a wage freeze in 2015.
Profits on the backs of their workers.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2013...agreement.html

oops sorry OP, should probably not have put all of this into your thread, getting sucked into the vortex again! lol

[anusha.anya]

thanks a lot for sharing...

[MissJill]

I've been browsing this site for a while but after seeing this thread I wanted to sign up so I could share my CP story. A few years ago, I ordered a package from Amazon and a slip was left in my mail box to go pick up my package. My normal post office pick up was a block from where I lived but this slip said I had to pick up the package on the other side of town. I didn't have a car and I wasn't riding the bus for a half hour each way to go pick it up just because my mailman was obviously too lazy to stop at the correct post office to drop off my package. I contacted CP through the website, had to fill out an online "complaint" form or whatever. I received a voice mail from my local head CP office telling me to call them back and assured me they would correct the problem, but gave no actual name to ask for. I called the office and of course no one knew what I was talking about and I was transferred to at least 3 different people. I finally spoke with a guy who sounded eager to help me. He told me that he would personally pick up my package from the PO it was sitting at and leave it at my door the next day. I get home from work the next day and guess what - NO PACKAGE. I called the CP office back and the same guy who was eager to help was no being ignorant and told me that he did indeed pick up my package but he had no idea what to do with it since I wasn't home during normal delivery hours, we finally agreed that he would leave it at the PO down the street from me (where it should have originally been dropped). TWO days later I get a delivery slip to pick it up finally. After all was said and done it took around a week to solve, which is completely unacceptable. I emailed Amazon about the issue and told them I was not satisfied with CP's service and Amazon shipped my packages via UPS for a while. I will NEVER like CP, but there aren't many shipping options out there. CP wonders why they've lost so much business, well it's because their rates are ridiculous and their service is atrocious. Thanks for listening to my rant

[Ciel]

Heard this story last week about the unreal delivery time of a letter in Hamilton. It was mailed in May (not sure of actual date) in Hamilton and it arrived at destination address in same city last week. Where is the mail spending its time between mailing and delivery?

Canada Post has problems with its core service.

[MissJill]

At work we've had mail arrive 6 months to a YEAR later (the date clearly stamped by the PO on the envelope). A few weeks is nothing to CP.