Royal Mail late letters compensation scheme unveiled

Royal Mail has introduced a new compensation system for customers whose deliveries arrive late.

The new arrangements could see customers awarded £3.36 worth of postage in a book of First Class stamps – or 12 times the cost of First Class postage for First Class letters that arrive more than four working days after posting. Also, Second Class letters that arrive more than six working days after posting would be entitled for the same award.

Business customers will get refunds on their postage bills if Royal Mail does not meet regulatory performance targets, Royal Mail added.

Royal Mail’s move is in line with today’s determination by the industry regulator Postcomm that will see the start of a mandatory scheme for Royal Mail customers from January 1 next year.

Royal Mail Chief Executive Adam Crozier said: “The new arrangements we’ve started meet almost all of the requirements in Postcomm’s determination on compensation so our customers will get early benefit.

“Royal Mail is offering customers the fairest postal compensation scheme in the world – one of the very few to pay compensation for delay. It’s better than compensation schemes offered by our competitors and other service industries.

“We’d rather get the service right first time than pay compensation. But with more than 82 million letters a day sometimes things go wrong and if they do we want to compensate customers quickly and fairly.”

The new compensation arrangements could cost Royal Mail an estimated £48 million a year, a significant increase over the current £15 million a year.

Mr Crozier said: “It is right that customers get fairly compensated if we let them down. But with Royal Mail’s high volumes this will translate into a lot of money.

“Service failure now means heavy fines and compensation costs. Our priority is to improve services – that’s the only way we can drive down these costs and reward our people.”

From January 1 onwards, in exceptional circumstances and with additional evidence, customers can claim £5 for delays as above.

For claims of lost mail current compensation arrangements are continuing with customers receiving up to £28 – 100 times the cost of basic First Class postage on evidence of market value.

(gmcg)