Member Article

Postal strikes until Christmas? Don't let your business get caught out

Royal Mail workers are set to strike on 4th November, causing widespread disruption. This is roughly as surprising as England getting knocked out in the quarter finals of the World Cup on penalties to a plucky South American underdog. That is, not surprising in the slightest.

You’d think that as a nation of entrepreneurs, we’d be accustomed enough to Royal Mail strikes to be experts at inuring ourselves against them. In normal circumstances perhaps, but this time promises to be different: this time the disruption to parcel delivery caused by the strike could continue all the way up until Christmas. Businesses - and especially SMEs - need to ask themselves whether they are fully prepared for this eventuality so as to avoid disappointing or frustrating customers or suppliers.

I don’t believe it’s overly dramatic to say that, if you’re a regular business user of Royal Mail, rolling strikes during the busiest two months of the year is a situation somewhere short of being ideal. Sympathetic you may be to the Royal Mail workers’ concerns, but your customers’ sympathy for you may start to wear thin once promises start to be unfulfilled. If you’re an online retailer, the above is increasingly concerning in the run up to Christmas as no business wants the tears of disappointed children on their hands and even less the hassle of dealing with the Boxing Day anger of guilty parents. Quite honestly, Christmas is stressful enough for business owners without adding in a postal strike.

So, what can be done?

Well, the strike may be upon us already but it’s not too late to get ahead of the game. The first thing to remember is that the further ahead you plan, the better off you will be in the long run. By making a list of all the usual items your business sends via Royal Mail, you will be better able to manage and prioritise the important things. Don’t forget, whilst a normal strike may be a pain for a week or two, this one could prove to be far more disruptive. The key is, don’t wait until it’s too late!

As troubling as the strike may be, in some ways, it also represents quite an exciting opportunity for businesses. Royal Mail has reigned practically unchallenged since the time of Henry VIII and is often the ‘automatic’ choice of businesses across the nation. The reality is, there are now a multitude of different mail and parcel services – many of which are extremely competitive in terms of reliability, convenience, and price.

Rather than dealing with the far-reaching and long-lasting effects of strike action, why not look into some of the alternatives out there. With Royal Mail privatisation marking the end of an era, many post and parcel companies will be looking to stake their claim in the market by offering increasingly compelling offers – especially to the lucrative SME sector.

Who knows, what starts out as a short-term fix ’em up could end up being a long-term, cost-saving solution.

Parcel2Go.com is the courier comparison site – a surprisingly cheap alternative to the Post Office

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Parcel2Go.com .