The printed mag has been delayed in being posted out to subscribers. Apparently this is entirely down to Royal Mail putting a hold on our account. When asked why, since our huge bills are always paid on time (£25k+ of posting last year) they said, 'Oh.. er.. we don't know.. you account seems fine… er.. I'll have to ask our credit control dept. and get back to you…'

….. That was 5 hours ago. They won't be posted today 🙁

Rest assured I will be chasing hard tomorrow to sort this glitch out and hopefully subscriber copies will be in the post by the end of the day.

Sorry 🙁

I'm just down the road can you pop my copy through door please

Typical of the Royal 'Fail' Mail will take them over a week once its posted too!

No sweat TBH as I'm kind of busy this side of Crimbo so won't get a moment to myself anyway

Thanks for the update Mark. I bet the envelope with Mr Crosier's bonus cheque gets posted and delivered on time though.

I blame Postierich.

I called them at 9:30am… I'm still waiting for a response. Our account manager has no idea still and is trying to chase up managers and wotnot.

In all honesty I'm getting less optimistic for a friday despatch by the hour.

I'm really sorry about this. We are doing all we can to keep the pressure on RM to give us some explanation as to why they doing this.

Right, we have a plan… It may work it may not..

Our printer has a RM presstream account… just like we do.. It's this account that allows us to get a large discount from bulk mailing. It's like mailsort but specifically for magazines. Technically each account has to have each publication they run through it pre-approved by RM but our printer is going to use their account to mail out our subs copies at 1pm today. This may work or it may hit some red tape. That's entirely down to RM. But we see that as a better option than just sitting here waiting for the phone to ring with hundreds of sacks of magazines gathering dust in a warehouse in the midlands.

So, if RM don't report back with some kind of explanation as to what the hell is going on in the next 40 minutes then that's what we are going to do.

Suddenly premier membership seems like a really good idea 😉

Seriously, they're called Royal Fail for a reason (as are Parcel Farce).

….sits at desk leisurely scrolling through premier pdf issue 8)

Silence from RM…..
To get hold of anyone who can answer our simple question is apparently impossible..

So we are going with our printer's Presstream account now. Fingers are crossed.. I will update as issues arise..

You guys really don't have much luck around this time of year do you!

Maybe I'll tuck into the PDF version too then while I'm waiting.. 🙂

You will probably find all the pen pushers have been roped in to do the dirty work and helping out on deliveries as we are all rebeling and not doing the overtime that they are begging us to do. 😕

Tis now a classic case of to many chiefs and not enough indians.

Postie, no offence but looking at what you lads are up in arms about my guys (in utility sector) would love to get! From my point all thats happening is your going to lose out on a load of business…..

I'm already scheduling a meeting with TNT asap. That will be a £25k/year contract potentially about to leave RM. It's absolutely disgraceful the way RM are running their 'business' right now and if all this is down to action over terms and conditions then the way it is being handled is totally incomprehensible. Even if the management give in to the demands there won't be any business left. We can't be alone as a large volume customer in the way we are being dealt with and if I decide it's in our interest to switch to a competitor then it's going to take a lot more than just a return to normal service before I switch back to RM. I just can't afford to trust them again after this.

Mark we deliver TNT,s mail it will not get out any quicker trust me.They will pick it up and deliver to the main(Royal Mail) mail centres for us to do the "last Mile".

Gets ready to cancel subs if you decide to bang another nail in our coffin 😉

Panorama tomorrow night about Royal Mail and the way they are shafting the buisness.

Rich

The point being THEY will pick it up!

Gets ready to cancel subs if you decide to bang another nail in our coffin

The Royal Mail are doing that quite effecively all by themselves.

as a large volume customer

lol. Sadly not even on the radar with that spend/volume.

Mark – did the new issue go out on your printers contract as you were thinking of or is it still awaiting collection on your contract? If so did they get sent/collected on Saturday?

Cheers and I hope that you're not taking it too hard.

Keep up the good work mate.

Andy S

We had to use our printers account and they were despatched on Friday. Presstream takes a few days longer than normal post though. If all goes well they should start arriving tomorrow.

well, 54's just come through the door. Nice to have an issue early for a change, rather than waiting till a a couple of days after everyone else's has arrived. I like this new arrangement.

Thank f……

🙂

got mine today thanks mark

Mine's arrived today too.

Normally mine arrives a day later than everyone else; maybe you should have RM issues every time? 😉

Cheers Mark the mag turned up today. So all of the hassle for you paid off. Get yourself a cuppa mate and kick back for Christmas!

(If only eh?)

Ta very much.

Got them in the shop today.

Delivered mine today to myself, sent 2nd class so WE have done very well to get them out so quick with all the XMAS pressure.

Rich (I 🙂 have not stopped all day)

Mine didn't arrive today. There again we didn't get any post today at all. Which is odd

Mine didn't arrive today, and it normally lands before I even hear about it being due on the forum.

I'm not complaining though, sounds like you've had a rough time.

Got mine this morning, seems the printer has better luck with royal fail than you do 😀

It's not over..

Apparently our account was switched back on on Friday afternoon. Only… no one told us. Due to a bank change in May we completed a new Direct Debit mandate, which they promptly lost.. So we completed another one…. which they lost again… By the end of July they finally arranged our Direct Debit mandate.. However, we had posted out an issue at the start of July.. they sent us a bill with the second direct debit mandate. We completed it sent it back expecting everything to finally be in place.. We received a reminder that the bill was overdue on the 27th July. We paid it by BACS the same day.. By the next issue everything was in place and worked just fine.. mags went out and the money was taken from our account two weeks later.. This continued for a further two issues.. happy days..

Then…

On Thursday…

Someone in Credit control apparently put a note on our account that it was to be stopped as we had been late paying our July invoice.

Yes..

After they had lost two mandates, then collected and posted not one but three further issues without issue.. making the Direct Debit collections without any problems, someone decided that as we had been two weeks late paying our July invoice that our account should be stopped… Now… In December… After we had paid three issue son time as arranged.

Unbelievable!

Someone in credit control switched us back on. We've had no explanation or phone call to explain the rationale behind all that!

Never got mine ❓

No mag here either

I used to work in mail order … £250k per annum on Royal Mail alone .. then at least another £500k pa via other carriers.

Always considered TNT or UKMail for our standard parcels/letters during the heavy strikes a couple of years back.

Wasn't sure how true it was, but according to TNT if there ever is delay in posting (i.e. strikes) although RM deliver the 'final mile' they prioritise TNT et al because they would have to pay hefty compensation/fines … whilst they don't loose out anywhere near so much by delaying their 'own stuff' a little longer .. except for yet more bad press anyway.

Might be worth you guys considering .. some one has said it alread .. but £25k isn't that big an account when you ask around and consider the kind of volume that some mail order outlets produce .. though the mag is nice, easy, standardised (shape/weight) traffic.

Has this issue affected delivery to newsagents as the 'Out on 10th Dec' seems to have gone by the wayside and the 2 local newsagents i have passed each day still dont have any copies and they have carried it since the year dot. Can you put a big 'In the shops now' sticker on the home page when its actually available for the old school that like something to read on nights at work and on the loo.

Otherwise the lack of hard copies does start to lool like an elaborate plan to get £15 out of us this month… 🙂