CHAPTER 7Looking at the agencies

Postal Industry menu: Commonwealth jurisdiction | Australia Post complaints

The Postal Industry Ombudsman (PIO) started operating on 6 October 2006. The PIO is a new role for the Commonwealth Ombudsman, and is the office’s first function that routinely investigates complaints about private sector organisations.

The PIO scheme is a voluntary scheme which postal operators or courier companies can choose to join. Australia Post is automatically a member. At the start date, five businesses had joined the scheme, and two more joined shortly after. At 30 June 2007, the members of the PIO scheme were:

• Australia Post
• Cheque-Mates Pty Ltd
• D & D Mailing Services
• Dependable Couriers & Taxi Trucks Sydney Pty Ltd
• Federal Express (Australia) Pty Ltd
• The Mailing House
• Mailroom Express Pty Ltd
• Universal Express Australia Pty Ltd.

The scheme was officially launched in July 2006 in Sydney by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Hon. Helen Coonan. Speakers at the launch were Senator Coonan, the Managing Director of Australia Post, Mr Graeme John AO, and the Commonwealth and Postal Industry Ombudsman, Prof. John McMillan.

In 2006–07 our office worked on raising the profile of our new function in the broader community. We focused particularly on providing information about the PIO to those who, in turn, give advice to members of the community. We began a program of writing to all federal, state and territory parliamentarians during 2006–07, and talked to organisations that help consumers—for example, the state and territory bureaus of consumer affairs.

From 6 October 2006 to 30 June 2007, the PIO received 1,018 approaches and complaints. The number of approaches and complaints to our office, and investigations undertaken by the PIO, are shown in Table 7.4.

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Commonwealth jurisdiction

The PIO can only investigate complaints about postal services, and where the action complained of occurred on or after 6 October 2006. Other complaints about Australia Post can be investigated by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. This includes complaints about non-postal issues—for example, Australia Post’s banking or billpay services.

In 2006–07 the Commonwealth Ombudsman received 802 approaches about Australia Post, in addition to the approaches received by the PIO referred to above. The 802 approaches comprised approaches about Australia Post made before 6 October 2006, and approaches about non-postal issues made after that date.

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Australia Post COMPLAINTS

Australia Post deals with a high volume of transactions—on average, it handles some 21 million items every working day and delivers mail to approximately 10.3 million delivery points.

We received significantly more approaches and complaints about Australia Post in 2006–07 compared to previous years, with a total of 1,819 approaches and complaints compared to 1,327 in 2005–06. One reason may be the start of the PIO, with increased publicity about our office’s role in handling Australia Post complaints. Another reason may be changes in the use of the postal system. Although overall mail volumes remain steady, the proportion of parcel transactions has increased in recent years. This seems to be driven by an increase in consumers purchasing by email or over the internet, from suppliers both in Australia and overseas. It is possible that postal customers are more likely to notice, and complain about, a service failure by Australia Post in relation to parcels than in relation to letters such as bank statements.

As well as complaints about items lost or damaged in the mail, other complaint themes included the express post service (for example complaints about service failure and the limited nature of the ‘guarantee’), registered post (including complaints about signatures for items being accepted from people who were not entitled to them), and the method of mail delivery (ranging from complaints about mail being left in the rain, to a complaint alleging the fumes from the postie’s bike polluted the caller’s house).

The number of approaches and complaints to our office about Australia Post (received by both the PIO and the Commonwealth Ombudsman) is shown in Figure 7.8.

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Recurring problems

As consumers become more likely to complain, it is increasingly important that Australia Post gives a high quality initial response to customer problems. Postal customers are encouraged to contact an Australia Post Customer Contact Centre (CCC) if they have an enquiry or a complaint. The CCCs handled on average 75,000 calls per week nationally during 2006–07.

During the year we noticed that some ongoing complaints are not always handled well by the CCCs. Although staff of the CCCs are generally able to handle and resolve one-off issues, recurring or ongoing problems are not always identified and managed in an appropriate manner.

We found that postal customers experience a high degree of frustration if problems continue after a complaint to a CCC. A particularly troubling area is when a customer is having problems with delivery and is concerned about mail not being delivered. The customer may not know what mail they should have received and cannot tell if there was a delivery failure. It can be difficult for Australia Post to regain the trust of an addressee after ongoing delivery problems.

‘We found that postal customers experience a high degree of frustration if problems continue ...’

Over the year our office was able to assist Australia Post to identify and focus on recurring problems experienced by individuals, and to put in place longer-term solutions to solve the core cause, as shown in the case studies On the boundary and Unwanted redirection.

Dilution of responsibility

Australia Post is a large organisation, with approximately 35,000 staff. Many of the complaints to our office involve actions by different parts of Australia Post. In order to find out why a problem occurred, and whether changes can be made to prevent it happening again, it is often necessary for several different operational areas of Australia Post to be involved.

Although a customer’s initial contact is with a CCC, the resolution of the problem and notifying the customer of the outcome will often become the responsibility of the local delivery centre. If another area of Australia Post is also involved—for example, the sending post office—it can become difficult for a customer to keep track of the progress of their complaint.

We assisted complainants negotiate their way through Australia Post to someone who was able to help them and resolve their problem. As much of Australia Post’s work is done locally, our office has found that face-to-face contact with local representatives is invaluable in improving postal services, as the case study Indirect delivery demonstrates.