Royal Mail deliver 1st Class Mail on time for first time in two years

Royal Mail are back on track with deliveries having exceeded their regulatory target for 1st Class Mail for the first time in two years.

The latest Royal Mail Quality of Service report reveals that in the first quarter of their 2019-2020 financial year, Royal Mail delivered 93.2% of 1st Class Mail on time against a target of 93.0%. They also surpassed their target for Second Class mail (98.5% for delivery within three working days), with a performance of 98.9%.

“We are delighted to have exceeded both our First Class and Second Class Quality of Service regulatory targets for the first quarter of the financial year. Royal Mail has one of the highest Quality of Service specifications of any major European country and our postmen and women work extremely hard to deliver high standards of service to all our customers across the UK.”
– Paul O’Keefe, Director of Quality and Customer, Royal Mail

Whilst 1st Class mail and 2nd Class mail are mainly letter, there are now a significant number of ecommerce businesses using these services for small light weight items and there isn’t any competition based on price at this end of the market. With that in mind, it’s fantastic to see Royal Mail recover and exceed their regulatory target, having missed it for 7 straight quarters in a row.

It’s worth remembering that most parcel services aren’t included in the regulatory targets and so Royal Mail don’t publish performance figures for them – Tracked 24/48 services are outside the scope and, we suspect, are probably getting a higher standard of service. You’ll be able to tell from your own on-time delivery reports if you’re using tracked parcel services.