The last post?
It was announced this week that 4 million fewer people are using post offices every week than two years ago. Rather than trying to address the reasons why, bosses have decided to close 2,500 rural post offices by the end of next year.
It will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever used a post office that they are not popular places to go. While the rest of the high street shopping experience has changed beyond recognition over the last 25 years, most Post Offices are stuck in a time warp – an Open All Hours era of long queues, hand written notices and bizarre product ranges.
Online services (e.g. tax disc renewals, buying postage online) and the increase in electronic banking transactions (e.g. pensions paid directly to bank accounts) are all blamed for the decline in customer numbers. In fact all these services make life simpler and more convenient for customers, and the homemade “Every time you pay online, a sub-postmistress dies” style posters which you frequently see in branches simply emphasises that the Post Office likes to make things inconvenient for its customers.
Physically and visually, Post Offices are often unwelcoming places. The walls both in front and behind the counter are festooned with a confusing array of posters, flyers, and handwritten notices. To even buy a stamp, you have to shout through glass, as if you are visiting a high security prisoner. It would have been a perfect opportunity to take one of the threats to the business (that electronic transactions are replacing cash) and turning it to a positive (we’re not handling large amounts of cash, therefore we no longer need the bullet proof glass). Most high street banks have done it – so why can’t the Post Office?
Much of what takes manual labour at the moment (weighing, and now measuring parcels, printing a label, sticking it on) could be done via self service kiosks, reducing queues and staff costs, and the frustration of queuing behind someone completing a complicated savings account form or passport application, when all you want to do is send a parcel.
The environment could be made much more pleasant with modern interior design and fittings, well designed spaces and a product range focussed on its core business (why do all Post Offices stock yellowed children’s games?). They need to drop the historical baggage of a row of counters, and go right back to a blank drawing board, and redesign a Post Office interior for the 21stCentury. This is the only way to make the Post Office a place you go through choice, not out of necessity.