Michael Manthorpe, the Commonwealth Ombudsman for the Australian government, has released a report investigating complaints from Australia Post customers regarding carding, Safe Drop and compensation.
The report reviews the actions taken by Australia Post since the release of three earlier Ombudsman reports concerning these matters and seeks to determine why complaints persist despite Australia Post’s reported service and product improvements.
Complaints to the Ombudsman concerning Australia Post have decreased 30% in the last two years. However, delivery issues continue to be the primary reason behind complaints.
“Recently published data from Australia Post indicates that 1.1 million complaints were received in the 2016-17 financial year,” said Manthorpe.
“While the scale of Australia Post’s operations needs to be borne in mind to put complaint numbers into perspective, the fact that more than one million people have complained, is cause for concern. Australia Post has initiated some action independently to further improve the customer experience.”
The report makes six recommendations aimed at reducing the number of complaints including publishing guidelines for addresses that are not suitable for parcel deliveries, reviewing and improving the complaints handling process and simplifying the compensation process. According to the Ombudsman, Australia Post has accepted five of the recommendations and has partially accepted another.
Responding to the report, a statement on the Australia Post website said, “Although Australia Post successfully serves and delivers to millions of customers every day, we know we do not always get it right and we recognize the number of complaints received last year was not good enough […]”
“We are absolutely committed to the ongoing improvement in our customer service and will work closely with the Ombudsman on adopting its recommendations.”
Some of the customer service improvements being implemented by Australia Post include a simpler compensation process; shorter call-waiting times; updates to the website to make it easier to lodge a complaint; more information on how customers can insure, protect and select the right product for their goods; a clearer complaint review process for customers; and better visibility and accessibility on mobile and tablet devices.
April 3, 2018