Delivery chaos at PostNL due to holiday money: ‘Sometimes you have to wait a week’ | Economy

“You’re really making a mess of it.” And: ‘Why are you playing hide and seek? Where’s my package?’ PostNL’s customer service has been inundated with comments from disappointed customers in recent weeks. On review site Trust pilot since May there have been more than 857 complaints from consumers who have to wait longer than usual for their package. Also with Klacht.nl and Complaint Compass there is a flood of complaints. On Twitter and Facebook, the flow of reactions is no longer possible.

The postal company says it is struggling with ‘extreme busyness’, because people have received their holiday pay and are spending it online en masse. “We are now seeing a lot of large packages passing by. Think of barbecues, swimming pools or complete garden sets. Often not that many of them fit in a delivery van,” says the spokesperson. “That makes it challenging for us to clear the backlog.”

PostNL had already taken a series of measures to cope with the rush. For example, extra trucks have been deployed to transport the packages on time. In addition, extra work is also done during the night. So far, this has not helped to stop the delivery chaos. “We have received many more packages than expected,” the webcare responds to a complaint on Twitter on Sunday. “We do our best to process and deliver the packages as quickly as possible.”

Incidentally, PostNL states that the ‘vast majority’ of the packages are delivered on time. “It is a relatively small part, but because we deliver a million packages a day, many people can still experience delays with their package. We find that very annoying.”

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Which also doesn’t help: PostNL is largely dependent on its customers, in this case the webshops. “We plan our capacity based on forecasts that we receive from our customers. If there is a deviation of a few percent, this is immediately quite significant and has consequences for the delivery. This leads to grumbling among consumers and we understand that very well.” PostNL does not dare to say whether the peak has now been reached. “That is very difficult to predict, at least we are doing everything we can to clear the backlog.”

Conversely, there is a lot of criticism of PostNL and its communication from the webshops. According to entrepreneurs, complainants are wrongly forwarded to a web shop if they have complaints. “That gives me a lot of work. I actually have to keep separate records for this, while this should be the responsibility of PostNL,” said webshop owner Femke Dekker. rather against this site.

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In addition to parcels, letters, magazines and TV guides are also delivered too late en masse. Mail items are piling up at the sorting center in Den Bosch, this site reported at the end of last month. Things go particularly wrong with non-urgent mail: letters, magazines and letterbox packages for which companies pay less delivery money. This mail therefore does not have to be delivered within 24 hours, as is the case with normal mail items. There is a shortage of staff in the sorting centre. “They can’t handle it. The mail is drowning,” said an insider who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job.

Complaints about delivery are of all times. This period is – as is the case with public holidays – a ‘peak moment’. Due to the warm weather, people are spending more money on large, expensive items. Due to such huge demand, not everyone can be satisfied. This was revealed earlier in research by the Consumers’ Association. About a third of consumers indicate that they have experienced problems with the delivery of parcels in the past six months. According to the union, most complaints about parcel delivery have to do with uncertainty about where a parcel is, undelivered parcels and poor customer service. Consumers find the postal companies difficult to reach and give them an average score of 4.9.

PostNL is currently going through a reorganization. To reduce costs, the parcel delivery company has to cut two hundred to three hundred full-time jobs this year. The company is also taking other measures to save costs. The company employs about 37,000 people. The cutbacks mainly affect the Parcels department, where management positions are disappearing. PostNL is setting aside 20 million euros for the reorganization. This should save 25 million euros in 2024 and 30 million euros annually from 2025.