Royal Mail : Impeding delivery

Poor page management undermines the usefulness of a strike-update information service.

The Site

Royal Mail, the UK’s national postal service, undermines the usefulness of a strike-update information service by poor page management.

Royal Mail has a special page on its website for updating news of the series of strikes planned this month by the main postal workers’ union. Accessed from an ‘Industrial action update’ link on the home page, the information covers the issues under headings such as ‘What does it mean for our customers?” and How can large Business Customers work with us to reduce the disruption to your mail?’. Scrolling is required to see all the content and to reach a link offered at the bottom of the page to register for e-mail updates. This leads to a customised form specific to the industrial action.

The Takeaway

Royal Mail is doing the right things with its website in a time of trouble: a dedicated regularly updated news and information page, a link on the home page and a special e-mail alert service. Except the implementation makes it less helpful than it might be, which works against the interests of customers and company alike.

The big stumbling block that holds up ready access to information is the organisation of the industrial action update page. In particular, the length of content pushes some headings and the useful e-mail alert service out of view. The latter could be addressed by replicating the link at the top of the page. Better still would be to reduce the initial depth of content by listing the headings FAQ-style and making them expandable on click.

First published on 02 October, 2007