The Death Of Postman Pat?

Heather Power, account director at Haslimann taylor, writes:

Today marks the start of the first nationwide postal strike for two years, following a summer of regional disruptions and a host of unpopular changes to deliveries affecting businesses and members of the public alike. And who can forget the public outcry when the closure of many a beloved village post office was announced?

While all these changes might be deemed necessary by Royal Mail from a commercial perspective, I doubt that I’m alone in thinking that disruption and moaning about the postal service in general have come to be considered the norm rather than the exception to the rule.

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson’s comments that the Royal Mail could ‘irrevocably damage’ its reputation and drive its customers away might be the first and last time that I agree with him, but I can’t help but think that there’s more than a grain of truth in his words – and that’s not something I thought I’d find myself saying about a politician.

It seems the days of the friendly community postie carrying his bag of letters on his red bicycle have long gone. Like the milkman before him, no more is the postman part of our early morning ritual – and he’s in danger of slipping out of our national affection forever too.

When was the last time that you heard one of those feel-good stories, once so beloved of regional newspapers, about an heroic postie rescuing a small child or saving an ailing housebound pensioner? Instead, our positive images of the postal service, once epitomised by Postman Pat, have become tarnished by constant coverage of industrial action and the affects on customers.

And, to add insult to injury, the latest dispute has turned into a slanging match, with the Royal Mail, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and the government all doing their bit to air Postman Pat’s dirty laundry in public. With the Royal Mail calling the CWU’s actions ‘unjustified and irresponsible’, and Lord Mandelson calling them ‘totally self-defeating’, union leaders retaliated by dubbing him the ‘minister without responsibility’ and accusing him of bearing a grudge over privatisation.

Represented by people wielding increasingly personal insults in place of professionalism, whose status can possibly remain unscathed, least of all Postman Pat’s? An exercise in reputation management it certainly ain’t.

So, while the UK at large has another moan about the inconvenience, but then adjusts (sometimes by taking their business elsewhere) and carries on, the real lasting damage has already been done. The latest postal strikes themselves might not be the final nail in the coffin of Postman Pat, but the continuing high profile arguments and ugly accusations between the Royal Mail, the CWU and government are surely killing him off pretty effectively.