Everything in the World changes in time, and sometimes changes do not improve quality of service levels and in many cases service levels get worse. Just 10 years ago when billions of letters a year were sent around the globe, I could be sure that 99% of the mail i sent out would arrive in very quick time, but in recent years the volumes of letters have decreased to a rate that most mailing companies in many countries have cut back on delivering to the door to a few days a week, no longer is a 6 day a week delivery the norm!
Not only have deliveries been cut back but also airline freight has been reduced because mailing companies are frightened of the consequences of not doing the right thing for the climate.
So where does that leave our QSL mailings? A couple of areas are of particular concern. ITALY I am experiencing mail being returned as “unknown address” or “Incomplete Address” “Non reclaimed” In nearly every case the address to the Italian recipient was correct and only the Italian Post Office workers would be able to tell us why this is happening.
USA – A similar pattern can be observed by the USPS, NIXIE the USPS sorting machine seems to be very bad at routing internal USA mail, as the letters are rejected endorsed “Attempted – Not known Unable to Forward” Yet the addresses are 100% correct. So, sorting machines once made the job of sorting quicker but in reality, are becoming unreliable for routing our mail.
These days nearly all mail is machine sorted and probably only ever is touched be humans when the postman delivers the letters. Do you remember years ago when it was actually quite common that mail got stolen? These days that just doesn’t happen, mail integrity & security is taken very seriously and often monitored by cameras at the mail centres.
The World Customs Organization new rules on shipping parcels now means that parcels can be as much time in customs as on the journey itself which causes is further uncertain delays to delivery times and extends those shipments further.
One thing I would say is if a letter does not arrive with you, please do not assume i have not sent it, a simple polite inquiry is all that is needed, I do not expect one liners like: “where’s my QSL? I aint gotten it”, emails like that are sure to find my delete button quite rapidly!
As you may have seen in your own country steep price rises are commonplace now, mainly due to the fact that mailing volumes dropped, and it costs more per letter now for mailing companies to deliver to the door. Here, mail volumes outgoing vary due to the sunspot cycle of course, at the peak we are shipping out QSL letters by the hundreds. We have sought the very best mailing solutions contracts to keep our costs down and to provide you with a world-class service.
It is our priority to get these QSL letters to you as fast as possible, we love QSL’ing, we want you to enjoy receiving the QSL cards from DX stations in the remotest places on Earth and promise to continue to serve your QSL needs into the future.