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Post Office needs to win hearts and minds

Posted in General, Marketing December 20th, 2006 by Branwell Johnson

It’s not often a high profile brand suffers two self-inflicted blows to its reputation in one year but the Post Office is proving adept at alienating itself from the public.

The latest YouGov BrandIndex research that measures categories such as “Buzz” and “Recommend” shows that the Post Office is on a steep downward slide for the second time in six months following the news of widespread post office closures.

The organisation’s ratings first took a steep dive in August when the Royal Mail introduced “Pricing in Proportion” – a size-based system for charging for posting. The new system caused confusion among customers and the Post Office was slated for a lack of consistency in implementation at different outlets. Its Buzz factor, the measure of whether people have heard positive or negative statements about the brand, which has struggled to top 3.6 all year, fell to -7.2 a fortnight before the new pricing was introduced. It continued to plummet to -14.2 for 31 August.

Thereafter the Post Office managed to claw back on ratings to +2 by early December  until the latest debacle. The Government’s plans to axe 2,500 post offices has provoked an outcry among vocal lobby groups such as pensioners and seen the Buzz rating slide back to -8.6.

Accompanying the Buzz, customer’s perceptions of quality, reflected in the Quality rating, have also see-sawed over past months. In January it was at a high of 14.6 and could still bounce to 14.2 in June but come August and the new pricing strategy it was down to 2.4. The news of the closures actually may have reminded people of the quality of service they do receive and by 15 December the rating was recovering from zero on 11 November to 10.2.

The Recommend mark for the Post Office has remained relatively steady, beginning the year at 15.8, rising as high as 19.4 and now at 15.4.

The organisation clearly has a PR challenge and the BrandIndex ratings call into question the effectiveness of the £10 million marketing campaign developed by the Royal Mail and also promoted in post offices to introduce Pricing in Proportion.

The Post Office recently appointed Gary Hockey-Morley, a former Abbey marketer, as its marketing director. He now has a tough job to restore positive perceptions of the brand. There is an emotional connection to the Post Office, particularly amongst the older demographic, and alterations to its services clearly touch a chord.