Monday, August 20, 2007

there's something about ..... post office

Not everyone knows but do you know Singapore Post is a Listed Firm in SGX?

And when you put up a company that sell stamps into a public listed firm, you better ensure that they sell more than just stamps. If you haven't been to one post office recently, you should.

They now sell real estate, personal loans, all kinds of bill payments like phone bills, power bills, road tax, all government related bills. And of course sell stamps as well.

But in line with their new business of selling everything, they should also change their name.

Post office they are not. It's more like a convenience store.

I went over to AMK post office the other day, looking to send a registered mail. There are 2 queue. One Main Q for all services with about 7 counters serving the main Q. And 1 shorter queue for Mail services with 1 counter serving this need.

Naturally, I go to the Empty Queue which happens to be the Main Queue, only to be directed to the short queue.

Yes. It's short. I'm like the 5th person on the queue for 1 counter. Where the remaining 7 counters are not serving any customers.

But if you haven't realise... people buy stamps and send letters rather easily. They can just buy the stamps from the many dispenser found everywhere. Stationary shops, even in post office etc. So, you probably do not need to even queue to send letters.

You only queue because you need to send registered letters because you need to fill in forms, they weigh your letters, you pay them etc.

Now imagine I'm the 5th person on the queue. Everyone before me, needs to do those stuffs. Filling out the form is like couple of minutes already.

5th person but it takes me about 10 to 15 minutes to complete my transaction. And this is supposed to be a "post office" transaction.

Not any bill-payment of another vendor and if you need to wait for 10 mins, so be it. Afterall, you can always take a bus or MRT to Singapore Power at Somerset to pay your electricity bills. So waiting 10 mins is a bonus.

What I'm complaining is, the other counters should just help out. Each counter handle each of us, and I don't have to wait 10 to 15 minutes.

I think it's time I consider outside vendors like Fedexp or UPS for courier service. A bit more expensive but save me a trip.

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