Majority of customers use post offices to pay bills

The majority of Maltese households reported receiving and sending the same volumes of posted letters despite a significant number declaring they reduced the number of letters sent.

Households have now switched to electronic mail and eCommerce.

38% of these households said they would switch to non-postal alternatives, should the price of addressed letters be increased by 5% to 10%.

The results were published in a survey by the Malta Communications Authority (MCA) carried out between March and April 2014, in order to evaluate household perceptions and satisfaction levels regarding postal services in Malta.

The household survey was carried out via telephone interviews to randomly chosen respondents within a representative sample. A total of 500 households participated in this survey.

Results from this survey show that demand for parcel post services has grown. In contrast to 47% in 2011, more than half of the interviewed households confirmed they had received a parcel during the last 12 months.

Interestingly, 20% of the households revealed that their parcel was delivered by an operator other than MaltaPost, with 41% of these identifying DHL as the delivering operator.

In terms of expenditure patterns, 51% of households perceived that they spent less than €20 a year on postal services. Nonetheless, 34% did not know how much they spent, presumably due to the minimal use of postal services.

Only 37% of households claimed to be satisfied with the general price levels of MaltaPost. This contrasts with 66% registered in the 2011 survey.

70% of households claimed to have been to the post office during the last 12 months mainly to make use of other services available at the postal outlets. 50% of households responded to have made use of the post office network for the payment of bills.

Satisfaction levels with the waiting time at the post office decreased from 70% in 2011 to 57% in 2014.

64% of households said they expected postal articles to be delivered on a next day basis. To this effect, 45% of households said they would not opt for a cheaper service in exchange for delayed delivery. 28% of households would consider choosing such a service, while 4% responded that they would accept this deferred service if the postal article being sent is not urgent.

The survey also revealed low usage of MaltaPost’s website with only 20% of households claiming to have accessed it. Households have in general used MaltaPost’s website to track parcels, to search for prices of postal services and other related information, and to search for post-codes. 71% of households write the post-code when sending a postal article.

While 89% of household respondents expressed satisfaction with the overall quality of postal services provided by MaltaPost, the number of formal complaints with MaltaPost has increased from 7% to 11%. Only 28% of those who complained were satisfied with the way their case was handled.