Sydenham Post Office

I use this Post Office 2-3 per week all of the staff always friendly and helpful especially during lockdown. Gets really busy so don’t wait until the last minute to access services.

Staff need training on customer service and expertise. Advice given on passport application via ‘Check and send’ differs, left wondering if all’s well. Hopefully, I will find out if passport application a success in a month’s time.

Several times now the staff have just closed either the self service till or the front doors to the shop with massive queues outside with no communication. This happened yet again yesterday when I was just about to use the self service till after the previous person when the staff just said "it's closed now" (at 4:30pm with still a long queue and after I had queued outside for 20 mins). Two minutes later another staff member then took a customer over to it to process her Christmas cards, so when the other self service till became free I just went over to use it because there is little reason to have tried closing them. I understand the staff need to package up the huge amounts of parcels but they could just set the self service tills to not need authorisation when paying on them. They also need to learn how to communicate and tell the people queuing close to closing time that they won't be serving them after they close at 5:30pm and to come back tomorrow. More people will understand this reasoning than just locking the front doors in their face, which happened everyday during the first lockdown when they closed earlier at 3 or 4pm. Sort out your customer service training of your extended family who run this post office!

Yes I know there is a pandemic going on, but if you have decided to remain open following the social distancing measures then your staff need to communicate better with the long line of customers waiting patiently outside the branch. Several times (until I decided to stop using this branch!) I have been waiting in the queue outside for up to an hour before the old woman staff member locks the door bang on 4pm (their current closing time) and leaves a queue of 20+ people outside not knowing what is going on!! One time I managed to get myself in the door right before 4pm and had to try to reason with this woman that she needs to cut off the queue by speaking to us outside or implement another reasonable option, to which she said she didn't have time! So she'd rather just lock the door on customers who have been waiting an hour before closing than perhaps come outside around 4 to get the last person in the queue to inform any new people they had closed and weren't going to serve them, or if that is too much, do that at 3:30 so they can serve everyone who has been waiting! When I told her she wouldn't just shout "CLOSED!" at 4pm to the queue INSIDE the branch during normal time and just tell everyone to leave, she said she would. Bullsh*t! I have had the misfortune of having to use this branch most days for several years, even before the take-over, and that simply does not happen! The complaints system were equally as unprofessional as anything and simply said they had tried to phone the branch once but couldn't get through so they couldn't let them know! Eh?!?!?!? On their twitter some unpaid intern said that several branches don't have a business email they could use to communicate with them, so God only knows how they do business!!! I will now be looking into alternative postal options for my custom. But I guess it is no skin off their nose.

Helpful over the phone and in person. Helped resolve an issue with my parcel