Qualified QPPS before EOM November, had not yet received new card & tags.
Call to service centre saw the agent pull up the weekly dispatch reports that they are getting from the mailing house with confirmations of exact dates member packs are being dispatched.
My kit was dispatched on the 17th, so should arrive before end of this week.
To find out what the delay was and if my pack had been dispatched, she noted their mailing house is currently dispatching 20,000+ kits a week and that they're having errors each week due to status mismatches, incorrect addresses and other errors. I couldn't get the staff member to divulge the error percentages. I'll take a punt on an industry average of anywhere between 0.5-2%, depending on how much data clensing has been performed before starting each batch and how good target audience is at maintaining their own information.
Warning, numbers & commercial mailing house analysis from this point. Stop now if this bores you - and if it does, the summary is stop moaning about the delays as it's a hard job to do.
Looking at the size of the member database, according to the FY2009/10 shareholder presentation, there's 7.1m members in the system, 6.9m of these active, and 1m members acquired during that financial year. Further, they are targeting to hit 8m members before EOFY2010/11.
Knowing what I know from dealing with mailing houses, for large mailing runs on the scale of the QFF database the fact they're managing to pump 80k member kits a month of new and replacement - I'd say their mailing house is getting these out the door as fast as they possibly can.
Adding to the complexity of the mailout is the contents and construction of what is being mailed out. From what we've seen on other threads, we're looking at a mailout spec that includes;
- heavy cardboard shell construction,
- multiple insertions including non-paper items,
- custom folds,
- different paper sizes,
- exterior envelope labling, and
- after insertion - a paper ribbon surrounding the entire packet before envelope insertion.
Thankfully, the technology and workflows for ensuring encoded/printed cards are matched to customer mailings are highly matured, and there's no need to match the tags to customers making the job a little less complex
Mailing house is also advising a lead time of 1wk from dispatch from their facility to final delivery to target customer.
In summary - stop moaning that you've not received your pack. The fact is their contractor is going as fast as they possibly can, and they'll be dispatched to you as soon as they can get it out the door.
