BotswanaPost pilots home mail delivery
Pauline Dikuelo | Thursday February 4, 2016 18:00
The project, which falls under the National Addressing Standard and Postcodes, will change mail delivery from post addresses to mail boxes set up outside clients’.
The decision to embark on home delivery of mail is a response to global trends in the postal business.
It is aimed at improving the customer experience and offering convenience.
According to the Post’s communications manager, Tebogo Disele, the delay in piloting the project that was supposed to have started last year, was mainly due to the issues of funding and other logistics.
“Like any other joint venture project, the project was indeed delayed in order to cater for both parties to be ready to roll it. However, I can assure you that we are now at a place where we can pilot the launch, which will take a year,” said Disele.
In addition, Disele noted that there is a company contracted to build the post boxes while the sorting and delivery of mail will be done by the post office.
“Our customers will not have to get out of their way to go to their postboxes to receive mail. It also assures that their mail will be received within reasonable timeframes without sitting in postboxes for lengths of time until the recipient picks it,” he said.
Home mail delivery has been piloted together with postcodes to the addressing system.
Its purpose is to increase efficiency of the mailing process including sorting stage and also complement home delivery by identifying locations much easier and systematically.
Last year, BotswanaPost announced it would take advantage of the Ministry of Lands and Housing’s project of putting up street names and locators to pilot the home mail delivery.
This came after the Post noticed that for the past few years it had been experienced low volumes of mail services due to modern technologies.
Through various initiatives, BotswanaPost is planning to become a P500 million revenue company with a cash cost to income ratio of 60 percent this year.