SINGAPORE — Under fire from the public and fined by the regulator for a series of lapses, SingPost on Thursday (Feb 7) announced a raft of “immediate measures” to improve service quality and win back the trust of its customers.

These include the hiring of an additional 100 postmen and redeploying 35 mail-drop drivers as full-time postmen and enhancing postmen’s remuneration with incentives for successful deliveries for trackable items to the doorstep.

SingPost said the measures are focused on “alleviating the workload of the postman”.

The other measures are:

• Reducing missed deliveries by extending mail delivery slots to weekday evenings and Saturdays, with overtime pay for postmen who volunteer for the after-hours slots.

• Increasing the number of dedicated counters and staff at post offices for parcel collection to improve customer experience.

• Focus on core mail delivery by reducing non-core mail businesses such as advertisement mail

SingPost’s announcement comes after the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) said on Thursday that it will be imposing a S$100,000 fine on the postal service provider for failing to meet the delivery standards of local basic letters and registered mail on nine occasions in 2017.

In its press statement, SingPost said that it accepts the financial penalty and will be working to improve service quality as part of a broad review of its postal operations.

The postal service provider has been making negative headlines in recent weeks, including the latest incident last month which affected many residents living in the Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 and 5 areas.

“We deeply apologise to our customers for our service failures,” said SingPost group chief executive officer Paul Coutts in its statement. “We have heard their complaints and feedback, we feel their frustrations and seek to win back their trust.”

The immediate measures will address the most pressing issues and “provide improvement in service quality” over the next three to six months, added Mr Coutts.

A fundamental review of SingPost’s mail operations is underway to raise reliability and service standards and to meet the demands of the evolving postal landscape over the years, said the company.

It added that changes in the postal landscape have been driven by the rise of e-commerce, thereby increasing the volume of its traditional mail infrastructure due to “cheaper postage”.

“This has raised the postman’s workload with a significant rise in package deliveries being made to doorsteps, over and above the delivery of mail to letter boxes,” said SingPost.

For instance, each postman on average carried out between 50 and 60 doorstep deliveries per day during the seasonal e-commerce surge over the last few months.

“In view of this, SingPost is reassessing the job of its postmen to ensure that they are resourced and equipped to handle the e-commerce boom, without compromise to their safety and well-being,” it said.

SingPost will be working with government agencies and the Union of Telecoms Employees of Singapore (UTES) to upgrade the skills of its postal workers and significantly expand its workforce to meet the requirements of rising e-commerce volumes.

The added incentives for postmen launched on Feb 1 are part of a “broader salary structure review to ensure remuneration is better aligned with the requirements of the job and the industry as a whole”, it added.

“These are the first steps currently taken to address our customers’ immediate pain points and to rebuild the trust we have lost. Please bear with us as we look into longer-term measures that address other issues that customers have raised,” said Mr Coutts.