Swiss Post is Switzerland’s national postal company and one of the country’s leading logistics and financial services providers. With subsidiaries such as Swiss Post Ltd, PostFinance Ltd and PostBus Ltd, it operates as a conglomerate in the communications, logistics, retail finance and passenger transport markets. Its services include the delivery of parcels, letters and newspapers, direct marketing, information solutions, document management, parcel, courier and express services as well as comprehensive financial services and passenger transport. Swiss Post operates in 25 countries and employs more than 59,000 people worldwide.
Swiss Post’s logistics unit delivers packages, couriers and express deliveries to Switzerland and abroad. The company transported more than 194 million parcels in 2022.
With regard to mail delivery, Swiss Post has a legal mandate to provide a universal postal service in Switzerland. To achieve this, Swiss Post delivers mail to the remotest parts of the country at uniform prices. In 2022, approximately 1.75 billion addressed letters were delivered.
Measuring mail delivery times to ensure quality and identify opportunities for improvement
The measurement of delivery times for A and B mail items is regulated by the Postal Act of December 17, 2010 (PG, SR 783.0, Article 15). The quality targets for meeting delivery times are derived directly from the strategic goals set for Swiss Post by the Federal Council. These targets are defined in the Postal Ordinance (VPG, SR 783.01, Article 32).
Spectos has been measuring letter delivery times on behalf of Swiss Post since 2021. In addition to verifying compliance with legal requirements, the transit time measurement provides Swiss Post with important independent information. This information is essential for internal quality assurance and helps identify areas for improvement.
End-to-end measurement of delivery quality with test panel and RFID transponders
The measurement of letter delivery times is carried out jointly by the LINK Institute and Spectos GmbH on behalf of Swiss Post. The development and implementation of the standard-compliant measurement system took about 6 months from the time the contract was awarded.
For this project, Spectos has developed a dedicated website in three languages – German, French and Italian – for the study participants: mailagenten.ch. Spectos was able to draw on its many years of experience with the Belgian postal service bpost, where delivery times are also measured multilingually in Flemish, French, German and English.
The test mailings are produced in the Spectos Lettershop. Here, the planning and production of the test letters takes place, all of which are equipped with RFID transponders. The panel participants, known as mailagents, are private senders or recipients of the test mailings. They are recruited and trained by LINK. Test items are reported exclusively electronically via the Inspector-App or the website. The panel is characterized by high quality and excellent reporting behavior, as communication is entirely online and web-based, and information is recorded immediately upon dispatch or receipt.
Outstanding delivery quality confirmed: Swiss Post at the top
The Spectos Transit Time Measurement results confirm Swiss Post’s outstanding delivery performance as the world’s best postal service. Spectos produces reports on a monthly basis and for the entire year. The annual report is submitted directly to PostCom, the regulatory authority. In the 2022 annual report, PostCom confirmed that Swiss Post had once again exceeded its targets.
In 2022, Swiss Post achieved a delivery time of 97.20% for A mail letters, slightly above the target of 97%. For B mail letters, it achieved an impressive 99.30%, well above the target. For this type of letter, Swiss Post has thus maintained punctuality at a very high level.
To ensure that the measurements comply with the applicable European standards, PostCom has the system periodically audited by an independent organization.
In addition, customized cockpits and dashboards of the Spectos Real-Time Performance Management™ platform provide Swiss Post with continuously updated results for the current calendar year, as well as reports on the status of the panel, the RFID equipment and the achievement of target distribution. This enables management to monitor and continuously optimize quality in a targeted way.
