Swiss Post has solved hand scanner problems affecting more than half a million sign-for parcels and letters between August and October but suffered a further slump in quarterly revenues and profits.
The postal operator disclosed on Tuesday that the hand scanners used by its delivery staff did not always save the signatures of letter and parcel recipients over a two-month period from mid-August to mid-October. Some 74,000 registered letters and 440,000 tracked parcels lacked signatures as a result.
Swiss Post explained that its hand scanners should record the signature as well as location-related geodata (GPS) during delivery against signature. But due to a software problem, the devices discarded signatures from 11 August 2018 to 13 October 2018 without issuing an error message if they were unable to retrieve the geodata.
However, the company emphasised that it had developed a solution for the software proble and resolved the technical issue with a software update to re-programme 18,800 mobile devices on October 13.
“Swiss Post regrets that this issue took place and has now established additional checks to ensure that the software functions properly. The actual route of a consignment can now be traced independently of the signature. This also applies to the names of the recipients who have accepted the consignments in question and means that Swiss Post can check whether consignments have been delivered by tracking,” it explained.
Meanwhile, the group today released its financial results for the July – September third quarter showing lower revenues and profits due to weak results from PostFinance and PostBus. Group turnover declined by 4.5% to CHF 5,670 million, operating profits nearly halved to CHF 384 million from CHF 686 million in the same period last year, and net profit tumbled by over a third to CHF 317 million.
PostMail slightly improved its Q3 operating profit to CHF 253 million thanks to cost savings and despite lower revenues of CHF 1,989 million resulting from a 3% fall in addressed letter volumes.
In the highly competitive logistics market, PostLogistics improved its operating profit by 20% to CHF 101 million. Revenues increased by 3.7% to CHF 1,275 million as parcel volumes rose by 6.7%. The freight and warehousing units were also optimised, which had a positive impact.
But PostFinance operating profits fell to CHF 218 million from CHF 533 million and turnover declined by CHF 277 million to CHF 1,315 million francs, mainly due to non-recurring positive one-off effects last year and the continuing low interest rates. At PostBus, operating profits fell as the unit reimbursed improperly received payments under the widely-reported subsidy scandal.
Swiss Post underlined that it is “tackling the challenges it faces and has introduced a range of effective measures. Good progress has been made in the restructuring of the postal network, and the deficit in the network has been successively reduced. Constant improvements are underway not only in the network, but also in all Swiss Post units. This is essential to enable Swiss Post to continue to finance the universal postal service and its investments from its own resources”.
