Correspondence with the Public
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1936.tb02439.x |
| Date | 01 July 1936 |
| Published date | 01 July 1936 |
Correspondence
with
the Public
By
W.
D.
SHARP,
Telecommunications Department, General
Post
Ofice
[Pafier
to
be discussed at the Summer Conference, Oxford,
July,
19361
N
a lecture given several years ago, an investigator of the National
I
Institute
of
Industrial Psychology said that the
Post
Office took
more pains in connection with correspondence with the public than
any business
firm
she knew.
It
is only fair to add
that
the lecture
was given to
a
Post Office audience
:
but
I
for one did not find undue
cause
for
complacency in her statement. It is true
that
the
great
pains we touk might serve as an explanation for our delay in answering
letters, though the uncharitably minded might find other explana-
tions; but when at last
a
reply was sent,
it
often failed to give our
correspondent the impression that we had taken great pains.
A
large business organisation, which possibly took less pains than we,
managed somehow
to
reply promptly, and
to
give their correspondent
the impression that, even
if
his
point had not been fully met, he had
at least been treated reasonably and decently.
This
is
a
rather exaggerated example of
the
sort
of
uncivil reply
that used to be sent by the Civil Service:-
"
With reference to your letter
of
the 15th inst. on the subject
of
a telegram handed in at the Stoke Newington Post Office on
the 13th inst. and addressed to
'
Starlight,' Manchester,
I
have
to express regret
for
the delay in the treatment
of
the telegram,
and to inform you that suitable notice has been taken
of
the
matter.
"
The excessively long heading gives a topheavy effect;
the
words
"
I
have to
"
give the effect of
a
grudging concession; and the time-
honoured formula about
"
suitable notice
"
is distinctly evasive.
Our correspondent might well exclaim:
"
If
this
is
all they have
to
say, why
did
it
take them
so
long
to
say it?
"
I
want to address myself to these
two
problems, first, how to
minimise delay in sending replies and, secondly, what
sort
of replies
to send. On the
first
problem, one of the causes of delay in the old
days was excessive centralisation.
As
a
result of general develop-
ments in the
Post
Office which it
is
not my purpose to discuss, this
291
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