Changing mix

With 32 years of service in her mailbag, postwoman Linda Price has seen a lot of evolution in her time with the business.

Linda is based at Denny Delivery Office near Falkirk in Scotland, and has been on the same round for the last 26 years.

Linda used to drive a postbus – a 16-seater bus that took paying passengers from Denny to Fintry – while delivering mail to more remote farms and villages.

‘As more people got cars, there was less demand for the bus and the service ended,’ she said. ‘I missed meeting all the passengers, though. We used to get a lot of fishermen coming up to fish at Carron Valley Reservoir, which is a beautiful place, and on Fridays we used to have a double run to Fintry – at 1am and 1pm!'

One of the biggest changes she’s experienced is the increase in the number of parcels being delivered. But, letters have retained their importance on her route.

‘There are definitely more parcels, but my customers still get a lot of letters,’ she said. 'I still deliver a lot of bills and financial documents like bank statements.

'A lot of people do prefer to have them on paper, so they can look through them and understand them, and also file them away.'

Letters still hold many advantages for our business customers. Recent research found letters have a 35% better recall rate among consumers compared to social media, or 49% better compared to email.

‘We used to hand sort everything but now it goes through big sorting machines at the mail centres,’ added Linda. ‘Obviously that is a huge time-saver and more efficient for us, which is always better for the customer.’