We are pleased to announce the launch of the formal consultation seeking Wholesale customers’ views on refreshed terms to simplify the Access Letters Contract. Running until 30 October 2020, you can access the full consultation document at www.royalmailwholesale.com/access-letters.   

Whilst the postal industry has changed significantly since the current Access Letters Contract (ALC) was introduced in 2013, the structure and content of the ALC has remained substantially unchanged. Royal Mail has made ad hoc changes to the ALC to enable the provision of new services and initiatives, however we believe the ALC is in need of reform to meet the needs of Wholesale customers and Royal Mail in a very challenging and swiftly evolving environment.

In the consultation, we are seeking your views on change in two areas ??" commercial and operational. The consultation proposals intend to build on feedback we received from customers during 121 engagement sessions in 2019, and a customer workshop held in March 2020, as well as other improvement opportunities we have identified through our internal scoping.

We value your views and want to ensure they are considered carefully as part of this review. Therefore, we encourage you to send us your views by 30 October 2020. Please send your feedback to Ravi Chauhan (Access Contract Manager) at ravi.chauhan@royalmail.com. If you have any queries regarding the consultation and its proposals please contact your Account Director.

Following the closing date for comments, we intend to consider the responses, with a view to finalising our proposals and sharing these with you in the form of a response document in December 2020. During this period of dialogue, Royal Mail will seek to engage with all customers directly wherever possible to ensure a full understanding of their views.

Price plan review

In appreciation that price plans are such a fundamental subject for both Royal Mail and our Wholesale customers, we will be running this element as a separate consultation, which will be preceded by customer engagement sessions to discuss the opportunities for change. We will contact you in due course to provide full details of our plans.

We feel very proud of the progress made in Wholesale over the years and believe this is largely due to the collaborative nature of working within the industry.  We look forward to working with you to take this opportunity to help shape the Access Letters Contract for the future, so that Wholesale continues to play an important role in the postal industry.