My experience with Royal Mail involves them losing several incoming Recorded and Special Delivery parcels; forgetting to redeliver a parcel to me no less than six times for the same parcel (the parcel was eventually returned to sender); forgetting to collect my outgoing Datapost parcel from the Post Office, so the parcel arrived a day late; and eventually getting to the stage where their depots stop answering the phone (either to me, or to the people at Royal Mail’s central hotline).

Incidentally, Royal Mail will only redeliver to an address or Post Office within the same postcode zone. Their depots (and the Post Offices) are of course only open during office hours. For most people with a job, this means that Royal Mail are no better than City Link.