Published Monday 23rd November 2020
The Document Exchange (DX) system is a UK courier service established during the postal strikes of the 1970’s and very quickly became the only alternative next-day delivery service. Its origins lie mainly within the legal sector, with its members’ network supplying a majority of legal firms within the UK. However, its tariff structure and the procedure behind DX’s calculation of the cost of the service to users are fraught with issues and sometimes not understood.
The annual cost of the service is based on an estimate made by DX of the amount of mail anticipated to be despatched during the forthcoming year to other DX users only. The user processes their DX mail by way of manually adding their unique number to each item despatched and then delivering them to a nearby collection point which is normally hosted by another DX user.
The Member can become a host point by meeting certain criteria set by DX. The user is advised to monitor and manually record all of their outgoing mail over a two-week period each year. This annual monitoring should be completed over two weeks that typically reflects total annual usage, generally not in August or December. DX calculates the user’s next year’s subscription on based on their own internal figures and the two-week monitoring period which can only be viewed as accurate if completed properly by both parties.
Therefore, the biggest problem with DX is that the fees are based on estimate, paid annually in advance, generally unquantifiable and leaving the user with no knowledge as to whether they are getting value for money.
There are very few options that enable DX users to accurately calculate the level of their subscription fee apart from accurately recording manually every item sent whilst taking into consideration the varying weight, size and thickness of non-standard items.
Rather than simply accepting the estimated annual DX invoice it makes more financial sense to consider changes in procedure or methods of monitoring in order to confirm the actual cost of using the service instead of relying on the very limited information generally provided by DX.
About the Author: Zoe Willis, has strong stakeholder management skills and her friendly approach ensures she engages all project team members within both client and supplier businesses. Her experience allows Zoe to offer well researched advice, due to her thorough and unsurpassed understanding of the working practices, procedures and sometimes confusing tariffs offered by Royal Mail and its competitors.