For Salmat's Clients
If I was a customer of Salmat, there are a few things I would do to try and ensure that I was getting what I'm paying for. After all, you only have their word for it.
- Grant Mitchell (State Manager) says that Salmat has independant people doing section audits.
I would ask for the name of this particular company and request a written report from them on the area you want your material delivered to. This would detail a breakdown into Salmat's distribution areas - the date the audit was completed - the difference in quantities for each area before and after the audit. They should have this information on hand, as it is what they base your cost on.
- I would then ask to see the previous month's schedule 1 contracts. These are Salmat's copies of the contracts given to each walker with each delivery. These will contain the walker's name and address, the Area Representative's name and phone number, map reference, dates for delivery, catalogues to be delivered and the quantity.
- Also ask for the reports from the Area Supervisors detailing the overs for the same period. Assuming that Salmat value your custom then they will have records of how many catalogues each walker returns.
- If I was an existing customer then I would ask for ALL overs to be returned to me and for a detailed report of which areas they were left over from. It appears from Grant Mitchell's emails to me that Salmat will not return leftover catalogues to clients unless you specifically ask for them.
What about a simple way of solving the problem for all concerned. This is a simple answer for Salmat.
- Pay the drivers who deliver the catalogues to pick up any leftovers from each walker. Each walker can be provided with a numbered bag, the leftovers can be put in the bag and collected by the driver.
- Have a staffmember count the leftovers in each bag and check them off against the number provided for each area. This will negate the need for any section audits and will provide an accurate count for each area.
- As a customer you may miss out on a delivery to one or two letterboxes, but it would be better than printing up an extra several percent of catalogues that will become recycling material.
Consider this:
According to Salmat, they have 20,000 walkers Australia wide. On average they deliver twice a week and conservatively 7 catalogues at a time and each area would comprise at least 500 letterboxes. Now that equals 140 million catalogues a week. From what I have seen in the last several years I would estimate that a minimum of 6% of catalogues do not get delivered, but just to be conservative lets say it's 1%.
That means that every week Salmat fails to deliver 1.4 million catalogues, or if my 6% is accurate, that means that 8.4 million catalogues don't get delivered every week.
I don't know about you, but I find that a most disgusting waste of material and cost for someone!
If you're in Adelaide, then I calculate that there are about 1,000 walkers in the suburban area. On the same basis as above, this means 7 million catalogues a week. A conservative 1% equals 70,000 undelivered catalogues or 6% equals 420,000 undelivered.
So does Salmat return these millions of leftover catalogues to everyone? According to Grant Mitchell's email to me only if they are requested by the client, which brings up the question, What does Salmat do with them?
I suppose if I lacked integrity, was unethical and had a few million catalogues at my disposal each week, I'd probably sell them for recycling material. Of course, we are all aware that Salmat is a completely ethical company and would do no such thing, but I would be interested in knowing where they all go.
Let's try and make it a little bit clearer...
When the walkers return their overs to their Area Representative (we know they all do it because Salmat told us they do!), the catalogues are reurned in boxes, bags etc and all jumbled up. Now unless the Area Representative is going to spend a day sorting them out, then they get sent back to Salmat along with the returns from other areas in one big jumbled pile.
If you, as a client ask for your leftovers, then Salmat will need to get someone to sort through approximately 35,000 catalogues (at 1% undelivered), or 210,000 (at 6% undelivered) and that's only for one delivery within one week.
On a national scale of 1% undelivered and not returned to clients Salmat are being paid to deliver 1.4 million catalogues which they don't deliver. Let's say that Salmat receive the same payment per catalogue as they pay to their contract workers (after all, they are an extremely generous and caring company?), that's 1 cent each catalogue.
This would mean that every week Salmat potentially pockets $14,000 (at 1% undelivered) or $84,000 (at 6% undelivered). Remember, these figures are quoted on a conservative estimate.
If you are a customer or potential customer you don't have to believe me, just find out for yourself!
- DO YOU KNOW?
- Salmat claim to abide by a national "Code of Conduct" (http://www.catalogue.asn.au/distribution/cop/) for catalogue delivery, however contrary to the code, there are at least two parts which I know for a fact that they do not bother with.
Part 8
- (e) Each year supply all deliverers with a copy of the Code of Practice and supply copies to new deliverers before they start.
- (f) Provide ongoing training in 'industry-best' work practices.
- DO YOU KNOW?
- Salmat does NOT keep in contact with any walkers and do NOT regularly supply any ammendments or updates of the code, do NOT inform us of any changes/requirements/problems etc and do NOT ask us if there are any problems
- DO YOU KNOW?
- Salmat TELL us to count the letterboxes in the areas that we deliver to (we don't get paid for it), so everyone adds extra on to the count.
Why do we add on extra?
The numbers of houses in the delivery areas are not even amounts (520,465,535 etc not 400,500), whereas the bundled catalogues are, so the extra catalogues are either weighed or GUESSED before being delivered to the walkers. If anyone rings Salmat and complains that they didn't get any catalogues in their letterbox then Salmat get nasty towards us, so we make sure that we get extra delivered to cover any short delivery. Of course, this means that we have extra which are NOT returned to you and you are NOT told about by Salmat. Salmat are aware of this because periodically they attach a note to the contract asking for us to return any "leftovers" to them for "recycling". (I dump mine in the bin as I only get paid 1 cent per catalogue to deliver them and I don't get paid to drive around returning leftovers).
- DO YOU KNOW?
- This doesn't happen very often but if it's raining regularly during the delivery period, instead of waiting until it's dry, Salmat's policy is to deliver them REGARDLESS. Because of this there have been a number of occasions when I have stuffed several wet, soggy and unreadable catalogues into a few hundred letterboxes.
- DO YOU KNOW?
- If the Postie or the walker for Progress Press has happened to deliver bulky catalogues, (eg RAA, Foxtel, magazines, large catalogues) before I get to the letterboxes then guess what? Yours DON'T get delivered there. The "Code of Conduct" which Salmat adheres to states that we are NOT to deliver to letterboxes that are full.
- DO YOU KNOW?
- Quite often we have as many as 14 different catalogues of various sizes and thicknesses to deliver at the same time, to deliver them we simply fold them all together into a bunch the thickness of a paperback book. Of course this then means that they will not fit into the smaller or narrower style letterboxes, so they don't all get delivered.
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