Nigel Cliffe, managing director, Cliffe Associates/Cliffehanger
"How do I say this without shouting? I think this whole situation is pathetic, on behalf of the government, the Royal Mail management and the workers. Probably in that order. What we are left with is a shot in the postman’s proverbial feet as both businesses and consumers turn to other solutions and don’t come back. In the past, the poor consumer (man in the street) didn’t have an option. Here in 2009, he does. It reminds me of print unions in the early eighties – I thought we had all grown up since then."

Gillian Lyall, communications solutions director,  NB Group
"We have already lost two 50,000 piece campaigns to email in the last couple of weeks as the clients need the content to get out. I’m upset as you would imagine. The concern is that if they’ve used electronic mailings once, then they may stick with it and more may go that way. Clients are also holding back on mailings to change dates in case of upcoming strike action. One good thing is that Royal Mail are keeping us up to date with the strikes and where they are happening. But there are concerns and nobody can see the sense in these strikes. They’ve lost business because of it and so have we."

Paul Hale, sales director, CCG
"Anyone who runs a business will appreciate that the job of driving change at Royal Mail is not a walk in the park, but there is no escaping the obvious impact of strike action, with late cheques and proofs. The most worrying impact is that in today’s digital communications age, clients may shift to email or text activity because of the unreliable UK post service. Every day I present to clients the virtues of variable image digital print, couching that a relevant and timely direct mail piece sent to prospect audiences is the most persuasive communication technology available to mankind – currently I omit the timely part of my pitch."

Jude Whitford, commercial director, Pepper Communications
"It doesn’t come at a good time for the industry. It’s affecting the mailing side of things and the sentiment of customers using mail as a positive medium for communication. It’s helping push them towards alternatives such as e-mail and other electronic forms of communication. We have a US company that use us as a base to get into Europe and they are amazed and frustrated by it all. It stops them being able to get to market in those territories. It also causes problems in time-sensitive campaigns that promote product launches, tie into cross-media content and trigger other campaigns."