Door-to-Door Opt-Out Survey
Q2 - Did you return the opt-out form?
The Door-to-Door Opt-Out registration form warns householders that registering with the scheme may result in “missing information from local and national government
”. I therefore wanted to find out how many people decided not to register, and if so why.
Royal Mail's warning has been critisised as an attempt to scare people out of stopping unwanted mail. The survey suggest the alleged “scare tactics
” are not that effective; nearly all of respondents who received an opt-out form were not put off by Royal Mail's warnings and returned the form:
Table 3 - Number of opt-out forms returned
| Did you return your registration form? | (#) | (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 82 | 89.1% |
| No | 9 | 9.8% |
| Don't know | 1 | 1.1% |
| Total | 92 | 100% |
Q2A - Why did you not return the opt-out form?
Of the nine people who did not return their registration form, eight told us that they were worried about missing information they do want to receive. Only one respondent had not returned the form for another reason: “A housemate threw it out thinking that it was junk mail!
”.
Chart 4 - Reasons for not returning the registration form
| Reasons for not returning the opt-out form | (#) | (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Just forgot | 0 | 0% |
| Worried / changed mind | 8 | 88.9% |
| Other reason | 1 | 11.1% |
| Total | 9 | 100% |
How 'effective' Royal Mail's 'scare tactics' are is still difficult to establish. All respondents who had requested an opt-out form had done so via my Junk Buster website. I always explain to people that important information from local and national government is unlikely to be distributed via Royal Mail's door-to-door service and I advise people to ignore the warnings. People who request an opt-out form via the Royal Mail website are likely to be more inclined to be discouraged by the warnings.
Q2B - Do you know when your registration will expire?
I tried to get an idea of to what extend people have been influenced by my advice to ignore the warning about missing “important information
” by asking if people know after what time the opt-out will expire. The reason for asking this particular question is that Royal Mail does not give this information to people who register with the opt-out (it is not to be found on the registration form or on the Royal Mail website) - but I do always tell people that they will need to re-register within two years time. The registration period is also somewhat unusual; most opt-outs automatically expire after five years, but the door-to-door opt-out stops after two years. Therefore, if people know when the opt-out needs to be renewed they will in all likelihood have read the information on our website.
Table 5 - Do you know when your registration will expire?
| Number of years | (#) | (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 20 | 24.4% |
| 2 years | 49 | 59.8% |
| 3 years | 6 | 7.3% |
| 5 years | 7 | 8.5% |
| 82 | 100% |
Nearly 60% of respondents chose the right answer. This indicates that most people do listen to my advice :). It also suggests that people requesting an opt-out form via Junk Buster are more likely to ignore Royal Mail's warnings.