The quality of the universal postal service includes providing:
- that all legal or natural persons can send and receive mail at their home or premises at least five workdays per week, at least once per day,
- a sufficient number of contact points and sufficiently long business hours for direct work with users of postal services,
- a suitable number of mail boxes,
- appropriate letter mail delivery times and
- appropriate procedures for resolving complaints.
The quality of the universal postal service is defined in the General act on the quality of the universal postal service provision (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, no. 107/25).
Delivery deadlines
In domestic postal traffic, priority and non-priority delivery of correspondence must be ensured.
For priority mail, the universal postal service provider must ensure that at least 90% of postal items are delivered within one working day (D+1), at least 95% of postal items within two working days (D+2) and 99% of postal items within three working days (D+3).
For non-priority items, at least 95% of items must be delivered within three working days (D+3) and 99% within four working days (D+4) in a given month.
In postal traffic with European Union member states, at least 85% of correspondence items must be delivered within a maximum of three working days (D+3) and at least 97% of correspondence items within five working days (D+5).
In domestic postal traffic at least 80% of all parcels must be transferred in one workday (D+2), and 95% of parcels within three workdays (D+3).
The universal service provider must also provide measurements related to quality control for each calendar year. The Agency performs a supervision of the methodology and the results of quality measurements once per year.
The revised results of the quality of delivery for letter mail in domestic traffic of Pošta Slovenije, d.o.o., for 2024 were as follows:
- for priority mail:
- 96.1% of correspondence was delivered within one working day of posting (D+1),
- 99.7% of correspondence was delivered within two working days of posting (D+2), and
- within three working days of the date of posting (D+3), 99.9% of correspondence items were delivered.
- for non-priority items:
- within three working days of the date of posting (D+3), 99.5% of correspondence items were delivered.
The figure showing the quality of priority delivery of postal items (D+1, D+2, and D+3) in the period from 2012 to 2024 shows the prescribed delivery times and their achievement by year:
The revised 2018 results of the quality of delivery for parcels in domestic traffic of Pošta Slovenije, d.o.o., were as follows:
- 99.4% of all parcels were delivered in two business days from the date of dispatch (D+2),
- in three business days from the date of dispatch (D+3) 99.8% of all parcels were delivered.
As the below figure comparing the movements of the quality of transfer of parcels for the 2012 – 2018 period shows, Pošta Slovenije, d.o.o., has been achieving a significantly higher quality than required in this area.
Postal network density
The contact point is intended for direct work with postal service users and may be organized as a post office, a contractual post office, or a special organizational form of contact point determined by the universal service provider. The contact point must operate in appropriate premises or appropriate means of transport and must be equipped in such a way as to provide postal service users with all the services from the universal postal service range of the prescribed quality. The mobile point must stop at a location that is predetermined and published in advance.
The universal service provider must ensure at least one contact point, which should be organized as a post office or a contractual post office, in every municipality in the territory of the Republic of Slovenia. At the same time 95% of the population of the Republic of Slovenia should not have an longer areal distance to the nearest contact point than 4.5 kilometres.
The Agency must approve any transformation or closure of a contact point.
Working hours of contact points
In order to provide direct work with users of postal services, contact points must be open at least five workdays per week. Contact points that are organized as post offices or contractual post offices must be open at least 2 consecutive hours per workday, at least once per week in the afternoon after 4 PM. All other types of contact points must be open every workday for at least one hours per workday, at least once per week in the afternoon after 4 PM.
Any changes to working hours must be published at least 20 days before the change comes into effect.
Mailboxes
The provider of the universal postal service must install at least one mailbox per:
- in every settlement with between 400 and 800 inhabitants;
- one for every 800 inhabitants in settlements with between 801 and 5,000 inhabitants;
- one for every 1,000 inhabitants in settlements with between 5,001 and 75,000 inhabitants;
- for every 1,500 inhabitants in settlements with more than 75,000 inhabitants.
Notwithstanding the above, the universal service provider may remove a mailbox if, on the basis of two counts of less than ten items per day over a period of at least three months, it determines that the average daily volume is less than one item per day. This provision does not apply to settlements where there is only one mailbox and no contact point is organized in the municipality.
The universal postal service provider must ensure that mailboxes are emptied at least once a day, every working day, and the time of the last emptying for each working day of the week must be clearly marked on the mailbox. If the provider intends to remove a mailbox, it must affix a notice with the date of removal to the mailbox at least 30 days in advance.
Regulator's intervention
If an inspector or an authorised person from the Agency establishes during a supervision procedure that a law, regulation, or an act over which it has authority has been breached, they have the right and the duty to:
- issue a decree to remedy the breach within the deadline they set,
- act as a minor offence body in accordance with the act that details minor offences, and recommend a minor offence procedure be launched,
- issue a fine for the minor offence,
- recommend the applicable body to adopt measures, and
- temporarily forbid continued provision of the activity, if such is not provided in accordance with the law.
Foreign practices
The quality of postal services is an important part of the tasks of European regulatory bodies and all the organizations operating in the European postal services market. The most important studies related to the quality are published on the European Commission's website.
Studies and the results of the research done by regulatory bodies of EU member states are available on their websites.