Press releases

Swiss Post reacts to falling customer volumes and relieves pressure on employees

The Federal Council has closed businesses and instructed the public to stay at home and maintain distance from each other. This is having a direct impact on Swiss Post branches: fewer and fewer customers are carrying out postal transactions there. In recent weeks, the number of customer visits has decreased by up to 40 percent. Due to this development, combined with illness-related absences among staff, Swiss Post is obliged to modify the opening hours of its post offices. Despite special effort on the part of employees, 14 self-operated post offices will remain closed. More than 90 Swiss Post branches are changing their opening hours. From next weekend and until further notice, the branches Basel Annahme, Bern PostParc, Lausanne Dépot, Luzern Universität and Zürich Sihlpost will be closed on Sundays and public holidays. Further modifications cannot be ruled out, depending on how the situation develops. We regret these temporary ramifications and are doing our utmost to minimize the disruption as far as possible. We would like to thank our customers for their understanding.

Rich Content Section

The Federal Council has instructed the public to stay at home and maintain distance from each other. Many businesses are closed. These are important steps for containing the virus. The fact that people are adhering to the requirements is having an impact on Swiss Post. Demand for postal services has declined sharply in self-operated branches over the past two weeks. Swiss Post calculates that footfall has fallen by 20 to 40 percent, depending on the post office. In addition, there are increasing numbers of absences among post office employees, either due to illness or among those who belong to high-risk groups and are therefore not allowed to come to work. Despite a special effort on the part of all employees, Swiss Post is obliged to modify the opening hours at its post offices.

Swiss Post has also decided to ease the strain on its staff and to keep branches closed throughout Switzerland on Easter Saturday. We have also taken this decision because we expect few customers during this period. This measure is designed to allow employees to rest over the Easter weekend. Swiss Post cannot continue to be here for Switzerland unless its employees are healthy. “We would like to ask our customers for their assistance in protecting our employees. Please respect the social distancing requirements and help us keep our staff healthy,” says Roberto Cirillo, CEO of Swiss Post.

The current opening hours and the modifications to services can be viewed here. On this page, you will also find the amendments to branches operated by Swiss Post’s partners. The Confederation’s requirements have already been implemented by the partners in Swiss Post’s partner branches.

We regret the temporary impact on our customers. We are doing our utmost to minimize the disruption as far as possible and to ensure that the universal postal service is guaranteed even in these extraordinary circumstances. We would like to thank our customers for their understanding during this exceptional situation.

In addition, we would like to remind our customers of our online services. These will make postal transactions easier during this extraordinary situation, especially now that everyone is required to stay at home, and will enable customers to access and use postal services from home.

Information:

Swiss Post Media Unit, Oliver Flüeler, 058 341 21 95, presse@swisspost.ch