Latvijas Pasts plans to open 15 to 20 new-concept customer service centers this year

RIGA - National postal company Latvijas Pasts plans to open 15 to 20 new-concept customer service centers this year, Girts Rudzitis, the company's new chairman of the board, told LETA in an interview.

He said that the customer centers will be visually modern, attractive and inviting, with the idea of promoting access to services for the economically active population. "The new centers will have longer opening hours and residents will be able to receive advice on various postal services," Rudzitis added.

Asked how the centers would differ from the existing post offices, Rudzitis said that customers currently go to the post office to send and receive something and that is the end of the matter, and the post offices have ancillary rooms where the sorting of newspapers and letters takes place. In the new concept, however, sorting will be separated from the customer centers.

"The new concept will also be much more attractive to the younger generation, who may sometimes even be afraid to enter a post office at the moment," Rudzitis noted.

At the same time, Rudzitis pointed out that working with the post office network is a routine that the company works with every day, analyzing the results and looking at how visits and customer habits are changing.

"At the moment, the post office network is undergoing a significant transformation. The company currently has 20 projects in the active phase with municipalities to move into their premises and 15-20 projects to open new-concept customer centers in shopping centers. After the implementation of the projects, it is necessary to assess how it works. Change is a normal process and Latvijas Pasts has done its homework," he added.

Rudzitis said that Latvijas Pasts had been tasked to improve direct cooperation with local governments and find common solutions, as well as to create an infrastructure where postal services would be available to all residents of Latvia regardless of the number of post offices the company has, and, according to him, post offices would not be the determining factor in this matter.

"Therefore, I think this homework has been done and we have a good and common understanding on this issue both with the Board of Latvijas Pasts and the shareholders," Rudzitis said.

Commenting on whether the new customer centers would require the closure of any of the existing post offices in Riga, Rudzitis said that the company had to comply with the requirements on the number of post offices in Riga. "The company cannot simply close post offices in Riga, but at the same time the company has to look at where Latvijas Pasts would be more accessible to customers," Rudzitis said.

He said that, for example, when opening a customer service center in the Saga Shopping Center in Ropazi District, the customer flow of other post offices in the district will be assessed. "This is daily work where we evaluate the functionality of post offices. In fact, the company goes in the direction where the customers are going and then adapts, not the other way around," Rudzitis said.

Latvijas Pasts representatives previously explained that the new concept customer service centers aim to improve the service touch points with customers, taking into account changing postal habits. Thus, Latvijas Pasts is gradually creating customer service centers in cities and regional centers with a more modern design and more convenient accessibility.

As reported, Latvijas Pasts' turnover in 2023 was EUR 108.269 million, which is 8.3 percent more than in 2022, while the company's profit fell 4.1 times - to EUR 538,646.

Latvijas Pasts provides postal services throughout the territory of Latvia. The company provides domestic and international deliveries, ranging from e-commerce and parcel deliveries to press, letter correspondence and personalized logistics solutions. Latvijas Pasts is a wholly state-owned company with approximately 1,900 employees.