Four times increase in telegrams

Sending a Telegram gives you a certainty the information will arrive

A Jersey based telegram company says its seen a massive increase in the number of people using the service during the UK postal strikes.

A spokesman for telegrams online says its delivering four times more telegrams than normal.

Telegrams Online says its currently delivering between 5,000 and 10,000 telegrams every day.

Rob Van Hoof says the service is good for businesses who need need to know people have received information.

He says telegrams can't be replaced by emails because you can't prove that someone has received and read an email.

"If you compare it with an e-mail, suppose you want to send a customer a congratulations message for a silver jubilee with the company then that looks better on paper than in e-mail or a text message," said Rob.

Telegrams are still sent to centenarians by the Queen

Rob says telegrams have been used recently to issue final demands for payments to customers and for companies who want to give staff final warnings about their behaviour.

Telegrams Online send have a network of courier companies that receive an e-mail with the telegram to be sent.

"We have 500 courier companies covering the whole of the UK and they hold our stationary, our paper and our envelopes.

"When there is a telegram to be delivered they get the data and then they print it on our letter head, put it in our envelopes and drive off.

"We also offer an option to send it by post as a low cost solution but that doesn't help much in the last few weeks," said Rob.

Although there aren't as many telegrams being sent now, it still numbers in the thousands every month and that number is going up.

"Certainly compared to 40 years ago it is nothing you do these days, we're only a small company but we have customers that send a few thousand a month," said Rob.