- The DX
DX Services Ltd. (Trading as 'The DX'), Formerly "HayesDX" and "DX Network Services", and sometimes referred to as "The Document Exchange") are a business post/courier company who deliver over one million letters and packets across the UK and Ireland every day in a 'closed' network of over 27,000 registered senders and receivers.
Courier vs. postal service
DX Services operated in a similar way to a courier, but since being granted a long-term postal licence from Postcomm in 2003, the company is a serious competitor to
Royal Mail .DX is most useful for large, corporate internal mail schemes, as it is a closed network of "boxes" where both sender and receiver are registered account holders. It is widely used between various industries including law firms, banks and opticians for all internal and inter-company/firm transfers, and has become something of a standard therefore in certain industries.
Pros
The DX claim to deliver 99% of items next day. Whilst not guaranteed, the service is therefore comparable to
Royal Mail 'First Class', but more 'reliable'.It is often cheaper to send a letter through DX than the equivalent would be through Royal Mail.
DX remains in operation (and does a significantly higher amount of business) during postal strikes.
Because it is a closed, efficient network with all items correctly labeled, it would be considered 'difficult' for mail to go missing (thus the accountancy/legal firms using the system for contracts and other important items).
Cons
As the system is a private range of account-holder collection/delivery addresses, you must formally become a customer, and use DX for a significant amount of items before you can benefit from them. It is also only possible to send to another registered address, which is why whole industries such as banking are adopting DX, so they can send items and letters between banks with ease. Therefore if none of your customers, or business partners have DX, you are unable to send to them.
ecure DX
The company operates a "SecureDX" system for highly important items. 'SecureDX' items are guaranteed next day, require a signature on delivery, are trackable on the internet and can feature tamper-evident packaging. Notably most comparable to Royal Mails special delivery option.
External links
* [http://www.thedx.co.uk/ The DX company website]
* [http://www.thedx.ie/irelandIndex.aspx DX Ireland]
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