Put a Stamp on It

One of the headlines today in The New York Times is that the US Postal Service is facing some pretty dire circumstances and will potentially default on a pension payment of $5.5 billion next month and may have to shut down sometime this winter. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/business/in-internet-age-postal-service-struggles-to-stay-solvent-and-relevant.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Does this really surprise anyone?

Let me say first of all that I like the people on the front line at our local post office.  I go in there most every weekday (since they’re now closed on Saturdays as well as Sundays), and they are without fail friendly and helpful.  They know the dog by name and are always pleasant, even when people are backed up out the door.  Although they try to up sell you to pricier delivery services, there’s no pressure to it – it’s more like a reminder that options are available than a squeeze to get more dollars out of you.

Here’s something else I’ve discovered – the frontline workers are every bit as frustrated with their management as the rest of us, even though they can’t really say a lot.

The post office has been all but a blueprint for how NOT to run a business, going back to about the time they started “Express Mail” as a competitive response to UPS and FedEx.  It has, however, been a dismal failure as anyone who’s tried to use it quickly realizes.

First, it’s simply not competitive.  I’m not talking so much about cost – if you try to overnight a 1 pound package from, say Hickory to Portland Oregon, the cost is about $32.00 for any of them.

The difference is that FedEx and UPS GUARANTEE that they’ll make the delivery.  If you read the fine print on the Post Office’s website, you’ll see that they’ll just promise to make a good effort to deliver it by the time promised, and if they don’t you’ll get your money back.

Here’s a news flash.  If I’m spending $32.00 to get a package delivered overnight, it DARNED WELL better get there.  I don’t want to hear woulda-shoulda-coulda or explanations about how it was all spelled out in the fine print that the delivery might not actually happen or that “overnight” really means “probably the next business day.”  If you pay for the service, you have a right to expect that it’s going to happen as a reasonable person would have understood the advertisement.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that their high dollar service consistently fails to meet expectations.  The few times I tried to use it (usually when I lived in towns where UPS and FedEx weren’t immediately available), I ended up trying to work my way out of the quagmire that resulted when things didn’t arrive when promised, an experience I’m not eager to repeat.  As a result, the failures of prior years continue to haunt them, because I’m unwilling risk it again for the difference of a few bucks.

The other thing that I think sours their customers is the fact that they simply make bad decisions and, since they’re this odd quasi-governmental entity, it’s right there in front of everyone. 

Let’s face it, Bank of America screws something up, they can hide it and nobody finds out about it because they’re a private company.  The post office makes a similar gaff and there are congressional hearings.

Oh, wait.  Never mind.

You get my point, though.  Some businesses seem bent on failure and continue to make decisions that most everyone else sees is disaster.

One particular point seems to jump out in the NY Times article.  “The agency’s labor contracts have long guaranteed no layoffs to the vast majority of its workers, and management agreed to a new no layoff-clause in a major union contract last May.” (Emphasis added).

Here’s a Business 101 News Flash – if you are in the brink of bankruptcy, you don’t go out and sign a new contract agreeing not to lay off employees, especially when you know that you need to trim 220,000 people – that’s not a typo it’s almost a QUARTER OF A MILLION EMPLOYEES – from the budget.

Instead, you communicate the seriousness of the situation to the workforce and make it clear that their actions can make the decision about whom is going to be in that group of 220,000 much easier.

You don’t renew a promise that you ought to know you can’t keep and then look for Congress to bail you out of your mess.

Leave that to Bank of America.

The other thing that most any marketing person would tell you is that you want to make your business place inviting when you’re trying to encourage people in.  In the past, this meant the bricks and mortar facility had to be clean, conveniently accessible and have enough parking.  Many post offices fail in this regard because they’re located in ancient buildings (which, admittedly, do seem to be relatively clean), downtown in places that are hard to get to and which have limited parking.

They may close some of these locations and move their facilities into Wal Mart.

While this may promote the sale of $.44 stamps, law offices, accountants, and insurance companies that are located downtown and within walking distance of the existing post offices – which I’d bet make up the bulk of the sales that are happening – are not going to be happy about having to have someone from their office schlep off across town to Wally World to make a mail run once, if not twice, a day.

This is not how you endear your customer base.

The other thing that is sadly lacking is an effective web presence.  The USPS website (www.usps.gov) isn’t at all consumer friendly in many ways.

You have to re-enter all the information for each package.  15 envelopes, all going to the same town?  You have to enter all the info 15 times.  It wants to know what day you’re going to mail them and the zip code for each envelope, even when that’s irrelevant – A first class letter costs the same to anywhere in the US, and it’s a nuisance to have to put in both my zip code and the recipient’s zip code over and over again.  I want to know how many stamps to put on the package, and it’s annoying to have to completely start over once you calculate an item.

Then, when you finally do get through, they’ve hidden the cheapest option at the bottom of the page and behind another window so you have to click yet again to make it come up.  If you’re unfamiliar with the site, it’s easy to think that you have to use the premium services rather than the cheaper ones.

It’s not dishonest.  It’s just marketing.  Some would even argue that it’s good marketing. 

But it breeds distrust and doesn’t do anything to help the post office rally public support for their cause.

This is unfortunate, because the folks working the front desk down at 28601 are genuinely nice people who are victims of the poor decisions that management is making.