How Should the Postal Service Sell Its Products?
Filed under Post Offices & Retail Network
Tags: business, customer relations, postal service, profit, Retail, upsell
The Postal Service has a long and proud history in public service. It has always been viewed as part of the federal government, yet has also been told to “act like a business” and to be self-sufficient. These distinctions can lead to interesting real-world implications, such as the degree to which retail associates should “upsell” or otherwise assist customers as they transact postal business. On one extreme, some claim that retail associates should do everything to find the lowest price for the customer. On the other extreme, some believe that retail associates should maximize the revenue from each transaction, and if that means selling more than a customer “needs,” then so be it. Of course, there is a wide area between these two extremes, and the Postal Service is challenged to meet these sometimes conflicting goals of providing public service and maximizing profit. But are these goals really conflicting? What balance should the Postal Service strike between finding the best value for the customer and maximizing revenue? What factors should be considered in striking this balance – transaction time (keeping the line moving), customer satisfaction (the customer feels good about the transaction), ease of use (keeping the transaction and choices simple), public service (an obligation to find the best deal for the customer), standardization of retail experience (providing routine guidance to retail associates), or other factors?
Loading ...There are a wide variety of transactions, so striking the right balance is difficult. Nonetheless, by looking at specific examples, one can see the implicit tradeoffs. For instance, if a customer is mailing a rather heavy box that the retail associate presumes may contain books, should the retail associate ask the customer if it is solely books and offer the reduced Media Mail price? Or should the retail associate encourage the use of Express Mail or Priority Mail, and suggest additional special services?
What are your thoughts about how the Postal Service should serve customers while generating revenue?
This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
39 Responses to “How Should the Postal Service Sell Its Products?”
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August 12th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Rich, I agree that the upselling long and robotic dialogue is IDIOTIC for the Postal Service window clerks. But, judging by the response you received from Mary the ?Manager, then I am not surprised.
The good thing is that we can talk about the issue at hand. The reason that Management is forcing employees to “read” the scripts is BECAUSE THEY THINK WE’RE IDIOTS and OUR CUSTOMERS ARE IDIOTS TOO.
August 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Mary, I am trying to show that the script we follow does not work. Us clerks can sell more if we are given the freedom to read are customers and up-sell the products they may need. I sell more express than the other clerks because I can identify the customer that could benefit from this service. If we go by the script no one pays attention to what your saying because it sounds so mechanical. Because I don’t agree with managements ignorant policy on this doesn’t mean I should quit my job! Management needs to listen to us employees on the floor instead of making decisions far removed from what goes on in the real world.
August 12th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I believe that in today’s economical tough times that it is time to consider suspending mystery shopper program. Too much money is being wasted on this program and the basic question remains are the costs of this program delivering the revenue results that are being sought. Is this program paying for itself or is something we have always done? Temporary suspend the program and see what happens to the revenue. It might remain unchanged and the cost savings would be runnning this program. Empower the employees to come up with creative ways to drive the revenue. Nothing more disconcerning then sitting on a two hour telecon because our office has failed a mystery shop. We can’t get the employees to buy in a program no one believes in.
August 12th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
While we run amuck in the publicized woes of the Postal Service’s alleged financial crisis, we seem to have lost focus on the reason for its existence.
The Postal Service is obligated to provide Universal service to the American public including remote and rural locales. If this means that it cannot turn a profit, so be it. The Postal Service is not a privately owned enterprise nor should it be. It was designed so that every individual within these United States could receive mail! Don’t let the capitalistic arguments of profit, profit, profit!!! steer us away from this fundamental ideal.
Consider that Fed Ex and UPS are private corporations which need to meet operating costs and turn a profit to remain in business. The federally owned Postal Service at best should only be required to maintain its operational costs to do the same.
August 12th, 2009 at 10:45 am
but…..the SSA will never know if the same repeat customer is a “Mystery Shopper.”
August 12th, 2009 at 10:43 am
If you feel that you look like an idiot with the up sell approach, then quit and get a different job with another company!!!!
August 12th, 2009 at 9:36 am
USPS average revenue per piece is lower for three main reasons. First, USPS’s pieces are lighter on average than UPS’s and FedEx’s. Second, many USPS pieces are drop-shipped close to destination (e.g., approx. 200 million DDU parcels). Third, the USPS has a low share of the high-priced overnight market.
The pound analysis is faulty. Perhaps it’s around $1 per pound, though it may be more. But that’s an average derived from a cost per cubic foot, which is the main way FedEx charges for Priority Mail air transportation. So, the USPS pays FedEx about the same for a 6-pound flat-rate box as for, say, a 1-pound flat-rate box.
August 12th, 2009 at 7:16 am
As always, USPS, someone, decides square peg will fit in round hole and has the enormous power to try to make it work, and that’s that. It doesn’t work. I have never, ever bought a doughnut because the cute Brazilian girl asked, as she is forced to do; never. This dumb initiative has ruined window clerks’ jobs for good.
There is no sales creativity in this robotic mandate whatsoever. It kills all initiative and feeling of personal accomplishment, already in very short supply in this job. I once led our District by a wide margin, personally, selling Black History comm. sets, $19.95 I think at a whack. Know why? I was in a heavily black area and felt like doing it for the sense of accomplishment. Every time someone wanted “interesting” stamps, I pulled out the semi-postal sheets with the birds and animals on them, gathering dust everywhere. Sold all of them. I put up small displays of new stamps. Sold all the ugly Buck. Fuller ones to the geeks who thought they were cool. You have crushed and in many formal ways forbidden such stuff. No one cares anymore. I know people with 25 years on this window job who ask me every time I see them if there are jobs at the plant, that’s how disgusted they are
August 12th, 2009 at 1:45 am
The poll that begins this post leaves out the best answer. What if we asked our customer what they were trying to accomplish and then offered alternatives; no pressure, no scripts, no misdirection, just good solid information?
Does anyone remember the scene from the old movie Miracle on 34th Street where Kris Kringle offers that a competitor may have the merchandise the customer wants at a better price? The end result is that customers flock to the original store based on its reputation for credibility and service. Naive? Perhaps but I’ve been doing that for thirty years and customers like me and they like my office. I think people are tired of marketing as a science of manipulation and extraction. As a consumer I want to be afforded the opportunity to explain my need and in return receive good basic information that allows me to make an informed choice. Sometimes that may mean a very simple transaction where I tell you what I want and you give me exactly that. Sometimes it means I want more information. It takes attention and discretion for a sales associate to evaluate a transaction and provide just the right amount of information.
We don’t teach or encourage that skill. Instead we create a transaction based on an adversarial relationship. You, the customer, have revenue and we want as much of it in each individual transaction as we can get. Most of our marketing efforts are based on coercion and extraction – subtle but that really is the end result.
I work in a small rural post office. My sales opportunities and my relationships with my customers are different than if I worked in a larger urban office. Retail Standardization tells me that nothing but targeted marketing material may displayed on the walls of my post office. So I removed the art work from the local school and the pictures of the kids that come in the office. The thing is, people liked that stuff. They come to my office because there is a sense of credibility and trust. They come when UPS or Fedex may be cheaper or more efficient because they like the relationship we have.
These are the same people who consistently give us high grades in polling, the people whose positive opinions influence decision makers when they look at what we are and what we should be. In the age of the internet these people’s opinions are not just subsumed by the isolation of a small rural community. Their opinions can be viral and create positive attitudes they transfer across the demographic spectrum.
Now not every facility can do the things I can. There are places where it isn’t practical. There are places where the culture doesn’t value it as it does in my community. The problem is that because of our top down autocratic management and because of our rigid evaluating systems we cannot exercise the kind of flexibility that utilizes our skills and experience. We design programs like Carrier Connect with just this sort of goal in mind but because they become so bureaucratized they lose effectiveness.
Our institutional blindness is what’s killing us.
August 11th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
The USPS is TOO SLOW TO CHANGE. If I were the Postmaster General, here is the three-point TRANSFORMATION I would begin right now. Right now, because it will take some time. Listen to the logic. A) Delivery Units. Wherever possible, (like where there exists a MAJOR TOWN OR CITY SURROUNDED BY SEVERAL SMALLER ONES), Delivery Units should be EXCISED from traditional Post Offices and be consolidated into a centralized Delivery Unit serving several towns, that incorporates every delivery function of those sovereign towns. WHY? Because our mail is already processed in ANOTHER CENTRAL LOCATION and that processed mail (DPS) is trucked to several tems of thousands of locations. What a waste! The simple truth is: If the truck serving several towns is at location (A) now, it isn’t in locations (b), (C), (D), (E),….you get the point. And the point is….get the mail to the Hive so the Bees can deliver it, spread out and deliver it. All at once. SECOND “TRANSFORMATION GOAL”: Almost without exception, every Post Office in the Nation was built and located in areas that ONCE WERE the focal point of town, but are no longer. They are antiquated facilities, poorly insulated, in need of repair, that are not handicap accessible or located WHERE COMMERCE IS CONDUCTED in America. Soooooooo—–CLOSE THEM, AND SELL THEM OFF. As you see from “Suggestion A”, there are no carriers or delivery services there anymore, and rightly so. So what to do? STOP MAKING PEOPLE COME TO YOU, AND INSTEAD GO WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE!!! And where is that? Wal-Mart. The Main Grocery Store Shopping Center. (Last time I checked, every human needs to go food shopping at least twice a week if they like fresh produce and meat). So ALL RETAIL OPERATIONS NEED TO BE LOCATED INSIDE OF, OR ADJACENT TO, THESE AREAS. Go into any Shop-Rite, or Wal-Mart. See that Bank? Why are they there? (And open 7-days a week!) Because they make money. And they generate shoppers. WalMart likes banks because people need money to buy stuff (DUD!). Now picture this: 1) The way it is: You go to WalMart and buy a gift card and mail it. Great. The USPS gets 44-cents. People don’t really want to do that, but what else are they to do? Christmas time. Go to the store. Buy a personalized gift. Lug it home. Wrap it. Lug it to the out-of-the-way Post Office. Wait in line. (Get parking ticket while waiting). Box it. Mail it. OOOOH YEAH, LIKE I’m DOING THAT! NOT! I go for the gift card. My Idea: 2) Locate Postal Retail Outlets INSIDE OF, OR ADJACENT TO major shopping centers. NOW, you go to “WalMart”, buy that personaized gift, have it wrapped at the WalMart Customer Service Deask, then take it to the Postal Counter, Box it, Ship it, AND YOU GO HOME, NOTHING TO LUG AROUND! Instead of getting 44-cents postage for the gift card, you ger $8 BUCKS for the Priority postage! You might get more! Other products….which leads me to C): The USPS is closing hundreds of facilities. It’s no exaggeration to say we have excess capacity. BUT WE ALREADY HAVE THE BEST DISTRIBUTION SERVICE THE WORLD! Sooooooo, why should “Midnight Velvet”, “Collectibles Inc”, Cabrellas or ANY OTHER MANUFACTURER or DISTRIBUTOR have to rely on these Clearing Houses that charge “Midnight Velvet” $4 to mail a $2 parcel, just because that Clearing House has the space to store the merchandise? WE HAVE THAT SPACE! We could easily cut out that middle-man, get the stuff that’s ordered delivered fast, and by saving the manufacturer money increase their profit while simultaniously cornering the parcel post market by taking it away from UPS and FedEx. THIS IS SO SIMPLE THAT I CANNOT BELIEVE NOBODY HAS THOUGHT OF IT! We already have the facilities in place and Lord knows we have the people to do the job. SO NOWGO….GO GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE! DO IT. And stop taking so long. Nero is fiddling while Rome burs. Time for Nero to take a hike!