USPS Launching New Initiative to Help Employees Provide Positive Customer Service

Customer service basics
Delivering a positive customer experience

Customer Experience Essentials

USPS is launching a new initiative to give employees resources and tips to help provide a positive experience for every customer in every transaction or contact with the Postal Service.

The “Delivering a Positive Customer Experience” campaign will focus on the basics of good customer service in four areas: customer telephone calls, customer retail visits, mail delivery, and Business Mail Entry.

According to Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Megan Brennan, Operations, Consumer and Industry Affairs, Corporate Communications, and labor and management organizations joined together to organize and promote the effort. Brennan said USPS officers and managers will promote and disseminate the principles of this program during 2012. “Our expectation is a marked improvement in our customer experience,” she said.

The first phase of the initiative will focus on telephone courtesy. Area Marketing Managers and Area Managers of Operations Support will receive telephone courtesy tool kits to distribute to every district, as a guide for employees to improve customers’ experiences when they call a Post Office. The tool kit also is available in the Jan. 12 Postal Bulletin (issue 22328).

source: USPS News Link

From Postal Bulletin

Our Business is Delivery
The Postal Service is an AMAZING organization.

On any given day, today’s Postal Service™…

  • Delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail.
  • Provides more than 131.2 million physical entry points to our delivery network.
  • Is the core of the trillion-dollar mailing industry.
  • Has online stamp and retail sales of 223 million dollars.
  • Makes deliveries to 150 million residences, businesses, and Post Office™ Boxes.
  • And does so at a lower cost than any comparable post in the world.

But what will keep it amazing in an increasingly digital world?
It starts with defining the core need of OUR CUSTOMERS.

Great businesses are great because they define and then focus on satisfying a core customer need. The Postal Service can revitalize its role in a competitive marketplace by sharpening its focus on a core function that our customers value and reward.

So what is the NEED we satisfy?

What is our CORE function that drives our business?
The heart of what we do, ultimately, is delivering.

We connect senders and receivers through the physical delivery of mail and packages.

This concept — that the Postal Service is defined by the function of delivering — is a powerful one. It has a lot of important implications for the way we approach an increasingly digital marketplace, the way we innovate, the way we structure our organization, and the way we shape our future.
We are excellent at DELIVERING.

Our delivery network is the most efficient in the world. It is a vital platform for America’s commerce and for the mailing industry.

The more we improve our platform, the better we meet a core need of every American business and residence: to have access to a delivery network that is reliable, secure, convenient, and affordable — and we want it to be known as the best in the world.

And so, as we shape the future of the organization, it starts with our network and the function of delivering.
Our brand will be shaped by the concept of Delivering.

Our brand is ultimately reflected in the experiences that people have with us. We want customers to have positive expe­riences with us, to associate positive attributes to us, and to feel that the Postal Service is their best option to meet their core needs for either sending or receiving content.

18 thoughts on “USPS Launching New Initiative to Help Employees Provide Positive Customer Service

  1. I agree about the window problems. Where I am we are required to do passports which leaves one person in the window at the busiest time of the day. One supervisor who has seen this happen every day has told us that that is the way it is. Customers are really pissed off and they are getting very vocal about how unhappy they are. We try to explain it to them, we try to get management to do SOMETHING, and we have actually been told that a 20 minute wait in line is not bad and the customers need to suck it up. I strongly feel that they do not care one way or the other about the customer. If they are talking about Customer Service I automatically tune them out.

  2. Have no fear, it’s just something else for unions to file grievances on. Keeps those stewards with super seniority busy off the workroom floor filing grievances. I’m so happy I pay dues to see the likes of those “hard working” stewards in that office having pizza partys on my dime.

  3. Let’s try having more than one window clerk to wait on 10 to 15 customers regularly. I see customers turn around and walk out the door when they see the line. These are customers ready to spend money with us and we don’t provide the service they deserve. When I ask management for backup help they tell me there isn’t any and that I’m lucky to have a job. On more than one occasion when I ask for help on the intercom, (because I don’t have time to leave the window and beg for help) my supervisor and Postmaster have answered back on the intercom that there is no help. I left my position to see for myself and low and behold here was a window clerk moving empty equipment around on the dock. Just yesterday when I asked for customer assistance I was totally ignored by management. A window clerk, in my view, was closing boxes for nonpayment in the back and he totally ignored me as well. This employee has never been a team player and they’re afraid of him so I have to tough it out and be thankful I have a job. This is how it plays out in Park City Utah. To hell with our customers.

  4. What is customer service? I am scared to take a day off because of what I will return to. TE’s do nothing but dump and run. 28 certifieds went out TE delivered exactly 2 of them. Huh?
    Route is now so freaking long that even I can’t do it in any where near my 6.48 “evaluated” street hours. Take the time to pass pleasantries with a customer, how is that going to happen.
    88 year old customer asked me if I could get her some stamps, I had to say no, we are no longer allowed behind the counter, windows are closed when I get back.
    Postal managment has not made one right decision in the past 10 years.
    I KNOW how to provide outstanding customer service, just get out of my way and let me do it.

  5. Don’t mind me.

    With 35 years in the PO I cannot honestly think of a single day in which some manager or manager wanna-be didn’t blow smoke up my hole or out-right lie to or on me.

    I have watched managers pencil-whip mail processing counts and then read us the code of conduct like they really, really meant it.
    I watched one supervisor return to work after delivering a letter of removal for attendance to an employee laid up in ICU laughing and joking about the look on the poor guys face.
    I’ve helplessly watched managers abuse and harass employees until they literally wigged-out. One employee committed suicide.

    I’ve seen, as you have, managers at their raunchy worst.

    After all this, how can our benevolent USPS think we could or would pretend to Mom & Pop that the USPS loves and respects them or their mail? Especially when HQ is using every sneaky, underhanded trick to SHOW Joe Q. Public he doesn’t mean anything to the bottom line?

    I’ll never pass the Postal exam for “Two Faced”!

  6. I’m exhausted. I’ve been listening to this garbage for 32 years. Management is the worst I’ve ever seen. People with zero knowledge and skills get promoted. It’s a shame what has happened, and is happening, to the USPS.

  7. I thought our mission was to scan MSP barcodes. That’s what customers really care about. If I misdeliver a package or a letter, it’s no problem. If I forget to scan a priority package, it’s no problem. If a package gets left behind and delayed an extra day in the office because I’m already onj the street when it’s discovered, it’s no problem. If I miss a scan at a delivery point on my route once in two years, I get written up and threatened with further discipline if I do it again. Yup, we excel at DELIVERY and that’s where are focus is as evidenced by these scenarios that are playing out in every office in the US of A.

  8. As so many I’m really pissed with this BS. The employees are doing a terrific job taking care of our customers against a management group that are constantly trying to ruin the business. The PMG who is constantly threatening to give the public less service and 5 day delivery, is the person who needs to learn how to please our customers not the people who the public deal with daily. The Bozos that are ruining the business are the ones who all need a slap up side the head and a reality check, not the craft employees. Mrs. Brennan you should be ashamed of your self!

  9. Whatever! Another “flavor of the day” for the USPS! There are lots of words, but I expect no real action on the part of management, except to maybe send the stuff out and then the postmasters and supervisors will throw them in the corner and the craft employees will still be left in the lurch, just like every other failed initiative they have launched! Then, when something happens, the craft employee will take the heat by the deficient manager who will do anything to keep that cush job they’ve got. Everyone will be thrown under the bus when the system fails and management will prevail as always…just to have another “flavor of the day” brought on board. The writing is on the wall, people. If the USPS hasn’t learned anything about “the customer experience” by now, they’re not going to. It’s all words, words, words. Sounds good, but that’s about it.

  10. Cognitive dissonance in action – cut the network, denigrate service, extract money from customers at every opportunity. It’s all good though if you do it with a smile on your face and act like you care.
    The same folks who come up with these programs turn a blind eye to autocratic and abusive managers. L’Enfant Plaza no longer has any credibility.

  11. What a bunch of BS, back in the day customer service was longer window hrs so customers could mail stuff b-4 and after normal work hrs, also back when there was real volume B-4 automation we use to start at 0600 and get off by 2:30, then automation came really helped out the PO, managements answer was/is we cannot get the mail to you any sooner so let’s bring you in later until now it’s between 0800 &0900. With late deliveries all the time. You would think with all the automation and less volume we would be starting earlier and getting done earlier giving the customer the service they use to really like. But we all know the real answer to starting late is to “give the carriers a little sence of urgency”. All management has done is to stand in my way of giving good service. So don’t talk to me about customer service it’s all hot air.

  12. This is just a ploy, they need to show congress they are doing everything they can. When this fails it will make it easier for congress to pass the Issa bill as a last resort.

  13. Who wants to stay in an organization that does not promote good workers?, not we, if you are an abusive person and addicted to or abuse alcohol and any drugs, or cannot be at work to perform your craft position, then you are promoted, and also you must sexually harass employees,tell them how they abuse sick leave, when you were out for 6 months with a broken leg from a drinking Binge, or why you need documentation for up to 3 days from an employee, when you the Supervisor still has white powder near his nose from the snorting management party the day before, and you were sick 3 days!, death to the USPS!, bring the evil Empire Down!

  14. Most Federal agencies are offering early retirements and / or buyouts, strange how both Democrats and Republicans want to cut the Federal/Postal workforce and slash benefits and freeze pay, that is, make major reductions in Federal benefits and FERS , the Federal Employees Retirement System, yet there is a substantial pay raise looming for the President, Senate and House (in 2012 ) whom also receive those so called ‘Luxurious” benefits for Federal Employees, this brings up a history trivia question; “Who was Marie Antoinette?”.
    The Postal Service was grossly mismanaged, by the previous Postmaster General , Potter, and the Current one, Patrick Donahoe, as with the Wall street debacle/collapse, when the banks and other companies that were bailed out , prior to and after that, numerous executives received millions in Bonuses, Incentives and Severance pay, so did the Postmaster General, Potter , as will the current Postmaster, yet it is the Craft and Unions to blame for all, by the Congress and the overpaid management in the USPS, craft employees make in the low 50’s ( 53K) at the top step, managers ( lowest supervision) 60k and up, so is this comparable to private industry, in effect, unless someone can show other facts to the contrary, UPS and FEDEX may have better pay and benefits, and easier access for upper mobility.
    The question remains, if all agencies are offering the VER, the Voluntary Early Retirements and Buyouts,and currently virtually every agency to speak of, then
    why does the USPS have to wait for this refund of over payments, to offer the craft employees the options to leave early, meaning those who are close to retirement, but need the no penalty offer to leave, that which makes business sense is never applied to the Post Office, which states it is run like a business, if so ,then what are they waiting for?.

  15. another bunch of management bs derived by a washington crony pulling down 200k a year taking two hour lunches and driving a government car. with the cutbacks and delaying of mail , Megan Brennan is just delivering the PMG donohoes line of absolute baloney. The problem is in washington, have Ms. Breennan be responsible for the program, and when it fails, fire her.

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