Entries Posted in Delivery & Collection

  • Go Secure With gopost
    on Mar 4th, 2013 in Delivery & Collection | 5 comments

    Imagine if customers didn’t have to wait at home for a package delivery or have to rush home from work to retrieve a package off their front porch. Or, what if they could avoid paying a fee to receive packages at another address? With 24-hour parcel lockers, their prayers are answered.

    Last spring, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled gopost™, a self-service parcel locker system. The Postal Service is pilot-testing the 24-hour secured locker systems in the Washington, DC, area at locations such as shopping centers, grocery stores, pharmacies, and transportation hubs. Many gopost locker systems are accessible 24-hours a day, have a security camera, touch screen operations, and they provide mailing receipts.

    Customers can register online to send or receive packages, with no fee to register and use the lockers. Instead of using residential addresses, customers can have shipments sent to the address of a selected and convenient gopost locker system. They then pick up their package at a time that works for them.

    Additionally, once registered, the customer can receive communications through either email or by text when their package arrives. More details about gopost operations are at the Postal Service’s website.

    The growth in packages is expected to rise steadily as Americans do more of their shopping online and via digital devices. In just the past few years, the Postal Service has seen volume growth in package services of about 15 percent. Increasingly, customers want the security and convenience of picking up packages from a location other than their own address.

    What other factors should the Postal Service consider as it deploys more parcel locker systems to other locations? Would you like a gopost location near you? How often do you think you would use a gopost locker?

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  • Is it Time for a Uniform Approach to Uniforms?

    on Dec 17th, 2012 in Delivery & Collection | 27 comments
    The U.S. Postal Service delivery workforce consists of city and rural letter carriers, who perform similar duties, but have differences in compensation and work rules. City letter carriers typically work routes that are high density and low mileage. These routes are classified as either “mounted” routes (for those that require a vehicle) or “walking” routes (for those that are done on foot). City letter carriers are also given a $371 per year uniform allowance. Rural letter carriers typically work routes that have a lower density of delivery points and higher mileage than those of city letter carriers. They work mounted routes, leaving their vehicles only to deliver to grouped mailboxes or to deliver an item that must be taken to a customer's door. However, rural routes have expanded to suburbs and exurbs, which are more densely populated and urbanized. These routes are similar to mounted “city” routes. Because suburban areas in the country continue to flourish, the rural carrier craft is the only craft in the Postal Service still growing. Postal Service policy states that rural carriers must present a neat, clean, and professional appearance reflecting a positive postal image, but does not require rural carriers to wear uniforms like their city counterparts. The 114,000 rural carriers and non-career rural carrier associates serve as a post office on wheels. They perform many of the services that a customer could receive at a retail counter. They sell stamps and money orders; provide Priority Mail flat rate boxes; accept Express and Priority mail; offer signature and delivery confirmation; and collect mail and parcels. Rural carriers provide their own vehicles to deliver mail on nearly half of the more than 73,000 rural routes. Now that the rural carrier craft is becoming more "urbanized," they are more visible to the public. Also, the past few years has seen an increase in the number of rural carriers delivering mail in Postal Service vehicles with the logo on the side. Do you think a uniformed shirt for rural carriers would be an overall positive change for the Postal Service as far as image, branding, marketing, and security? Would a uniformed shirt for rural carriers give employees a larger sense of unity and ownership to the mission of the Postal Service? Or is the idea of a uniform old-fashioned?

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  • “Return to Sender” Returns Interesting Results
    on Dec 3rd, 2012 in Delivery & Collection | 6 comments
    The U.S. Postal Service is about the best in the world at providing its core service of mail delivery. In fact, its ability to deliver mail and return undeliverable mail to the sender effectively makes the United States government one of the most efficient in the world, according to a working paper by National Bureau of Economic Research. A group of economists rated the efficiency of the world's governments with a simple test of their postal systems. The group mailed fake letters to nonexistent businesses in 159 countries and waited a year to see which were sent back to a professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The goal was to use a simple, universal service to explore why, other than corruption, developing countries tend to have poorly performing governments. All the letters went to countries that subscribe to the Universal Postal Union, which requires that incorrectly addressed mail be returned within a month. The United States was one of only four countries to send the undeliverable letters back within 90 days, along with El Salvador, Czech Republic, and Luxembourg. In fact, the U.S. had the fastest return rate at 16 days, although it may have benefited from returning the letters to an address in the United States. It also returned 100 percent of the fake-addressed letters. The study was not intended to assess the Postal Service, but the results do highlight some of its key strengths, at least compared to foreign posts. Foremost, better classification systems for addresses tended to result in faster returns, the economists noted. The Postal Service uses uniform address standards and its address database is among the most robust in the world. Again, this was not the study’s intention, but the results seem to support the Universal Postal Union’s (UPU) position that a national addressing system is essential to the economic and social advancement of countries. In its recent white paper, “Addressing the World – An Address for Everyone,” the UPU says that in many developing countries, physical addresses exist only in city centers. Without physical addresses, it is difficult to impossible for public services and businesses to reach their intended targets. “A quality address infrastructure must be considered as an essential part of a country’s socio-economic infrastructure, not only for improving public services, but also facilitating business, trade and, consequently, national development,” the UPU says. How important is an addressing infrastructure to government efficiency and business development? What parts of addressing does the Postal Service do particularly well? What could be improved? Share your thoughts.

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