Scaling Back Hours, Not Post Offices

Jun 07 2010
OIG Blog Category: Post Offices & Retail Network 19 Comments

A number of media news articles in the last year have examined reductions in Post Office retail hours around the country. They report that some Post Offices are cutting back or eliminating Saturday hours, opening late in the morning or closing earlier in the afternoon during the week. The Postal Service faces significant legal and political constraints when it tries to close Post Offices, but faces few constraints when it acts to cut back on the hours a facility is open. However, eliminating hours amounts to a partial scaling back of retail service. When contacted by media, local Postal Service spokespersons have said districts have no specific targets for reducing hours and potential savings have not been calculated. After notices are posted that a Post Office plans to cut hours, some districts refuse to provide the media with a list of facilities where hours have been reduced, citing competitive issues relative to UPS and FedEx.

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Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), has come out against this approach, noting that cutting hours is a sure way to make the Postal Service’s financial condition worse. She said the Postal Service should be doing more to attract business, rather than making it more difficult for people to mail packages and letters because of reduced hours. So, is cutting Post Office hours the best way for the Postal Service to address declines in mail volume and the limits it faces on closing Post Offices? Is this part of a national Postal Service strategy or taking place solely by Post Offices on their own directive? Does the Postal Service owe the American people a real accounting of the service cuts it is making? What do you think? This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).

Comments (19)

  • anon

    I completely agree with the senator and can speak from personal frustration that I have pretty much given up on even going to the post office to mail anything for a few reasons, one is that the hours are unpredictable and often times I go there thinking I am well within the time limit and yet there is no body there to ship my packages, my other reason is that I have been treated very poorly by extremely rude clerks at the post office. My husband works on a remote island in Alaska and I ship him a package every week so the postal service is losing a lot of business by limiting their hours during the week and being totally closed all weekend long.

    Nov 25, 2017
  • anon

    Why are the Pse hours getting cut and they let us career employees get overtime and we can't get the work done without them

    Aug 01, 2017
  • anon

    My local Clayton, WI post office hours have been cut. Mon-Fri 7:30am - 11:30am 12:30pm - 2:30pm. Sat 8:00am - 10:00am. This may work for retired or people that do not work first shift. I work during these hours so it makes it impossible to get there. If I drive 12 miles to the next town, there they have 2 windows for service, but are understaffed and have only one person behind the counter and must wait in a long line for service. This makes it very difficult to send a package or find out if you have the right amount of postage on a card. I was told that I should use the internet, but, that isn't always an option for postage. It seems as if whoever decided what hours the window would be open was not considering what would work for the consumer. I am not the only one that has been inconvenienced by this. Looks like it has been set up to fail.

    May 02, 2017
  • anon

    If they want to cut back hours thats fine. But they should atleast be open during reasonable hours of the day. My post office doesnt open until 9:00 on weekdays and it closes at 4:00. That means there is no possible way for me to pick up my packages before work or after work. On Saturday it is open from 11a.m. to 12p.m. yes that is correct. 1 hour on Saturday. If you choose to run the Saturday gauntlet you will be met with the longest slowest lines in post office history because any person who works normal weekly hours will be there to pickup their stuff. It can easily eat up an hour of your day off just in the line. If they just opened earlier on weekdays they could close early and i could receive my packages. If they just opened late and stayed open until 6 or 6:30 i would be able to pickup my packages after work. These hours are completely unreasonable.

    Dec 19, 2016
  • anon

    I went to pick up a parcel today at 4:50 pm and was told that the clerk had just went on their 1/2 hr break and to come back. The post office closes at 6:00 pm!

    Nov 26, 2016
  • anon

    I needed to mail a letter today so I prepared it and went to the Post Office. I arrived at 11:35 AM. Seeing that the door was locked and the lights were off, I searched my mind wondering if it was a holiday today. Then I looked for further evidence on the schedule posted on the door and noticed that the local Post Office was closed for lunch from 11:30 AM - 12:30 AM. What successful business could operate like this? I went back after lunch to mail the letter. After offering a nice greeting, I was a met with a turse "what do you need." I said that I needed to mail a letter. She said, "then you just need a stamp?" I said yes. "That wil be 47 cents." She took the letter after the transaction. I said "thanks," receiving hardly a response. I have also had issues with letters taking a ridiculous amount of time to arrive to intended recipients. My wife told me today that a returned undeliverable letter just came back that was mailed in February of this year. Ridiculous! If this were a business not supported by tax dollars, it would not succeed with this type of service.

    Nov 07, 2016
  • anon

    First, find ways to enable the P.O. to be run like a real business motivated by traditional profit-loss metrics, like any normal private sector business. Minimizing Congressional interference is a big key to greatly improving efficiency. Second, "making people happy" is NOT the goal of a private business. Obviously if you anger enough of your customer base enough then you will lose business. But decisions need to be made on the basis of what is best for the BUSINESS of the bost office. Those real-world cost-benefit decisions don';t seem to get made now, as other factors (such as politics) plays an unreasonable role. Thgird, w/o know the inside financials, it seems to me that restricting hours is maybe a positive direction for many under-utilized (mostly rural) sites, you will still have all of the "fixed costs" in place of operating a center, regardless. IOW, you might reduce the open hours in half, but only reduce overall costs by 10% at a given center. The most "efficient" reductions - i.e. biggest bang for the buck - would seem to me to be closing whole centers. That said, reductions in hours might be a right first-step, but not the ultimate solution... Finally, follow the model that was used by the military Base Closings Commission(s). There, too, politics interfered with optimal efficiency and we had way too many military bases in place, usually at the behest of Congress ("a base in every district" mentality). The Commission removed most of the politics and made closure decisions/recommendations based primarily on maximizing efficiency. Maybe something similar would be the ultimate resolution of the P.O. crisis.

    May 10, 2012
  • anon

    That is very good comment you shared.Thank you so much that for you shared those things with us.Im wishing you to carry on with ur achivments. All the best.

    Feb 13, 2011
  • anon

    Hours cutback for each post office should depend on the amount of business. Some customers won't like it.

    Sep 10, 2010
  • anon

    I believe the postal service should start testing for drug use for all employees. From upper management to the lowest employee, everyone should be tested and then let go if they test positive for illegal drugs. (Coming into the postal service you are tested and told if you test positive you will not have a job) It would save the postal service thousands of dollars because it would reduce the work force without having to offer any incentive to leave and save thousands of dollars in retirement benefits not paid out to the drug users.

    Jun 22, 2010
  • anon

    I work at an auxiliary VMF co-located with a Post Office. Recently I walked over to the PO during my lunch break at about 12:20 pm to buy a book of stamps. I was amazed that there was a line of about 12 people waiting to get in, and a sign on the door stating that the PO was closed for lunch and would reopen at 1pm. What kind of service is that?

    Jun 22, 2010
  • anon

    I think that the hours should be cut back. each office should be looked at as to the amount of business it has, and if it is short cut the hours. I am in a level 13 office that can very well be cut from 8 hours to 5-6 hours. This is a small community and there is no need to be open for 8 hours here.

    Jun 17, 2010
  • anon

    i say get rid of all the money grabbing higher ups that dont even touch the mail. too many of them, even in my place of work outside of the po. thats where all the money goes! no postal service in 10 yrs anyway, too bad what a shame for all those people in it for years.but the higher ups will remain thats for sure right?

    Jun 10, 2010
  • anon

    non-profit should be paying more for bulk mail 15.5 per letter doesn;t even cover our cost of handling it also automation mail saturation rate is way to low lets raise these rates

    Jun 09, 2010
  • anon

    Cut out third class mail , all mail should be first class. We have to pay to have junk mail delivered and then pay to have it put in the landfills , why do we have to pay for their free ride in our mail system.

    Jun 08, 2010
  • anon

    they should start by giving customer the service they deserved, not the numbers and scores that to score points, real numbers and real services that people paid for, not any of the lies that managers fix to make them look good in internal report, u can fool customer for long that they will stop using your service.

    Jun 08, 2010
  • anon

    At this point, changing the business model will be key. Each Post Office should be empowered to set the hours based off of their own market share. Example would be like quick service restaurants. Staffing is based off trends when customers frequent the establishment. Labor is an issue constantly, again based from sales (or lack of). Service will be the key. Understandably, the PO is not a restaurant, but the business principle is similar.

    Jun 08, 2010
  • anon

    Customers want convenience, not a hassle. Cut hours (service) and your sure to lose in the end. Make fewer POs, but keep them within a reasonable distance with availability. Let's grow the business! Package services is a market ripe for the picking.

    Jun 07, 2010
  • anon

    Post Offices are distribution facilities (houing not only the carriers but PO boxes) more than retail facilities. Thus one can intelligently discuss dealing with hours at windows and closing counters, vis a vis retail traffice. But whether retail income at any given post office "pays" for the whole post office is a silly and irrelevant comparision given the distribution function.

    Jun 07, 2010

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