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Pushing the Envelope Blog

Dialing Up Customer Service at USPS

Date: 10/11/21 | Category: Products & Services

For any business, customer service is important. It improves the brand image, keeps customers loyal, and provides insights into the customer experience. In the past, customer service operations for a major corporation would involve thousands of service agents to handle calls — from routine problems to more complex ones. Technology has changed customer service, allowing automated systems to handle routine inquiries 24 hours a day without requiring an agent.

For its 1-800-ASK-USPS customer care line, the Postal Service employs an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to answer calls, automatically handling routine issues such as package tracking, finding post office locations and hours, and submitting hold mail requests. This allows customers to find solutions for certain issues without being put on hold or being referred to agents for complicated problems. In Fiscal Year 2020, the Postal Service’s IVR system handled 90 million calls!

Our latest white paper, 1-800-ASK-USPS: The Postal Service’s Interactive Voice Response System, examines the effectiveness of the Postal Service’s IVR system at handling inquiries. We found that two of the metrics, the containment rate (the percent of calls not transferred to agents) and customer satisfaction, have both increased over the past years. Still, there is room for improvement. A quarter of IVR users who stay on the line at the end of the call to take a survey were very dissatisfied with their IVR experience, which might be worth exploring further.

We also found the Postal Service was counting any call not transferred to an agent as contained. For example, if someone called and hung up in frustration before getting the information they sought, that call would still count as resolved by the IVR system. We recommended the Postal Service track abandoned calls and more accurately track contained calls. This could help them accurately identify customer frustration points with the IVR system.

Have you called 1-800-ASK-USPS recently? What was your experience?

Leave a Comment

Your Name
Kate Van Houten
Mar 30, 2022
Your Comment
Tried to call to straighten out a problem with delivery. Daughter got a note on her mailbox saying an attempt was made to deliver a package from me, but said it was postage due. It's already paid for.

Phone system was not picking up any keystrokes or voice input at all. Nothing I did made any difference.
Your Name
Anon
Mar 28, 2022
Your Comment
ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE IVR THE WORST-ON-THE-PLANET. No system should ever default to just HANGING-UP on the customer just because the IVR navigation is not going along as desired. [1] YOUR SYSTEM should default to connecting to an agent if the IVR is not understanding the customer AND [2] *HIRE* enough competent educated people instead of just making millions of people wait AN ENTIRE HOUR MORE MORE to speak with a real person. UTTER HYPOCRISY by USPS management and rich execs. Is that what YOU would want when calling a customer service center. CALL YOUR OWN SYSTEM. Experience the aggravation that everyone else has to experience.
Your Name
Braydon davies
Mar 15, 2022
Your Comment
This is literally the most goofed off horrific customer care system ive ever dealt with. Says I’ve had a package delivered. Well says “ was delivered to Canada” which is probably the least descriptive thing it could say and won’t accept tracking number and hangs up. Complete joke
Your Name
Christi
Mar 15, 2022
Your Comment
I have called several times regarding a package that has Been “in possession of the Usps” for 8 days now. I want to speak to a live person but it just goes on a continuous loop! So so frustrating! Ridiculous!
Your Name
Dylan Heffner
Mar 12, 2022
Your Comment
I want to talk to someone A REAL PERSON about my priority package that has been in transit for 6 going on 7 days now. But the leesburg GA post office refuses to answer any phone calls i make i live 14 hours away wth is going on?!
Your Name
Alexandra O’Neil
Mar 12, 2022
Your Comment
I have lost two packages with USPS. I tried calling the help hotline to talk to a human. But every time the automated system would just loop back to the beginning. It’s very frustrating that I cannot get the help I need. There needs to be a more efficient way to get help when needed.
Your Name
Tom Doherty
Mar 10, 2022
Your Comment
Maddening is a complete understatement. It's a living hell, having to navigate thru the computerized answering system that never hears what your saying & hangs up on you, after spending 10 minutes pressing buttons, giving a 22 digit number, repeating the number, being sent back to the start. I just wish the supervisors who approved this horrible system had to endure it themselves at least once a day. Maybe then, and only then, would it change to something that people could actually use, without raising their blood pressure through the roof.
Your Name
Sharon
Mar 8, 2022
Your Comment
This system is maddening. No person at all. I'm trying to find a package that should have been delivered last week. It's been at a standstill since arriving in this city. USPS manager at the nearest location says it's still on a barge and he doesn't know when it'll be delivered!!!! How? It would be great to speak to someone removed from the situation who may be able to clarify the situation. That's not possible with the system looped to check the tracking information that I already have.
Your Name
Paul Karmo
Mar 1, 2022
Your Comment
If you in your right mind think that this automated service works AT ALL you are delusional. I have been trying for days to get a hold of a HUMAN BEING at USPS and I cannot get an answer. My package was not delivered because of a "wrong address" but the address is NOT WRONG. The automated service only tells me, after entering my tracking information, that the delivery address is wrong and that I must contact the sender. Which I did. They had the correct address. I called back to USPS and got the same automated directions. After entering the tracking number again, they ask me if this solved my problem, and I say "NO," to which they take me back to the main menu. When I ask to speak with someone or press 0, it tells me that in order to speak with a customer service agent, I will need to have a tracking number. When I give the tracking number, it goes back to the same loop that I received earlier. IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO SPEAK TO A HUMAN BEING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. DOES ANYONE WORK AT THE POSTAL SERVICE. I EVEN CALLED MY LOCAL BRANCH MULTIPLE TIMES AND NO ONE IS PICKING UP.
Your Name
Harvey Miller
Feb 20, 2022
Your Comment
Horrible Service in every aspect from the bottom to the top ..Customer service. Employees amd services are the worst i have ever dealt with and will never use them ..I dont even want my mail delivered from them.
Your Name
Taargus
Feb 17, 2022
Your Comment
Asks for agent, you're forced to put in a tracking number, you start putting in the tracking number and it interrupts you and you start over, same thing happens, over and over until the system hangs up on you.

Pointlessly long speeches you have to sit through in order to get to the next section.

Simple voice commands don't even work.

Total garbage automation.

Probably intentional. Pathetic.
Your Name
Stancich
Feb 15, 2022
Your Comment
Our recent experiences with the customer service phone system has been horrible! It is the WORST system that we have ever encountered! Every time we try to talk to a human it just shifts back to the menu. It doesn’t matter what you do or what steps you take. You can yell scream type zero a million times. It doesn’t matter if you have a tracking number or not nothing ever works! We have been trying to file complaints about our packages being improperly delivered by the substitute drivers. Yet we can never talk to a human. You give a tracking number that is in reference to the item you want to complain about and the computer tells you it has been delivered and hangs you up or sends you back to the main menu. This is a house hold with elderly and disabled! There is no excuse for a system to be so automated and it is seriously lacking the customer service that our country needs now more than ever!
Your Name
dalia
Feb 14, 2022
Your Comment
horrible phone service. your menu driven options don't register our responses.
I've had to call back three times. and on third try was routed to the long wait when I had indicated I wanted to be put in queue and ghave a call back. you don't have enough lobbying power ...you need more money and more people to help us.
my issue was that I cannot create a new act because your system shows me with an old act, but I don't remember the password, or security answers, so I can't create a new act without being released from the old one. it's a circuitous hell! get some web and phone system programmers that know what user friendly means.
Your Name
Helene Holl
Feb 14, 2022
Your Comment
Impossible to get an agent on the phone to discuss refund for a Priority Mail Express package that was delivered 20 days late. I filed a claim on line and it says refund paid but I have never received the refund, nor was it credited to the card I originally use to pay for postage.
  
Your Name
tdaniel
Oct 4, 2022
Your Comment
same problem i have stupid machine put ina tracker doesnt wor k

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Your Name
John Wade Bogren EA
Feb 7, 2022
Your Comment
This system is designed to stop people from contacting customer service. It is designed to frustrate, stop, and annoy anyone with a customer service issue. It took four tries to get through all the possible prompts to finally prompt me to go back to the Website to find an alternative number. It took three tries to get a prompt for a call back. That individual Latoya was very nice, but her job did not allow her to help me. I sent time sensitive corporate documents for signature with tracking, and was calling my client real time with updates while they watched their mail box Jan 27th 2022. Even though I told them it was coming, and that tracking showed it was delivered in Idaho to their home at 8:22 pm, they watched and checked and nothing and no one came. Of course they deny the claim because "It shows it was delivered" , 8 below zero, in the dark in Idaho, sure. Thje Post Office supervisor tells my client, "It was delivered late so maybe it went to the wrong address, check with your neighbors" but all say they did not see the missing package. The appeal is filed online and acknowledged, but no notice when the claim or the subsequent appeal is denied by email. NO, that is "In the mail" but it took 4 hours of phone calls , phone trees, and poring over the Website to get an individual to repeat "I shows it was delivered." At my own home I have to have a private mailbox for my home base business as the Fill in postal carriers continually left IRS notices to me for my clients in various other adresses around my neighborhood, on some days up to three confidential tax notices to several adresses near my home, bless my neighbors for returning them. I use USPS priority dozens and dozens of times a year, and whem there is a problem it is awful, and designed to be awful.
Your Name
Judy
Feb 7, 2022
Your Comment
USPS automated phone system SUCKS! The system for redelivery is so bad and I could not get through to a human. Can't even call the local post office anymore to complain about their non-delivery attempt.
Your Name
Brad Kenyon
Feb 3, 2022
Your Comment
I can't get through on the phone to someone to help me. I accidentally mailed a letter with no stamp. What happens to it!? It hasn't been returned to me after two days. I can't even get a live response.
Your Name
Marija Mijuskovic
Jan 31, 2022
Your Comment
Connect with Customer Service information
Your Name
Linda
Jan 29, 2022
Your Comment
Had sent a priority mail to DC with passport in it. It's been five days in transit. The USPS update automatically renews the same message at the end of day, claiming it is in transit to the next facility. Called customer service, she didn't provide any more information than what's on the web, and when I press on more information she hung up.
My dad is in critical condition, and USPS lost my passport. I don't know how I can make it to see him!
Your Name
Raymond Hamilton
Jan 28, 2022
Your Comment
No matter what I've done during the normal operating hours of the customer care phone number for the USPS I cannot get to a live agent I cannot get past the tracking number thing I say I don't have it I keep saying or asking did I say help if it asks did I say agent I say yes and it goes back to asking for a tracking number why can't we just get to a straight live agent without having to have a tracking number all the time that's ridiculous
  
Your Name
Chuck
Jan 31, 2022
Your Comment
I just went through the same thing this morning. 35 minutes on the IVR and never got an agent, despite saying 'agent' many times. The IVR got my answer wrong multiple times, hung up on me a couple of times, and rarely got the tracking number correct. Still waiting on my call back. I just want to know why they can't deliver a package to my door that was too big for the mailbox, just like the carrier always does for packages that don't fit in the mailbox.

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Your Name
Anonymous
Jan 24, 2022
Your Comment
Absolutely horrific! The customer service line takes you around and around in circles and you can never speak to a human being. When calling the local post office it starts by saying hold while we transfer you to the next agent. It then rings and rings for several minutes before it finally goes to a fast busy signal. Customer service is non-existent!
Your Name
JANET JOHNS
Jan 18, 2022
Your Comment
I had a package that I mailed priority and was delivered to the wrong zip code. I keep getting denied because it was delivered. The automated system has no way to listen to me say, "Sure it was delivered but to the WRONG address." I've tried everything with no clear route for me to take. I've appealed online. No answer and no way to find out how long I should wait.
Your Name
Aaron
Jan 12, 2022
Your Comment
I have a package saying "in transit to the next facility" with no way of knowing if it is halfway around the world by now by some snaffoo. I called the customer service number and absolutely could not get a hold of an agent. Every time, it either looped the main menu or said "I have to hang up because I need to help more people." IT'S A ROBOT! It can help anyone who calls in, and this is absolutely ridiculous. It's like it's trying so hard to not put me through that it would rather I hang up.