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Audit Reports

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Aug
25
2016
Report Number:
MS-AR-16-007
Report Type:
Audit Reports
Category: Customer Service

Customer Service Operations in the Capital and Northern Virginia Districts

Background

Customers in the Capital and Northern Virginia districts notified the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) of several concerns about misdirected, delayed, and returned mail; long retail lines; poor customer service; and inefficient postal operations. These two districts also appeared near the top of a recent OIG risk model’s list of the most at-risk districts for retail customer service.

Postal Service managers are responsible for monitoring customer service and operational efficiency in accordance with applicable policies and procedures. Key tools available to carry out these duties include:

  • The customer service variance model, which helps assess retail customer service productivity at select retail units.
  • Post Office Box and Distribution Up-Time reports, which help track mail timeliness.
  • The integrated operating plan and mail arrival profiles, which provide mail arrival times and composition.
  • The Retail Customer Experience Wait Times report, which provides information on the amount of time customers are waiting in line in Postal Service retail lobbies.

Our objective was to assess customer service operations in the Capital and Northern Virginia districts. During our audit, we identified significant control weaknesses related to Caller Service mail picked up by couriers in these districts, which we reported to management in a February 2016 report.

What the OIG Found

The Capital and Northern Virginia districts need to improve customer service operations. Specifically we visited 17 units and found employees:

Did not perform required mail arrival scans at 14 units we visited with delivery operations, and falsely scanned mail as “delivered” although the mail was found at three units,

Did not meet the target time for having mail ready for collection by PO Box customers at 12 units, and the required time for distribution of mail to the letter carriers at nine units,

Mixed 122 First-Class mailpieces with disposal mail earmarked for destruction at five units.

We also noted that customers exceeded the Postal Service’s five-minute wait-in-line standard at seven units and accurate business hours and services were not always posted in retail lobbies at five units.

These conditions occurred because district and local management did not adequately monitor all customer service-related operations. In addition, none of the units had an updated integrated operating plan and mail arrival profile indicating mail arrival times and conditions to facilitate staffing requirements.

These deficiencies negatively impacted the effectiveness of customer service operations. According to the customer service variance model, units we visited incurred 175,686 more workhours than planned in fiscal year (FY) 2015, costing the Postal Service $8.6 million. In addition, customer complaints related to sending and receiving mail and customer service in these two districts grew by over 11 percent during the first quarter of FY 2016 as compared to the same period last year.

What the OIG Recommended

We recommended management develop strategies to more effectively monitor customer service operations at retail and delivery units by instructing unit employees to follow required scanning and mail handling procedures; coordinating units’ integrated operating plans and mail arrival profiles; and by enhancing the customer lobby experience.

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