Mail Delivery, Customer Service, and Property Conditions Review – Renton Main Post Office, Renton, WA
Background
This interim report presents the results of our self-initiated audit of mail delivery, customer service, and property conditions at the Renton Main Post Office (MPO) in Renton, WA (Project Number 22-097). The Renton MPO is in the Washington District of the WestPac Area and services ZIP Codes 98055 and 98058, which serves about 68,271 people and is considered to be an urban community. We judgmentally selected the Renton MPO based on the number of customer inquiries per route the unit received. From December 1, 2021, through February 28, 2022, the unit received 23.73 inquiries per route, which was more than the average of 13.52 inquiries per route for all sites serviced from the Seattle Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) and the South Delivery Distribution Center (DDC).
Objective, Scope, and Methodology
Our objective was to evaluate mail delivery, customer service, and property conditions at the Renton MPO in Renton WA.
To accomplish our objective, we focused on these four audit areas: delayed mail, package scanning, truck arrival scans, and property conditions. Specifically, we reviewed delivery metrics including the number of routes and carriers, mail arrival time, amount of reported delayed mail, package scanning, and distribution up-time. During our site visit from April 5-7, 2022, we reviewed mail conditions; package and truck arrival scanning procedures; and unit safety, security, and maintenance conditions. We also analyzed the scan status of mailpieces at the carrier cases and in the “Notice Left” area and interviewed unit management and employees. We discussed our observations and conclusions as summarized in Table 1 with management on May 23, 2022 and included their comments where appropriate.
The Renton Post Office is one of four delivery units the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed during the week of April 4, 2022, that is serviced by the Seattle P&DC. We issued this interim report to provide the Postal Service with timely information regarding the conditions we identified at the Renton Post Office and will issue a separate report providing the Postal Service with the overall findings and recommendations for all four delivery units. See Appendix A for additional information about our audit scope and methodology.