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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
Sur pan
Aug 22, 2022
Your Comment
I have been calling the local usps telephone number multiple times to get some information about m-bags. It is waste of time. The usps should abolish automatic response system. Usps should add option to callback to a given number. It is annoying to get this auto response good for nothing.
Your Name
Charles Haggerty
Aug 20, 2022
Your Comment
This entire system is designed with one goal in mind; to frustrate the customer to the point of hanging up and hoping whatever they called about is eventually resolved by an organization that couldn't care less about it's customers. It is no wonder people use any other service but the USPS if possible these days. What a complete joke. Why have a customer service department if customers are unable to reach them? Even your online forms don't work. Pathetic.
Your Name
Allen Martin
Aug 11, 2022
Your Comment
USPS hold my package and claims that I told them to do so when I did not. When I called to speak to an agent I just get an automated voice thing that keeps giving me a runaround and never solving my issues getting a hold of an actual person is pretty much impossible. I have half a mind to seriously stand against USPS
Your Name
F Boyd Crow
Jul 28, 2022
Your Comment
After support request on the Internet failed four times using Chrome and Edge, I tried phone support. Automated case setup failed to recognize "B" as apartment number because it added the word "apartment" as a prefix and said it did not agree with package address which has "B" as second address line. Callback from agent menu refused to respond to keypress "1", so I could not connect. I still have not been able to report package scanned as delivered but it was not in my locked mailbox and I live alone. IT IS MADDENING! I have spent 45 minutes on this with nothing to show for it. Automation is fine but only if it works. There has to be a failsafe somewhere and NOT just a hangup. I'm a professional programmer and this is piss-poor programming.
Your Name
Leroy Brunner III
Jul 22, 2022
Your Comment
The IVR is clearly designed to deter customers from reaching a representative by infuriating the customer to the point of abandoning the call. It's interesting that an abandoned call make their metrics look good. This is not a coincidence. It's also an insult, among many, to the tax payer.
Your Name
Nadiah Beekun
Jul 19, 2022
Your Comment
Somebody told me how to get a live person. But it takes awhile because they get busy... Call the USPS number. When you are given choices, say OTHER. Then say TECHNICAL SUPPORT, Then say TROUBLE SHOOTING, Then say SOMETHING ELSE, Then again say SOMETHING ELSE. You will be connected to someone then, or you will be put on hold for a few minutes, or the system took my number and will theoretically call me in 23 to 32 minutes. I am waiting for a call back now....
  
Your Name
Pam Flynn
Aug 26, 2022
Your Comment
THANK U SO MUCH FOR THIS!!! Typical government experience. Horrible!
Your Name
Ashley
Jul 16, 2022
Your Comment
I keep trying to call the 1-800-275-8777 number and it always says it cannot be completed as dialed. When I try to call the post office, no one answers. What gives?
Your Name
Charles Earley
Jul 16, 2022
Your Comment
There is no way to reach a live person. I have a package that I received a notice about through informed delivery for my address, but it was returned to the post office because they claim the address is incomplete. Informed delivery shows the address is correct. I filed a report and no one has contacted me. You cannot get through this voice response hell. Why does it even exist?
  
Your Name
Bob Mak
Jul 18, 2022
Your Comment
I'm facing the same exact issue.
Your Name
Sylvia
Jun 24, 2022
Your Comment
Terrible service. Very frustrating cause the automated voice doesn’t answer questions. I need a live person.
Your Name
Jane
Jun 23, 2022
Your Comment
Everytime I try and use this number my cell says the number can’t be completed as dialed. I use the box you click on that says dial this number so I am not miss dialing. I’ve tried it with both just numbers and the one with the askups stuff.
Your Name
Gregg Albergotti
Jun 22, 2022
Your Comment
The call number is useless.
Nearly everything to file or contact is an endless circle to keep people from being able to file complaints. Orangeburg SC postal service has become a very big problem and getting worst by the day. Something can’t be done fast enough. Our business mail and personal mail is affected. Other businesses and others in general are talking about the same thing can’t count in the mail. Wow!
Your Name
Rebecca
Jun 17, 2022
Your Comment
1-800-ask-usps is the ONLY USPS number that you can call and actually speak to a human being. None of the Post Offices in the Harrisburg, PA area (15-20-25???offices) Not a one answers their phone. They just let it ring until you feel like hanging up. They don't care how many times their phone rings. NO ONE EVER picks up the phone. The INSPECTOR GENERAL TELEPHONE NUMBER IS OUT OF SERVICE...NO ONE ANSWERS THAT NUMBER EITHER. GOOD LUCK FILING A CLAIM. USPS IS FUCKED UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
Your Name
Trevor
Jun 22, 2022
Your Comment
I’ve been so confused reading all these comments, thinking, Is everyone calling the same number. No,No, they couldn’t be. Is that 1-800 number the one everyone is calling? If so, everybody knows to never call a 1-800 number because there so generic. Well I thought everyone knew. So they provide 1 number to serve the ENTIRE country of America. Well no wonder it’s always Busy. The whole country is trying to call it at the same time. Every post office Building in every town is required to have a Land Line, for safety reasons, and a quick google search can provide you with your own towns Post Office Number. I’ll give you a Hint (it should start with your area code that you live in) On occasion, I’ll call up my local Post Office, and a supervisor working at that office answers every time, nicest lady, and promptly helps me with whatever concerns I have at the time. Why call a hotline in Washington DC for help in a small town in California. And remember, the Post Office is providing service to EVERY ADDRESS in America, which can be a tall order, patience and gratitude go along way with them.
     
Your Name
Bob
Sep 25, 2022
Your Comment
No, no, no - every post office does not have a landline. I tried and tried to call the number listed for my local post office and finally got in the car and drove there to get an answer to my question. The lady there said that the phone had been removed about two years ago. I told her that the number was still on their website and it would be helpful if she could refer the issue to her supervisors. She said that wasn't her job and referred me to the local sorting facility, that also told me they didn't do that there. A referral to the national "hel[p]" line yielded the wonderful results everyone posting here has experienced.
Your Name
Vincent Patrick LaMonaca
Jun 14, 2022
Your Comment
I’ve the same complaint about the the automated voice system. I tried to call the usps office in Durham to see if a graduation card got to a friend of mine who lives there and I didn’t get any human contact or connection.
Your Name
GERARDO
Jun 8, 2022
Your Comment
I need a way to speak to a live person because the automated system DOES NOT resolve my issue.
Your Name
Fred
Jun 1, 2022
Your Comment
Horrible
Your Name
catherine casey
May 27, 2022
Your Comment
Garbage automated system. There is NO WAY to talk to a human. So frustrating.
Your Name
John G. Compton
May 9, 2022
Your Comment
The IVR system options I've explored, and they are many, do not appear to lead to a human contact. My issue requires a human interaction. I have been unable to return a call form a USPS employee I've been working with concerning post office agreement with the Town of Washington Grove. The number provided to me by the USPS employee, Ms Deborah Chambers, ‭(202) 636-2296‬, has not been ansewered after more than 10 calls over 3 days, and each time leads to a voice mail which will not accept messages.
Your Name
Jake gooch
Apr 18, 2022
Your Comment
Your ivr system needs a key to put you strait to an operator it is no help to what i need what ever happend to using 0
Your Name
Anonymous
Apr 15, 2022
Your Comment
The first two times I got a series of adds and I got disconnected when I tried to click through them. Now every time I call it says not available in your service area.
Your Name
Joe Herchko
Apr 9, 2022
Your Comment
I am one of many who out of frustration had to just hang up as opposed to ever getting to speak to an agent as the voice assistant is not capable of transferring calls it cannot comprehend to an agent it just keeps repeating itself over and over and out of frustration the only resolution is to hang up.
Packages come from China in 3 days then lay in the vast wasteland of the usps for days without going anywhere no way to contact customer service no help from our usless administration as all they want to do is form comittees to waste more tax payer money.
Your Name
Ellen
Apr 5, 2022
Your Comment
I did not get a live body first time I called. Tried the next day and got someone.
Trying multiple times and can’t get an agent
This is the most frustrating IVR
I have some package that’s been in the system since March 22. Have no clue what it is.