Delivery Programs, Retail, and the Postal Inspection Service, is bringing improved organizational efficiency to this activity.

     Corporate Customer Contact (CCC) provides Postal Service customers with easy toll-free access to a broad range of products and services through 800-ASK-USPS. CCC also handles domestic Express Mail and Priority Mail tracking and tracing calls to 800- 222-1811, stamp orders through 800-STAMP-24. CCC also provides support for the majority of customer contacts received via e-mail through the Contact Us page on www.usps.com. The overall goal of CCC is to improve customer service and operating efficiency, decrease general information calls to Post Office branches and increase revenue through establishment of an effective national contact-handling infrastructure. The CCC network includes two centers in Denver, CO, and Orem, UT, which annually respond to more than 68 million phone and e-mail inquiries from across the nation regarding general information, mailing rates, hours and locations of local Postal Service facilities, service opportunities, and stamp orders, as well as technical problems related to the Postal Service Web site.

     After transferring contact center responsibilities to the Vice President, Consumer Advocate's organization in 2001, the program has been enhanced with automated voice recognition technology that answers customer requests for ZIP Code information, rates, and local Post Office hours and locations. CCC is currently transitioning the program to streamline and consolidate the enterprise contact center and customer care, and to leverage the CCC infrastructure to support personalized product and service transactions, whether by telephone, e-mail, or online.

     The Postal Service has a fundamental requirement to provide products and services that meet the varied needs of its business and residential customers. The Postal Service

continues to monitor the business environment for specific products and customer segments through market research, customer satisfaction/loyalty measurements, and customer value analysis. The Postal Service continued to pursue a number of initiatives in 2003 focused on improving the value of existing products and services and developing new products and services to meet customers' needs.

     Letter-shaped mail accounted for 73 percent of the Postal Service's total domestic mail volume in 2003. Of that, approximately 64 percent of letters delivered in 2003 were mailed using First-Class Mail service and 36 percent using Standard Mail service. Efficient service is the foundation of these flagship products. The continued focus on transaction mail (bills, statements, and payments) positions the Postal Service to remain the primary channel for businesses and consumers to conduct financial transactions. Ongoing refinements of the National Firm Holdout program, redesign of Business Reply Mail (BRM) service, and constant attention to two- and three-day service performance have supported service improvements in this critical part of the mail base.

     The Postal Service is also exploring other avenues for its customers to use letter mail to promote their businesses. The Postal Service continues to test and develop several new initiatives and enhancements for letter mail, including the USPS MicroPayment concept, and Repositionable Notes™.

     The concept and development test for the USPS ValuePost would allow customers to use First-Class Mail postcards as an innovative customer acquisition and reply mechanism for direct marketers and nonprofit organizations. The program would deliver the card images, rather than hard copy, and would provide a platform for postage stamps to be used for low-pricepoint purchases or donations. In 2003, the ValuePost program would enhance central