What are “Quick Tools?” They’re four custom applications that allow users of usps.com to quickly and easily perform specific tasks such as “Track & Confirm,” “Find a Post Office,” “Calculate Postage,” and “Look Up a ZIP Code.”  They’re also an integral part of the new usps.com website, which was launched recently.

The tools were designed based on extensive research of user traffic patterns and the most-common tasks preformed on the current usps.com. They’re what users said they wanted, and the Postal Service is happy to give it to them.

Quick Tools applications launch in modal windows that “float” over a web page. They ask users to enter a minimal amount of information to retrieve the information they want.  The applications will appear on every page of the new usps.com website, so customers — no matter where they are — can quickly and easily get the information they want.

Quick Tools applications have other features to improve the user experience. For example, customers will be able to track up to ten packages, search for Post Offices according to the services provided and retrieve an image of the Post Office they select.

Some of the usps.com website’s new features include:

• Quick Tools” section — Four of the most commonly used tasks by customers — Track and Confirm, Find USPS Locations, Calculate a Price and ZIP Code Lookup — now will be located in the upper left-hand corner on every page throughout the website. Quick Tools gives users convenient access to this information without interrupting their shipping or mailing process.

• Take Action — This feature eliminates the need to navigate from page to page to find usps.com’s popular shipping and shopping Web pages, such as Shipping a Package, Sending Mail, Managing their Mail and The Postal Store. With Take Action, located on every page of usps.com, customers are one click away from completing a transaction anytime and anywhere on the website.

• About.usps.com — Corporate information, postal history, corporate structure, and news releases will be moved to a new website called about.usps.com.

For more information about purchasing stamps, stamps by mail, postal regulations, a free subscription to USA Philatelic magazine, Post Office events, the location of the nearest postal store or contract unit, or for answers to your specific Postal Service questions, contact USPS at 1-800-275-8777, or visit www.usps.com.  For detailed information on selection criteria for stamps visit http://www.stamps.com/communications/organization/csac.htm. 

We’re everywhere so you can be anywhere: www.uspseverywhere.com

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. We’re everywhere so you can be anywhere: www.uspseverywhere.com. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.