Our retail channel strategy focuses on enhancing the customer experience and ensuring that the Postal Service remains a trusted American institution, while promoting our financial stability and cost efficiency.
The Postal network, consisting of a total of nearly 32,000 Postal-managed Post Offices, stations and branches, is the most extensive in the nation, with more locations than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. We also partner with retailers to provide another 64,000 locations for customers to access stamps and U.S. postal services at times and locations convenient to them. We supply information and services online at usps.com and through applications on most mobile devices.
To fulfill customer needs for service and at a manageable cost, the Postal Service continues to seek innovative retail service alternatives.
Postal Service in Rural Areas. In May 2012, the Postmaster General and the Chief Operating Officer announced a plan to keep rural Post Offices open while addressing the declining mail volumes and revenue. As it is named, POStPlan will impact over 13,000 offices by the time it is completely implemented at the end of FY2014, reducing hours at these offices to 2–6 hours a day. So far, 1,090 Post Offices have been converted to two hours per day. Another 4,203 have been converted to four hours per day, and 2,692 have been converted to six hours daily.
At the same time, the Postal Service has introduced Village Post Offices (VPOs) which are arrangements with local businesses in rural America to provide U.S. postal services where customers shop. A VPO provides a range of popular products and services including PO Boxes, First-Class Mail Forever stamps, prepaid Priority Mail Flat Rate products, Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes and shipping, and a mail collection box. International mailpieces that have a computer-generated customs form with customs data electronically transmitted (through Click-N-Ship or an authorized PC postage vendor), can be deposited at a VPO. In FY2013 the Postal Service opened 338 Village Post Offices in primarily rural communities.
Alternate Access. Many customers prefer the convenience of alternate access choices that include self-service kiosks, online access or mobile devices. We have improved the usps.com website and our mobile applications. Consumers and small businesses can obtain information, and purchase postage online, by phone, mail or fax. They can order supplies and purchase philatelic items, arrange package pickups and print labels. Customers also can use one of the 2,760 self-service kiosks located in Post Offices, many after the Post Office has closed. Lobby assistants were introduced in 132 locations, where our newest self-service kiosks were placed, which provided improved service to all customers including those using the kiosks. In Postal surveys, 83.3 percent of residential customers and 83.2 percent of small/medium business customers, indicated that a “self-service mailing and shipping center is easy to use.” Customer comments included requests for more kiosks, assistance when using the kiosks and 24/7 access.
Retail Partnerships. In 2013, the Postal Service provided customers with access to stamps at more than 64,500 retail partner locations through the Stamps to Go (StG) program. Now more than 15 percent of all stamps are currently being sold through this program, which is one of our most cost-effective channels. Various marketing efforts have been used to remind customers that U.S. Postage is available through more than 650 partner companies. These efforts have been successful in maintaining stamp sales while expanding our retail footprint.
The Contract Postal Unit and the Approved Shipper programs also continue to grow revenue and expand reach through strategic partnerships. In particular, the Approved Shipper program increased its annual revenue by 57 percent this year.
The Stamps by Mail program continues to offer customers stamps delivered through the U.S. Mail without delivery or handling charges. This program remains popular with the elderly and disabled.
Retail Services — gopost™. Currently in pilot testing, gopost™ is the Postal Service’s convenient way to receive and ship packages. The gopost™ units are automated, secured, self-service parcel lockers that are placed in convenient locations, where customers can pick up or ship packages at their convenience, 24/7 at most locations. Customers who sign up for gopost™ receive user ID cards and PIN numbers which they can then use to access lockers and retrieve or send packages.
Roll-out of gopost™ began in 2012, in the Washington, DC area, and there are currently 13 units in Northern Virginia and Maryland. In FY2013, the Postal Service expanded gopost™ to 5 new locations in New York City, including a test of smaller, lower cost indoor units. The gopost™ program is one key component of Postal Service efforts to develop and execute comprehensive parcel locker solutions to help reduce failed first attempt (FFA) package delivery and improve the customer package pick-up experience.
Retail Services — Post Office (PO) Box Service. New Post Office services and features are currently available at all of the 6,800 competitive Post Offices (a competitive Post Office is one where the Postal Service will provide some of the same services offered by its competitors at comparable prices):
Additional PO Box services and features are currently available at many of these 6,800 Post Offices:
These new enhanced PO Box services — accompanied by extensive field outreach — have helped generate significant new revenue. In FY2013, the total revenue for PO Boxes including Caller Services was 982.9 million, a new milestone for the services and 5.8 percent growth in revenue over FY2012. Retail Services will continue to aggressively support growth of these services and improve the overall customer experience for PO Boxes.
Retail Services — Passports. The Postal Service partnership with the Department of State — Passport Services — is critical to the success of providing customer service for the American public. Postal Service employees accept more than 72 percent of first-time applications. The Postal Service currently has over 5,400 Postal facilities that provide fee-based passport acceptance of first-time applications for customers applying for a U.S. passport book or U.S. passport card. Over 5,200 Postal facilities provide both passport acceptance and photo services (for a fee) which promotes customer convenience and one stop shopping. A near-term goal is to improve contribution from passports by increasing efficiency, growing the number of applications accepted and improving service to meet the requirements of the Department of State. In particular, the emphasis will be to improve the percentage of passport mailings processed through automation, consolidate passport facilities and create Passport Centers within designated Postal facilities.
Retail Services — Premium Forwarding Service. Premium Forwarding Service (PFS) provides customers the option of temporarily forwarding their mail once a week by paying application and weekly shipment fees. The customer’s PFS mail is shipped via Priority Mail service with USPS Tracking™. In January 2012, the Postal Service launched an online version of PFS, which offers customers the convenience of applying and managing their account online at usps.com. PFS online continues to help grow revenue and create efficiencies by increasing the portion of transactions conducted online. Overall, PFS revenue grew 13 percent in FY2013, and PFS online revenue already represents 20 percent of all PFS revenue.
Retail Revenue by Channel. The Postal Service strives to balance customer convenience and accessibility to our services with initiatives designed to control cost. We continue to see customers shift away from brick and mortar Postal facilities to alternate forms of access as shown in the chart.
Retail revenue by channel
Retail Operations. Retail performance is measured by the Retail Customer Experience (RCE) program, as well as by surveys of residential and small and medium business customers. The RCE program hires private “mystery shoppers” who conduct mailing transactions at over 8,600 of our large retail outlets. The data from these transactions are analyzed, evaluated and feedback is provided to help improve the customer experience.
Other customer experience ratings, including overall satisfaction with Post Office visits are collected quarterly via national surveys of residential and small business customers.
One key measure of a customer’s retail experience is a wait time in line. The service standard for this attribute is “Five Minutes or Less.” For FY2013, the final national Wait Time in Line average was 2:29 versus the previous year of 2:34, an improvement of 5 seconds.
The Overall Retail Experience score from the RCE mystery shops was 92.86 percent versus the previous year score of 92.80, an improvement of .06.
*Source: Retail Datamart. Retail Customer Experience Program
