Chapter 2 Our Customers

PRIVACY

The Postal Service continued to protect the value of the brand that consumers have trusted over the years. In February, and for the third year in a row, American consumers ranked the Postal Service as the number one government agency they trust to protect their privacy. In the 2007 Ponemon Institute’s Privacy Trust Study of the United States Government, the Postal Service not only retained the top spot but its customer satisfaction and trust scores increased from the previous year even as privacy scores for all other agencies declined.

In the 2007 Ponemon Institute’s Privacy Trust Study of U.S. Businesses, the Postal Service was ranked for the third straight year as one of the top 10 most trusted private sector firms. According to the study, the most important factors for building trust were overall reputation of an organization; respect for customers; quality products or services; online security; and data sharing limits. The Postal Service ranked first among the Package and Delivery industry group in this study.

The Postal Service also continued to support essential privacy aspects of the enhanced Postal Service data security environment. It expanded ongoing corporate communications that increase employee awareness of privacy policies and updated information security requirements and procedures.

Consumer Policies

The Postal Service extended support for consumer policies and procedures by revising change-of-address regulations to permit residential Group E (free box service) Post Office box customers to file the same individual change-of-address requests available to all other customers receiving free carrier service at a physical address.

The Postal Service also extended its responsibility to resolve customer appeals related to Post Office box or caller service terminations and denial of service appeals previously handled through a judicial review. By implementing a centralized appeal resolution process, the Postal Service substantially reduced labor and travel costs while providing customers with an expedited and efficient resolution.