USPS SENDS CONFUSING SIGNALS ON SERVICE STANDARDS AND MEASUREMENTS
The following is a Postal Perspective from PostCom Vice President Kate Muth. The views expressed are solely the author’s. PostCom welcomes the responsible expression of alternative views from other individuals or organizations.
It’s a good thing the Postal Service isn’t running a railway line. It sure has been sending some confusing signals to its customers lately.
Speaking at the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting recently, PMG Jack Potter said he wants to be as transparent as possible when it comes to providing service. “We are competing with Internet and electronic systems and having that transparency is critical if mail is going to be relevant.” The idea of measuring the mailsteam and allowing people to view it is critical to the success of the industry, Potter said.
And yet, the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on service standards and performance measurement said the most important impediment to progress toward implementing delivery performance measurements for all major mail types is “the lack of management commitment and effective collaboration with the mailing industry to follow up on recommendations for improvements and to resolve issues between USPS and mailers.”
The GAO report says, “A USPS senior vice president told us that USPS had no plans for implementing additional measures of delivery performance. A second USPS senior vice president explained that although some pieces of mail may be tracked as automated equipment reads barcodes on the mail, enabling more information for management and diagnostic purposes, these pieces are unrepresentative, and USPS has no plans for using mail tracking data to develop representative measure of delivery performance. As for major types of mail that are not measured, USPS has publicly reported that it has no system in place for measuring service performance for Standard Mail on a system-wide basis and currently has no plans for the development of such a system.” Likewise, the official said USPS had no plans to develop representative measures for bulk First-Class Mail.
In its written response to GAO, the Postal Service said, “As we noted, visibility must extend through the entire mail value chain, not solely the activities performed by the Postal Service once mail has been entered into our system. Our vision, contained in the Strategic Transformation Plan, 2006-2010, is to ultimately measure service performance and provide transparency for all classes through the entire mail supply chain… We intend to lead this effort by implementing a variety of technological solutions, such as the 4-State Customer Barcode and enhancements to our bulk mail acceptance systems.”
At MTAC, Potter seemed to kick the ball over to industry. He said it was becoming more apparent that it’s not just the Postal Service and what it does with the mail, but it’s the whole industry. While he acknowledged that the USPS contributed to service issues, sometimes it is not the Postal Service but others in the supply chain, such as mailing list providers, printers and logistics providers.
Industry is doing its part to provide greater visibility of mail, having created numerous tracking systems and performance measurement tools over the years. Indeed, for Standard Mail, Periodicals and bulk First Class Mail, the only way for a mailer to measure performance is to use an industry-created tool. But postal officials have been reluctant to accept the data these tools generate when a customer wants to use them for resolution of a problem.
What industry wants is for the Postal Service to measure mail delivery – once a piece actually becomes mail. Once a letter or flat has entered the mailstream, when can one reasonably expect that piece to reach its destination; and how often is that expectation met?
Yes, the postal system is complex with numerous entry points and various presort levels for bulk classes of mail. Anyone who doubts the postal system is complex should read testimony in the current rate case. But it’s also not rocket science. If the Postal Service can develop the smallest height in the world for a 4-state barcode and cram it with information on a mail piece’s destination, unique identification and multiple services, then it can certainly build a simple measurement tool for its business classes of mail.
An underlying thread in the USPS responses in the GAO report seems to be cost and price. In essence, the Postal Service is saying that if you want performance measurement systems on Standard Mail (or Periodicals), you’ll have to pay more for those services. Why? Isn’t Standard Mail a growth product? Doesn’t it compete with other types of media? How do you prove its value when you are out selling the product if you haven’t measured its performance?
Further, the mailing industry is not asking for five-day, coast-to-coast delivery for Standard Mail. It recognizes that this is a deferred service. It is asking for reasonable and predictable standards so mailers can plan entry of their mail accordingly. And how about bulk First Class Mail? This is not a deferred service. Presumably, it pays a first-class price for first-class service. Shouldn’t this mail, which also faces the threat of competition, be measured?
The postal system faces competition in many of its product lines. It’s also a public service held in the public trust. If those two factors don’t beg for standards and accountability, nothing does.
