US Postal Service needs to address geographical variations in FCM decline, says OIG

A new Office of Inspector General (OIG) report has urged the US Postal Service not only to address the challenge posed by the overall decline in First Class Mail (FCM) volumes, but also examine the reasons for the “widely varying levels of demand” in different geographical areas. In its summary of the report published on Monday (27 April), OIG said: “Between fiscal years 1995 and 2013, FCM single-piece volume dropped by 61%. But a close analysis of the decrease reveals significant variations in this decline by geographic area. In some areas, for instance, the percent of volume lost was even greater than 61%, but in other areas, it was almost zero. Additionally, the rate of decline is slowing or has stopped even in many of the areas that have lost the most mail volume, suggesting a new base level of demand for FCM has been reached in those regions.”

OIG said that “because there is no average mail customer, strategic planning designed around average mail volume data will inevitably result in inefficient solutions”. It therefore advised that USPS “would benefit by examining the widely varying levels of demand for FCM and using that information to develop its operational and customer service plans”.

Click here to download the  full report from the OIG website.