US Postal Service must “do more” to understand link between modes of delivery and customer engagement with advertising mail, says OIG

A new report commissioned by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) has advised that the US Postal Service and advertising mailers should work together to understand the potential impacts of switching from door deliveries to curbside mailboxes or cluster box units. The OIG, working with consultancy InfoTrends, surveyed 5,000 households across the US and found that “door delivery customers report higher level of engagement with advertising mail than those who receive their mail through a curb or neighbourhood cluster box”.

Consequently, said the OIG: “Centralized delivery will lower Postal Service delivery costs, but could have implications on the demand side”.

The OIG report, which was published on Monday (20 April), said that “the results of this survey do not diminish the importance of centralized delivery to Post Service cost savings efforts”, but they do suggest that USPS needs to “step up customer research in this area” and work with advertising mailers in order to “help them make more informed decisions about whom to target when designing their direct mail advertising campaigns”.

The OIG stressed that its report was a work in progress. “It should be noted that we examined mode of deliver’s impact(s) in broad terms,” said the OIG. “It could be the case that certain types or locations of cluster boxes might mitigate some of the adverse behaviors we discovered. More research is needed. Both the Postal Service and advertising mailers would benefit from having additional data on modes of delivery as soon as possible.”