DPMG promotes ‘culture of customer service’
Treating customers well is key to revenue generation and keeping USPS competitive, Deputy Postmaster General (DPMG) Ron Stroman told Chicago District employees last week.
The DPMG also called for tapping into the “reservoir of trust” USPS has earned as the most trusted government agency to establish a culture of customer service. “We also need to re-instill in our employees a sense of pride in working for the Postal Service, pride in their appearance and pride in how they treat each customer,” said Stroman.
Stroman visited Chicago to meet with the district’s leadership team, customer service managers, and with retail associates and letter carriers at two stations. He noted that USPS beats the competition when it comes to delivery service — but that alone isn’t enough to increase revenue.
“We beat FedEx and UPS in package growth last year,” Stroman told the station managers. “We have more competitive prices, and we have more business opportunities. Now, we have to provide better customer service.”
Stroman noted Chicago’s efforts to improve customers’ experiences with USPS and pledged his support as station managers listed ideas to address four key areas for continued gains — building strong relationships, loyal customers, repeat customers and revenue growth.
“Our customers have choices, they don’t have to come to us,” said Stroman. “How people are treated makes all the difference in the world.”
I love my USPS employees in pretty much all the Post Offices in Las Vegas They are fast, friendly an very knowledgeable!
The customers don’t even know if their Post Office will even be open next week with all of the closings and shorter hours of operation!! What a joke!! Package growth is largely due to THE INTERNET!!!! First class letters may be down but packages are where the money is.
One of the best parts of working at the USPS is the customer service we provide. It is a good culture.
But it is a culture that is suffocated by postal management.
Every minute is squeezed from employees to the point that you can hardly answer questions, be polite, drink proffered water , etc., because you need to make your allotted time.
Every postal publication always touts “talking with customers”, “going the extra mile”, etc., but if you do this on route check day in the case of letter carriers, or at the window , in the case of clerks, they will deduct this from your time. It is subtracted from your street time, as “line 22” (not normal duties). So to provide extraordinary service as a basic, will be to stress out for the entire day, trying to make up for customer service time.
Also, customers will not even feel free to say “Good Morning”, when they see a supervisor is following you, not wanting to get you in “trouble”, so your day is really not typical even in that regard. (Not even the place here to tell how the days they choose for evaluations are NEVER typical days).
Postal Public Relation blurbs are eager to tell how employees give extra service, but this extra service is actually putting them in jeopardy of “overtime”, for which they will be reprimanded or worse.
Customer service is often intangible, and cannot be measured with the tools the USPS measures with, which generally end up being evaluated and measured and compared with a computer program. It is NUMBERS, not Customer Service, that runs the Postal Service day to day.
I see the inconsistency at the street and window levels, but I am sure it applies in every other postal job, as well.
So please, DPMG , let the USPS walk the walk, instead of just talking about customer service, and I think we could get better considerations from Congress and the public at large, besides being able to provide one of the solid values the public expects and appreciates from us: Customer Service!