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The USPS - disengaging customers one at a time
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About five times a year I go to pick up my mail and I don't have my box key. It's a small post office; I'm talking tiny; and even though the sign says you must have your key and mail will not be handed over the counter, that rule is usually broken. Clearly, people are not abusing the rule.
Well today was one of those times when I forgot the key. My mail was handed over with a smile and a comment that moving forward I would be charged the cost of a key if they have to hand my mail over the counter.
Hey United States Postal Service! Wake up. Are you people that stupid?! You're an obsolete service. your extinction might be near - and you're now telling me that good ole customer service is going to have a premium price as well? You're gonna punish me for the occasional mistake. MORONS!
My knee jerk reaction (to myself of course) was I'll start having my mail delivered to my home; and shut down the box. There's another post office five minutes down the road; I'll start going there. I know that each office is its own profit center, but you make money by innovative products and services; not disengaging customers by penalizing them for genuine mistakes.
I'll go one step further here. The post office I use is not in the town I live. I do a lot of online shipping and drop it off at the post office. A few years ago these same people who just told me they would charge me for handing my mail over the counter asked me if I would please use my PO Box address and not my home address on the packages since they get credit, even with online shipping, if it is printed by me, but dropped off there with their zip code as the return. Absolutely I said. Knee jerk reaction was "Screw you, home address now to be used."
In a time when the United States Postal Service is looking (like everyone else) to increase revenue and stay in business, trying to raise revenue by charging people for occasional errors is certainly not how you're going to keep me as a customer. Here's an idea Postmaster General............... Figure out how to cut your payroll. I read an article recently that talked about Postal Workers in Waterbury CT sitting around reading and playing games because there is no work and moving them to another location is not an option? Of course a great contract was negotiated by the unions. So they sit and play; while I forget my key and pay. Absurd.
Now of course I am not going to act on any of my knee jerk reactions, but this is how you lose customers; this is how you disengage customers. Heck, this is even how you disengage your employees - having them enforce rules that are archaic, make no business sense and really do not impact the bottom line.
But I do have a dilemma, if I boycott the USPS am I just going to end up paying for it with another federal bailout?
The customer apparently is never right!
