The USPS Office of Inspector’s audit report on “Relationship Between Business Connect and Post Office Performance”

Postmasters play a key role in growing Postal Service mail volume and revenue. They are typically at the forefront of interactions with local small business customers, either by providing service, addressing service issues, or selling Postal Service products and services. The Postal Service’s Business Connect program was designed to engage postmasters, station managers, and branch managers in generating revenue and strengthening relationships with small business customers. Specifically, postmasters are to conduct a certain number of activities — face-to-face meetings with a business customer or a group of customers about Postal Service products and services — each year. These targets vary by Post Office level, with those postmasters at Level 18–22 offices expected to conduct two activities per month and those at Level 23 and higher offices expected to conduct three activities per month.5 The 17,658 postmasters at Level 18 and above post offices reported 404,367 total activities in FY 2012. When postmasters have a business connect meeting that results in a sale, they are expected to report the anticipated revenue from that sale into the Business Connect system. Postmasters reported about $265 million in estimated annualized revenue through the Business Connect program in FY 2012 and about $247 million in FY 2013.As part of the OIG’s June 2013 report (Small Business Growth), we surveyed 9,073 postmasters at Level 18 and above post offices regarding their Business Connect activities. Forty-nine percent of the 2,549 postmasters who responded to the survey said they do not have time to pursue new small business revenue. We also met with 34 judgmentally selected postmasters to follow up on resource limitations identified in the survey.6 These postmasters raised issues about constraints placed on the time they had available to generate revenue, including being required to provide support for, or monitor, window clerks; perform lobby sweeps;7 or input customer complaints.

Postal Service officials said that many postmasters do not have time to interact with small businesses because of operational priorities or because they are not equipped or trained to do so. They said the actions postmasters identified as putting time constraints on them are important for operational and management purposes and not performing them would hurt performance.

The OIG  selected the following Post Office operational factors for use in the report:

 Number of grievances: total number of grievances for each office by finance number.
 Carriers returning after 5 p.m: percentage of carriers returning after 5 p.m. for each office by finance number.
 Unscheduled leave: ratio of unscheduled leave hours to total workhours for each office by finance number.
 Wait In Line Time (WTIL): score and time for each office by finance number.
 Retail window staffing efficiency: total retail window hours earned compared to the actual workhours for each office by finance number.
 Overtime: ratio of overtime hours to total workhours for each office by finance number.
 Penalty overtime: ratio of penalty overtime hours to total workhours for each office by finance number.
 Complaints: total number of complaints received for each office by ZIP Code.

Prior Audit Coverage
The OIG issued Small Business Growth (Report Number MS-AR-13-009, dated June 20, 2013), which evaluated the effectiveness of the Postal Service’s efforts to grow small business revenue and identify opportunities for growth. The report concluded that postmasters and sales staff were not always effective because the Postal Service has not made generating small business revenue a high priority for these groups. The OIG made four recommendations, including recommending that the Postal Service develop a strategy to increase the priority that postmasters and sales staff place on generating small business revenue. The report estimated implementing the recommendations could result in $810.3 million in increased revenue over 3 years. Management disagreed with the recommendation above and the monetary impact.

WHAT THE OIG FOUND:
We found no relationship between Post Office operational performance and Business Connect performance for the variables we selected. Therefore, neither lower nor higher performance in these Post Office operational areas necessarily precludes postmasters from achieving success in their Business Connect activities.
Relationship Between Business Connect and Post Office Performance