USPS Office Of Inspector General releases white paper: “What America Wants and Needs from the Postal Service”
The U.S. Postal Service faces tough decisions about its future, including how it will continue to meet America’s changing communications needs and how it will return to financial stability. To make such decisions, the Postal Service must know the products and services its customers demand of it. While it is important to understand what Americans want from the Postal Service, it is equally important to gain a better perspective on what they absolutely need.
Last year, the Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a paper summarizing the results of a national web-based survey aimed at better understanding how Americans view the Postal Service now, and its role in the future.1 To gain further insight into the results of this survey, and explore the types of compromises the public is willing to accept, the OIG again partnered with market research firm InfoTrends to conduct a series of focus groups across the country.
The focus groups provided new, qualitative insight by gathering opinions from 101 individuals from 67 different ZIP Codes in a variety of rural, suburban, and urban areas. The demographics of the focus group participants were generally consistent with the rest of the country in categories such as age, gender, access to the Internet, and population density. Although the results cannot be generalized, they shed light on what a sample population of Americans want and need from the Postal Service.
The following report, What America Wants and Needs from the Postal Service, describes the results of the focus group discussions.
Key Findings
Several key trends emerged from analyzing the focus group results:
Funding: Consistent with our previous survey findings, nearly 70 percent of participants did not realize the Postal Service is self-funded, incorrectly believing that it receives tax dollars for operations. Upon learning it is funded by its own revenue, participants lowered their service level expectations. For Americans to make informed decisions about what they expect from the Postal Service, they must understand its funding structure.
Physical Locations: Most participants valued the Postal Service as an institution. Participants in rural areas considered a Post Office a valued community asset, whereas urban participants placed a higher importance on the convenience of accessing postal services. Rural participants noted security concerns with trusting their mail with nonpostal employees in nonpostal retail locations, such as grocery stores. This often prevailed over the convenience of co-location.
Accessibility: Many participants felt strongly that the existing hours offered at their local Post Office should not be reduced, and focus group participants who worked suggested shifting or expanding the current hours to accommodate their work schedules. Several participants were concerned that reducing their Post Office’s current hours could result in increased wait times, their largest source of dissatisfaction with the Postal Service as reported in a pre-focus group survey.
Delivery: Participants were most likely to compromise on residential delivery location and the number of delivery days.
This research sheds light on a sample of Americans’ views of the products and services the Postal Service offers now and could provide in the future. Additional research on specific new products and services could provide additional, more complete, insights
“Americans believe USPS is funded through taxes. That & other focus group revelations in our latest OIG White Paper http://go.usa.gov/BdrP
Just pay by the volume ! It will make carriers work harder for the money and benefit the P.O.
Hey Fire Donahoe Says, it is not exactly the Koch Brothers but friends of theirs that are part of the Cato Instiute (Created by the Koch family). The call themselfs a “think tank” but are really just a rationization party to make the rich, richer by privatizing government offices and other such nonsense.
The real culprits are the mail associations that have made tons of money by having their product subsidized by 1st class letters. These companies then take their profits and by the votes of Issa and other key members of congress who are creating the so called “bills to save the post office”.
We had one of the meeting between Donahoe and the mailers, no one could go in unless they had an invitation to be there. Even the local paper was not allowed access. Our plant manager wanted everthing at our office nice and pretty and told one of our custodians to trim the grass. We have several string trimmers and none would start. The custodian was told to cut the grass along the fence with a pair of sissors.
I tried to read the Full Report, but I keep receiving this message: “The requested page “/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2014/rarc-wp-14-009.pdf” could not be found.” Has the report been rescinded?
5 day delivery son!!!!!
More nonsense from the Keystone Kops and waste of money on yet another report that just states obvious facts that have already been researched and reported to death by the press, in general. Masters of the Obvious. How about doing your real jobs and going after the bad guys that are stealing mail or Postal funds? These studies are pretty much worthless but keep OIG busy.
Five Day All The Way!!
Were the postal survey participants informed of the onerous pre-funding mandate that has been imposed on the postal service and the huge deficits it has caused?
Blah Blah Blah! The OIG White paper isn’t worth the time and effort. PMG Donahoe doesn’t care about what the American people want. All he cares about is what the Koch Brothers and Darrel Issa want him to do.