Poll/Not Poll: USPS

Member

I'm going to provide you with the "company line" like I posted about two months ago. The USPS is mandated by law to provide universal access and universal service to everyone in the USA.

How long do you think that universal service provison will stay viable after someone like UPS takes over ?

Diva: I don't have and answer for that stat except I heard the Postmaster General say it some time ago. Just note we process 206 BIllion pieces of mail a year.

Some new tidbits:

FEDEX TO RAISE RATES. USA Today, CNN, ABC News, Reuters, Business Week and other major media sources report that FedEx plans to raise its rates an average of 3.5% beginning Jan 2. The company also will increase surcharges for express shipments to some ZIP Codes by up to 10 cents a package. The reports noted that UPS this week raised the cap on its fuel surcharge for air shipping to 12.5%, from 9.5 percent.

Universal Access. Universal Service.

We deliver to every household and business in the United States. Every American has access to our services and pays the same postage rate regardless of geographic location. We...

Deliver mail to over 142 million homes, businesses and post office boxes in every state, city, and town in the country; including Puerto Rico, Guam, the American Virgin Islands and American Samoa

Add 1.8 million new addresses each year to our delivery network (<<This is like adding a city the size of Chicago to the directory)

Serve over 7 million customers daily at nearly 38,000 post offices

Have annual operating revenue of $69 billion

Deliver more than 206 billion pieces of mail a year

Collect mail from over 280,000 points—including blue street mail boxes—across the country

Pay nearly $2 billion in employee salaries and benefits every two weeks

Employ more than 700,000 career employees

Have the world's largest Intranet to communicate with our employees

Provide alternative access for our customers to purchase stamps at more than 27,500 vending machines; nearly 25,000 commercial retail outlets such as supermarkets, convenience, drug and gift stores; nearly 19,000 banking and credit union automated teller machines, and 2,500 automated postal centers located across the country

Do not receive tax dollars from the federal government for operating expenses. We use the revenue from sales of postage-related products to pay these expenses

Delivering For You.

Innovation, performance and a focus on service contributed to a record year for the United States Postal Service in 2004.

Delivering Our Best

On-time delivery of overnight-committed First-Class Mail held at a record 95% for the year—and jumped to an incredible 96% in quarter three! And service in all measured categories reached record levels.* Customers told us they saw improvements in unmeasured service categories, as well.

Satisfying Customers

We delivered for our customers, and they noticed. Independently measured customer satisfaction scores for the fourth quarter reached a new height, with 94% of residential customers rating their experience with the Postal Service as excellent, very good or good.

Staying Productive

We achieved a record fifth straight year of positive total factor productivity (TFP). These gains have provided the equivalent of $6.1 billion in cost savings. TFP includes all factors of production and measures the growth in the ratio of resources we use—the inputs—to the products and services they produce—the outputs.

We are everywhere you are.

Our network gives us access to every American household and business — we are everywhere you are.

We handle more than 44% of the world's card and letter mail volume — delivering more mail to more addresses to a larger geographical area than any other postal system in the world

We move mail using every viable means of transportation: planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, helicopters, bicycles, and even mules

We operate a transport and delivery fleet of over 200,000 vehicles driving approximately 1.1 billion miles a year

Each letter carrier delivers about 2,300 pieces of mail a day to approximately 500 addresses

There are 86 million pounds of mail traveling through our processing centers every day

About 17% of the nation's population moves every year. The Postal Service processes more than 44 million changes of address for temporary and permanent moves

We forward over 3 billion pieces of mail a year, at no extra charge to the moving customer

We are a world leader in developing and using optical character recognition — our sorting equipment reads more than 91% of the hand-written addresses on envelopes

The Postal Service works with the State Department to accept passport applications. In 2004, nearly 4 million passport applications were accepted in post offices around the country — 60% of what the State Department processed

When fuel costs rise one-cent, our costs increase $8 million

Member

Sorry for the double post folks !!

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Andy - do you work for the USPS?

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I think considering the amount of mail USPS has to deliver 24/7, I find it amazing they haven't really screwed up much of them in the years I've been getting their services.

I heart the US Postal Service. pink love

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Member

Diva:

I can't answer anything about those letters that were lost except to say be sure you have the full and complete address to include the 9 digit zip+4 and do not forget the return address. A Zip+4 can be obtained by going to USPS.com and following the various links. Remember we process 206 BILLION pieces of mail a year. While we do go out of our way to make sure the mail is processed right, stuff happens.

Go to USPS.com for all your postal needs including stamps, stopping mail, address changes, forwading and other services such as setting up electic, and other utility services and on. Really you should check it out. You can help your customers set up their new address in one quick visit.

Will the USPS go out of business ? No, as long as customers want and deserve universal service and access the USPS will still be there. If the USPS goes out of business what will UPS charge for a letter ? Will that have an impact on your business costs ? How about the Havasupai Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon ? Will UPS go there ? How much will that letter cost ?

The USPS is responsible (answers) to all of us. A private mail carrier answers to its stock holders - profit, not service is the guiding force.

As for the standard (junk) mail you all know and love. When you put your address (OK I know some don't) on a web site its free game for them to send stuff. When you buy via catalogue you're all set up for mail, etc etc.

And please, for your family's safety be sure to stop your mail if you're away for a while. Again, a visit to USPS.com will get your mail stopped.

Fresh, Hot & Wild

I can say with 70% accuracy that most of the mail "lost" is due to incomplete addresses and no return addresses or a return address that is NOT legible.

If you are concerned about accuracy in delivery of mail, use delivery confirmation and/or certified mail so you can track the package online. You might also want to check the delivery address of the rental companies because the address you have might be a physical address and not a mailing address.

I.E. our trailer was at 3100 E. 101, but it wasn't a USPS recognized address so we had a PO Box.

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Member

With the exception of the slower than slow service at the post office window (regardless of what post office I visit), I've never had a significant problem sending or receiving that I can remember.

Poll/Not Poll: USPS

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