I’VE SAID THIS so many times that I’m tired of saying it: The U.S. Postal Service is at a crossroads.
The postal governors know it. The House postal subcommittee chairman knows it. Senior postal management knows it. Then why do others in the postal hierarchy continue to do things that dissuade mailers from investing confidence in a bureaucracy that seems hell-bent on bringing the USPS to its knees?
Here’s a case in point. The last thing a struggling postal service needs is to raise rates to levels that convince even casual observers that it has no intention of ever operating within the bounds of inflation. Instead of a repeat of 1997’s relatively modest rate increases, the USPS’ rate architects propose raising price-sensitive commercial mail to levels that are double and triple inflation.
Another example: At a time when the postal service should be bending over backward to meet businesses’ needs by rationally applying mail eligibility rules, the USPS’ mail classification gurus adhere to an interpretation of postal rules that engenders the kind of affection usually reserved for the tax man. To make matters worse, rather than putting the development of new, value-enhanced mail products on a fast track, everything’s been put on hold until the latest postal rate case is put to bed.
The postal service is at a crossroads all right. But its actions seem only to guarantee that it’ll wind up at a dead end. Where’s the creativity? Where’s the awareness and sensitivity to a changing market’s needs?
Watching this happen is depressing. Here’s an enterprise with countless opportunities that are being squandered by life-draining behavior.
It doesn’t have to be this way. If nothing changes, though, businesses that need a well-run postal system will have no choice but to call for turning the business of moving message, money and merchandise over to an agency that appreciates that “service” should mean more than being a monopoly-protected government enterprise’s last name.
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