How To Manage The US Postal Service

About the USPS

Ah, the United States Postal Service. Love 'em and hate 'em. It's still pretty unbelievable to me that I can ship a letter across the country for less than a cup of coffee - even with half their workforce on jury duty.

I have to say, I give them credit. They innovate. I met the Postmaster General, John E. Potter, at last year's eBay Live (our client's customer love fest event) and was very impressed. Great speaker - really gave the crowd what they wanted.

Anyway, here are some rough guidelines for you to help decifer the USPS.

• First class mail takes roughly 2-5 days to arrive, standard mail 2-3 weeks. Nothing is guaranteed though.
• We clean the list and add bar codes so the post office does less work and gives us lower postage rates.
• Postage rates differ depending upon how much grouping you do, so we never know exact rates until the piece has dropped – but the post office wants the money up front. So we need postage a week in advance of the drop.
• With enough time, we can commingle our mail and drop at the SCF – cutting postage rates dramatically & pinpointing our delivery window to within 2 days!
• Planet Codes – New! Can track mail delivery as it goes out through the mail system. A very cool tool that will come in handy with retail customers who are trying to predict call volume and ensure they have staff on hand to handle it (or simply to help keep worried clients in check).