Okay, time for some charity work. I know a number of readers of this blog are clever marketing types, who have probably tackled many challenges over the years. So let’s set up a doozy of a challenge for you, and see what you recommend. And we promise that the best ideas will be seen by ‘those who decide’!!!!
Let’s start with the positives:
- Brand with one of the highest brand recalls and awareness scores ever, across b2b and b2c.
- Automatic trustworthiness – most trusted ‘federal government institution’. Well, that’s got to count for something?
- Brand with history – dating back to Benji Franklin, for goodness sakes!
- Employs a ton of people - nearly 600k, second largest in the civilian workforce to Wal-Mart.
Now let’s deal with a few business realities:
- Does not benefit from companies and consumers going to email, web, social media … it cuts out a revenue source, in a big way
- Does not benefit from companies trying to be ‘enviro-friendly’ and encourage paperless billing
- Has failed to enunciate that paperless billing has, based on research, reduced customer relationship scores
- Has a huge retail estate which it has protected but underutilized for years.
- Can raise stamp prices only via Act of Congress, can shut branches only … via Act of Congress, can do almost anything only … via Act of Congress. So highly flexible (?) approach to running it’s operational side.
- And the kicker … is due to lose $238 billion (yep, that’s nearly a quarter of a trillion) by 2021 based on current trends. And you thought GM was a huge bailout cost!
So……………….
Let’s make a couple assumptions:
1. You’ve been named CMO with vast power to change things, shake it up, etc.
2. The USPS Board of Governors accept this designation, and promise to ‘butt out’ given the precarious state they’ve allowed the USPS to put itself in.
3. The US Government isn’t about to foot the bill for anything elaborate, given the increasing loss making situation coupled with a few, minor issues like reducing the Federal deficit, staving off the Chinese from assuming financial control of the US, and preventing back-slip into recession. So forget, at least for a few years, any “Super Bowl” funding requirements.
What would YOU do?? Let’s assemble the best ideas, and maybe save an institution which, by all accounts, should be consigned to the scrapheap of obscurity within a few years, at the current rate …
Ideas from retail specialists and shipping people particularly welcomed!!!
Here’s my two cents (consider it make-up postage in the event of a future rate increase).
ReplyDeleteCrisis Management takes a great deal of self-awareness and intellectual honesty. Many of the threats USPS has either faced, endured or been savaged by did not emerge as all or nothing propositions. Electronic Diversion is the hot button phrase within the DC HQ building, although there are distinct differences in many of the round-trip mail markets that have been impacted by electronic forms of communications.
Take Invoices and Payments. The Value Proposition for paying bills online on a date certain has become superior to writing checks and placing them into the mail-stream at the right time to enjoy having the funds in your account for as long as possible.
So rather than consider this huge and diverse market to be the battle that has already been lost, USPS must bifurcate the sending of bills from the payment stream and focus on the portion where their value proposition remains superior. Going Paperless with respect to getting invoices is the equivalent of going record-less in a world of hard-drive crashes and spam email overload. Your bank won’t tell you this, but USPS should join the chorus of those who understand what is really going on.
Studies have borne out the value-added benefits of getting regular correspondence from companies, vendors, and firms you have chosen to do business with… those bonds – built over the years - weaken when email replaces a letter, invoice or promotion notice that arrives as a hard-copy piece of mail.
It’s time for USPS to shift their focus and angst away from bill payments to bill presentment and delivery, helping their customers to maintain strong, vibrant customer relationships and customer experiences.
Despite the dismal outlooks USPS has been focused on, there are market segments that could shine if given the proper care and feeding they deserve… along with the luck and vision to go the distance as they have for decades since Ben Franklin set them on their path.
I would switch every residential route to even odd and drop Saturday delivery. Letter carriers would have an even route done on even days of the month and an odd route done on the odd days of the month. With the exception of birthday cards, nothing I send or receive by regular mail could not wait an extra day. (BTW – only half the mail would be delayed a day, that is mail that is sorted and ready to be delivered a full day before your turn). This would allow the USPS to use fewer letter carriers and travel fewer miles. For the few folks with urgent needs for mail, they could get Post Office Boxes which would be serviced every day. The few times a year that the 31st falls Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, it could be a training day. If the 31st is a Friday, you would deliver the mail.
ReplyDeleteI would drop business delivery on Saturdays as few businesses process incoming mail on Saturday.