The Postal Service should take note of the alternative delivery choices foreign postal organizations have developed for customers that have helped them reduce costs and improved customer service, GAO has said.
It said foreign postal operators it reviewed in several industrialized countries- Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland – have also experienced declining letter mail volumes and have modernized their delivery and retail networks to address that challenge, something that could inform USPS’s efforts to modernize.
Some posts offer parcel pick up at retail facilities such as grocery stores, which have longer hours and are often owned and operated by businesses that partner with the posts, which reduces costs, according to GAO-11-282.
It said one post in particular allows customers to pick up packages from a publicly located machine, or parcel locker, that is available 24 hours a day, and it said some of the posts have modernized legacy brick and mortar retail networks in response to customers’ changing use of the mail.
All of the posts GAO reviewed said retail modernization has either improved customer service – by staying open longer, or reduced operating and labor costs by closing post owned-and-operated facilities, or both.
