Montana Postal Workers Union Local 208, Great Falls, MT

Voice of the Steward

A BETTER BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE

by Ron Charters, Tour III Steward

The scope of business for postal management seems to involve cost cutting in every area to solve their financial woes. I feel they have completely lost

perspective that our competitors haven't, which is that it takes sales to make a profit.

 

What can be done to increase sales I ask? The best answer I can give to management is to develop a stronger marketing approach that gets the message out to the consumers that we are serious about meeting their mail service needs.

 

How do we get our message out to the consumers? First of all, management needs to educate all of its employees—not just window clerks—about every service that the Postal Service has to offer. This could be done by offering seminars, passing out pamphlets and having staff meetings that center solely

on postal services. Also, I believe all newly hired PTFs should have window clerk training.

 

Management also needs to do a better job of educating consumers about what services the Postal Service has to offer. I haven't read one postal newsletter yet where new customers haven't mentioned that they weren't aware that the Postal

Service met every one of their needs at a lower price. 

 

How can management do a better job of educating the consumers about postal services? I see three strategic ways of meeting this mission. First of all, they should set a goal for every sales manager to make a minimum of 20 cold call sales attempts a day to potential customers. This means they would have to leave the office and actually talk to people.

 

Secondly, they could simply develop a mass mail newsletter that explains every service offered and how the consumer could benefit from them.

 

Thirdly, I feel management should hire an outside marketing agency to develop a national campaign that markets all our services in a positive spotlight.

 

In my judgement, the United States Postal Service can survive and be profitable if management and all union craft employees get out the message to our appreciated consumers that we want their business.