The U.S. Postal Service plans to overhaul its customer experience measurement system to allow more detailed assessment of its four main touch points: Receiving mail, sending mail, visiting the Post Office, and contacting the Postal Service.
Customers are able to rate services using either an online or a postal survey.
Katina Fields, Senior Public Relations Representative for USPS, participated in a Q&A with Loyalty360 to discuss plans for the new customer experience measurements.
What prompted the USPS to overhaul its customer experience measurement system and what are its goals?
Today, the interest in redesigning the program is to measure customers’ event-based experiences with the Postal Service across multiple channels and touch points. The previous approach to measure customer satisfaction for residential, small/medium, and large business was through a paper-based survey called CEM (Customer Experience Measurement). The CEM survey was slow to provide results and insights to the customer experience in a timely manner. The Postal Service is developing a Customer Insights Measurement (CIM) based on customer interactions at various touch points, as well as customer inquiries and complaints regarding Postal products, services, and corporate initiatives. Insights gained from data and listening to customers will enable the Postal Service to anticipate customer behavior and predict future needs.
How does the customer experience vary among the four touch points?
We will be able to answer this question after Q1 of FY2015, given that will be the first quarter for data collection on the four touch points.
What are the goals of the research the USPS is conducting?
The goal is to identify insights from our customers at various touch points to address issues and to improve their experience.
How will Customer Experience be measured moving forward?
Through use of a composite score that consolidates responses from large business customers, small/medium business customers, residential delivery customers, customers who visit the Post Office (receipt-based), and customers that call the 1(800) ASK USPS and speak with a USPS live agent.
What does customer Loyalty mean to USPS and has that definition changed or evolved in recent years?
A key question for each touch point measures “overall satisfaction with USPS”. The percentage of customers who are “very satisfied” or “mostly satisfied” has been shown to be positively correlated customer loyalty, and that has not changed.
How do you stay on top of rapidly changing technologies that could play a role in the Customer Experience process?
Incorporate changing technology such as implementation of QR codes on receipts. Consumer & Industry Affairs (C&IA) continually uses new technologies using social media and Big Data Analytics (examining large amounts of data of a variety of types to uncover hidden patterns and other useful information).