The following is a postal perspective by AMMA Vice President Kathleen J. Siviter. The views expressed are the author's and do not constitute official AMMA policy.
It's a well documented fact that the single most important thing advertising mailers need from a postal system is consistent, predictable delivery. For years, AMMA and others have attempted to communicate to the Postal Service the importance of its Standard Mail (A) delivery service. When postal officials ask how to add value to advertising mail, mailers tell them nothing could add greater value than consistent and timely delivery. Nothing could do more to grow Standard Mail (A) volume, and nothing could do more to convince companies to use advertising mail.
Yet it also is a well documented fact that the USPS has yet to achieve-or even come close to achieving-consistent and predictable delivery for Standard Mail (A). The USPS even drags its feet on establishing meaningful service standards for Standard Mail (A) that mailers could use to more effectively plan their mailings. And the few external performance measurement systems the USPS has experimented with in the past (e.g., EX3C), have not been successful, leaving mailers still waiting for the USPS to come up with a system to help it improve delivery and provide mailers with information about the delivery status of their mail.
Now, when the USPS, with a little help from its mailer friends, finally has come up with a way to dramatically improve service and communicate delivery information to its customers--through applications using the Planet code--the USPS has the audacity to tell its customers that not only will it not use the information to reduce its costs and improve service--but that it plans to charge mailers for using the Planet code.
Let's follow this logic... Your business is failing to provide a critical service to its customers. Your business then finds a way to use information provided by the customer to improve that service. Then your business realizes that it also can use the information to significantly reduce its costs by identifying and eliminating operating inefficiencies. This sounds like a win-win solution. Wouldn't your business do everything in its power to give its customers incentive to participate in such a program? Apparently, not if you're the U.S. Postal Service.
The Postal Service, instead of providing its customers with an incentive to participate in Planet code applications, has decided to create a disincentive by charging its customers a fee-in addition to the costs they already will incur to apply the Planet codes to their mailpieces. Does this make sense? About as much sense as the Postal Service's argument in support of charging for Planet code participation-that the USPS won't use the information to improve service and reduce costs, therefore only the mailer will benefit, and only the mailer should pay for the cost of the system...
It almost appears as if the USPS is attempting to capitalize on its own inefficiency. After all, it's the inconsistency and unreliability of USPS Standard Mail (A) delivery that has created the customer demand for delivery information... Is it possible that some marketing genius at L'Enfant Plaza sees this as a possible revenue source? In some meeting, did some postal official say, "Aha! I know-we keep providing bad delivery and charge mailers to tell them where their mail is...?"
If the USPS effectively used the information gained from Planet code applications, it could identify and resolve service deficiencies, reduce its operating costs, and grow its advertising mail revenue by improving the consistency and reliability of Standard Mail (A) delivery service. So why wouldn't the USPS want to use the information reaped from Planet code usage? That seems to be the $64,000,000 question....