Tuesday, July 06, 2010
One Idea for Improving USPS Profitability: Spam Filters
I've had an idea brewing for years on how the United States Postal Service (USPS) can improve it's chances of reaching profitability.
It's super simple, and I'm shocked the USPS hasn't tried to implement this yet: Spam Filters.
I don't know about you, but I hate junk mail - even more than I hate junk email.
I would gladly pay a monthly fee to the US Postal Service - be it $5 or $10 or even $15 dollars a month - to absolutely never again receive a single piece of junk mail.
I read with great interest the McKinsey & Company and Accenture presentations on their respective recommendations for the USPS' business model (you can read them here).
There wasn't anything really revolutionary in either PDF document. It was a bit surprising that the USPS would pay such high consulting fees to these companies, and get almost nothing out of it. Our tax dollars at work, I suppose.
Beyond additional service offerings, I'd love to see the USPS privatized; I'd love to be able to select a mail carrier provider as my go-to carrier. Having competition between the USPS, UPS, Fedex, DHL, etc for my mailbox business would be great. Opening up mail delivery for my postal address to a number of carriers would increase competition and drive down costs (gotta love capitalism).
Only through service diversification does the USPS have a hope of improving it's profits, however. Paying a monthly fee to block junk mail is just one potential idea for one exciting service that the USPS could offer. I'm sure there are other great ideas out there; it is a bit of a shame that none of the expensive consulting firms that the USPS hired to help them envision their future business model offered any real ideas, beyond pushing for new legislation, raising stamp prices, and bemoaning the fact that the USPS no longer has a monopoly on letter and package delivery.
On a lark, I reached out to an Arizona Representative through email to offer this idea up, but never heard back. Who knows... maybe someone in the USPS will run across this post and give the idea consideration.
It's super simple, and I'm shocked the USPS hasn't tried to implement this yet: Spam Filters.
I don't know about you, but I hate junk mail - even more than I hate junk email.
I would gladly pay a monthly fee to the US Postal Service - be it $5 or $10 or even $15 dollars a month - to absolutely never again receive a single piece of junk mail.
I read with great interest the McKinsey & Company and Accenture presentations on their respective recommendations for the USPS' business model (you can read them here).
There wasn't anything really revolutionary in either PDF document. It was a bit surprising that the USPS would pay such high consulting fees to these companies, and get almost nothing out of it. Our tax dollars at work, I suppose.
Beyond additional service offerings, I'd love to see the USPS privatized; I'd love to be able to select a mail carrier provider as my go-to carrier. Having competition between the USPS, UPS, Fedex, DHL, etc for my mailbox business would be great. Opening up mail delivery for my postal address to a number of carriers would increase competition and drive down costs (gotta love capitalism).
Only through service diversification does the USPS have a hope of improving it's profits, however. Paying a monthly fee to block junk mail is just one potential idea for one exciting service that the USPS could offer. I'm sure there are other great ideas out there; it is a bit of a shame that none of the expensive consulting firms that the USPS hired to help them envision their future business model offered any real ideas, beyond pushing for new legislation, raising stamp prices, and bemoaning the fact that the USPS no longer has a monopoly on letter and package delivery.
On a lark, I reached out to an Arizona Representative through email to offer this idea up, but never heard back. Who knows... maybe someone in the USPS will run across this post and give the idea consideration.
