Post office to hold customer appreciation event

The U.S. Postal Service's ongoing effort to market its services and products for use by small businesses will take the form of a customer appreciation event Wednesday in Cape Girardeau.

The postal service will hold an event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the post office on Frederick Street, where customers will be given information on Every Door Direct Mail that allows businesses to drop off mailings such as fliers, menus and brochures at their local post office for distribution.

An online tool is used to map a delivery area instead of using individual addresses. Customers also will be given information on new rates, stamp services and other postal products, according to a news release from the postal service, and managers and supervisors will be available to answer questions and take comments.

The campaign, called Deliver the Brand, "is an effort to encourage employees and appreciate the customers that we service every day," the release stated.

The postal service has been targeting small businesses with the development and release of various services and tools since at least 2011, according to marketing campaign releases on the postal service's website.

Locally, some postal service employees continue to worry over activities related to the postal service's network rationalization initiative, which they say has hurt customer service by lengthening delivery times through closing some mail processing centers and changing service standards.

Mail processing operations at Cape Girardeau's processing and distribution center were set to end this year, causing some employees to transfer to other jobs, but holds recently have been placed on operational changes. The center is a separate facility from the post office, employing between 60 and 80 people.

Greg Davidson, president of the American Postal Workers Union 4088, said in an email that cancellation of operational changes is believed to be only temporary, and may only last until problems are fixed in St. Louis.

With the changes in the postal service's network, mail sent locally goes through a St. Louis facility.

Figures kept by the union and provided by Davidson showed on-time delivery failures quadrupling in the district, which includes the Southeast Missouri region, from a three-month period that ended Dec. 31, to a three-month period ended March 31 for two-day deliveries. The number of failures almost doubled for three-day deliveries.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent address:

320 N. Frederick St., Cape Girardeau, MO