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Eleven members of the 1st Ward post office Customer Advisory Council (CAC) met with Alderman Manny Flores and seven managers from the U.S. Postal Service in the first meeting of the newly formed CAC at the 1st Ward Service Office. The CAC members were from three zip codes (60618, 60622 & 60647) in the 1st Ward. The post office managers included Station Managers for those same three post offices ("stations") and supervisors from Chicago's main post office.
This first meeting consisted of introductions followed by a presentation of customer complaints which the CAC members had collected from their neighborhoods. The list (below, in no particular order) was very consistent across the three zip codes: Tardy mail (weeks or months late) No mail for 2-3 days followed by a huge delivery Delivery late at night Lack of a regular carrier Non-delivery of packages or letters requiring signature Difficulty in retrievng non-delivered packages/letters Rude post office lobby employees Long lines in undermanned post office lobbies Non-responsive or hard-to-reach managers Wet mail on rainy days The post office managers, many of whom are recent transfers to Chicago, discussed actions now underway to improve service. Examples included: Hiring of additional carriers Goal of having all rounds completed by 5PM Additional training for current employees Step-by-step route monitoring to improve address database Public education via CAC's, block clubs, park councils Requests for customer feedback to managers via newly formed CAC's Better information to customers (e.g., Vacation Hold, Address Change) Developer cooperation for proper placement of new delivery locations Developer cooperation for advance notice of new delivery locations Alderman Flores pledged to assist with developer communications and suggested that the Ward might be subdivided into zones for performance monitoring by the CAC and the post office managers. He also suggested a CAC web site (like this one) to be used for feedback to the customers. The station managers discussed ways that customers can help improve their own delivery service, especially in fast-growth neighborhoods which rapidly gain new customers. These included: Lubricating or replacing hard-to-open or rusty mail slots Retrieval of ALL incoming mail - don't let box fill with unwanted mail Use the "Vacation Hold" service to avoid buildup while you're away Give advance notice and use "Change Address" forms before moving The station managers and their supervisors provided the CAC with their private phone numbers (which will not be publicized) to allow the CAC to more quickly pass along unresolved customer issues. At the next meeting (July 10 2007) these CAC members are expected to be combined with Councils now being formed in the other Wards served by these same three postal stations. That new group may then be divided into separate CAC's, one for each zip code. CAC members at this first meeting told their USPS counterparts that they and their neighbors were looking for tangible results and were not going to simply participate in a public relations effort by the post office. The CAC members were assured that their issues would be seriously addressed and that the post office managers were looking forward to receiving and acting on service improvement suggestions from their customers. |
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