Most Americans use the U.S. mail service. Their opinions of that service may depend on such factors as the timeliness of mail delivery compared to their expectations, the time spent waiting in line for window service, the availability of vending machines that work, and the helpfulness of window clerks who are there to serve postal customers. Concerned about untimely mail service at post offices, the Chairman of the former Subcommittee on Information, Justice, Transportation, and Agriculture, House Committee on Government Operations, asked us to review selected aspects of the Postal Service’s efforts to measure and improve customer service. Subsequently, we agreed to also report the results of our review to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Postal Service, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Under the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, as amended, the Postal Service is an independent establishment in the executive branch operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the government and accountable to Congress. It is to provide “prompt, reliable, and efficient services” to patrons in all areas and render these services to all communities. Over the years, the Service has increasingly functioned as a businesslike entity competing with electronic communication and private businesses to provide communication and merchandise delivery services to residential and business customers. Today, the Postal Service’s customer base is diverse, and the quality of mail service has many dimensions, such as whether the time to deliver mail meets standards, access to service is convenient, and service is timely and courteous at post offices. Until recent years, the Postal Service’s measurement of service quality was internally focused. For example, it measured the time to process mail from points within the postal system; it did not measure the time from deposit of mail into the system to delivery of mail to customers. The Service’s customer orientation continues to change. Increasingly, it is focusing on customer needs, expectations, and perceptions. Its two principal measures of service quality are the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) and Business Customer Satisfaction Index (BCSI), which measure how residential and business customers, respectively, perceive the Postal Service’s performance; and the External First-Class Measurement System (EXFC), a quantitative measure of total delivery performance. Both measurements are done independently of the Postal Service: residential CSI by Opinion Research Corporation; business CSI by Gallup Organization, Inc.; and EXFC by Price Waterhouse and Co. The Vice President/Consumer Advocate, who reports directly to the Postmaster General, oversees the CSI survey process and the EXFC end-to-end measurement system and, until December 1994, was responsible for analyzing and disseminating CSI and EXFC results. The quality focus of the Postal Service leadership team is consistent with current national objectives of making government more responsive to the American public. These objectives, outlined recently by the National Performance Review (NPR) task force, emphasize the need to change the way government works by putting the customer first, giving the customer a voice, and setting customer service standards. The Postal Service is following the NPR guidance by recognizing the need to continuously improve customer service to remain competitive. Establishing and maintaining consistently high levels of delivery and retail service are critical to the Service’s success in an increasingly competitive communications marketplace. We previously reported that the Postal Service is losing profitable business to the private sector, especially in the parcel post and overnight mail markets. Private carriers dominate the profitable business-to-business segment because they offer cheaper and faster service and have left the Postal Service with the more dispersed and less profitable household market segment. Soon after taking office in July 1992, the Postmaster General outlined broad strategic goals that included improving service quality and empowering employees to act responsively when customer satisfaction is at stake. In 1992, the Postmaster General downsized the Postal Service but also reorganized it to focus greater attention on serving customers. The positions of vice president for customer services and vice president for processing, both reporting to the chief operating officer, were established at postal headquarters as part of the reorganization. The Postmaster General created 10 area customer service offices, which oversee 85 customer service districts, and 10 area processing offices, which oversee hundreds of mail processing plants in the field. In 1994, to better coordinate customer service and mail processing functions, the Postmaster General eliminated the two above-mentioned vice president positions at headquarters. He also combined the two manager positions in each area into a single vice president position responsible for both customer service and mail processing. Below the area level, district and plant managers continue to report separately to the area vice president. Postmasters report to customer service district managers, who report to an area vice president and oversee retail service operations of about 40,000 post offices, stations, and branches nationwide. Plant managers report directly to an area vice president and oversee about 500 air, bulk, and general mail processing plants. The Postal Service serves 125 million households 6 days a week. Its residential customer surveys are done every postal quarter to measure these customers’ perceptions of virtually all postal services. Its surveys cover the Postal Service’s 10 geographical areas; 85 service areas, which include customer service districts and processing plants (called “performance clusters”); and 170 metropolitan areas of the United States.Under the $10.9 million contract with Opinion Research Corporation, through December 1994, the Service had received residential CSI results for 13 postal quarters dating back to April 1991. The results show the perceptions of residential customers regarding the Service’s overall performance (question 1a of the CSI survey questionnaire) and other aspects of U.S. mail services (37 other questions) for the 3 months preceding the survey. (A copy of the CSI survey questionnaire is included as app. I.) Customers receiving the questionnaire are also asked to provide written comments on (1) especially good experiences with the Postal Service and (2) anything that the Service could do to increase customer satisfaction. We previously reported that the CSI surveys were designed to provide a statistically valid survey for measuring customer satisfaction with the quality of postal services. The Service makes some residential CSI results publicly available each quarter showing overall customer satisfaction nationally and for the 170 metropolitan areas. The results are to be used internally to help track trends in customer satisfaction over time and by organizational component. The results also are to serve as a diagnostic tool for improving the quality of both delivery and retail services. In April 1993, the Postal Service awarded a 4-year $8.3 million contract to The Gallup Organization, Inc., to develop and operate for the Postal Service a Business Customer Satisfaction Index (BCSI) measurement system. Subsequent contract amendments increased the estimated total cost to about $11.9 million, and the Service had spent about $6.0 million under the contract through September 1995. The information from the system was to be used to measure the satisfaction of these customers and determine the allocation of resources needed to maximize customer satisfaction. The system was to produce valid and projectable data for each of 170 metropolitan areas and provide for aggregating the data for performance clusters and higher postal organizational levels. The Chairman of the former Subcommittee on Information, Justice, Transportation, and Agriculture, House Committee on Government Operations, requested that we review selected aspects of the Postal Service’s efforts to measure, report, and improve customer satisfaction. Subsequently, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Postal Service, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, requested that we report the results of our review to that Subcommittee. Our objectives were to determine (1) to what extent the Postal Service disseminates residential and business CSI data internally and to Congress and (2) whether opportunities exist for the Postal Service to improve the dissemination of CSI data and their potential use by Congress and the Postal Service. We were also to determine (3) the steps that the Postal Service is taking to improve customer satisfaction using CSI and other data and (4) any additional steps the Service could take to improve customer service and thereby improve customer satisfaction. Because the Postal Service had not made public any BCSI data at the time of our review, our work on the dissemination and use of customer satisfaction data was limited to residential CSI data. We reviewed the Gallup contract, analyzed Postal Service data on the relative importance of residential and business mail to the Service’s overall mail volumes, and obtained explanations from Postal Service officials of the status of the Gallup contract and plans for dissemination of BCSI data. As part of our work on residential CSI data collection, dissemination, and use, we interviewed Postal Service headquarters officials, including the Chief Operating Officer and the Vice Presidents for Customer Services, Consumer Affairs, and Quality. We interviewed various other headquarters officials responsible for customer retail service to find out how residential CSI data were used and what improvement initiatives were under way. We reviewed various materials and documents, such as reports, video tapes, and briefing documents, used by postal headquarters and selected field offices to disseminate CSI data. We analyzed annual reports sent by the Postal Service to Congress during fiscal years 1991 through 1994 as part of our efforts to determine any opportunities for the Service to improve the sharing of information on customer satisfaction and its performance with Congress. Along with interviews with numerous headquarters and field postal officials, we reviewed CSI-related reports prepared by Opinion Research Corporation and the Postal Inspection Service to identify opportunities to improve the dissemination and potential use of CSI data. We used the results of all of these tasks to assess the planning and monitoring of initiatives undertaken to improve customer satisfaction by improving customer service. To determine the extent of improvement in customer satisfaction with postal services, we obtained CSI metropolitan area data on question 1a responses relating to customers’ perceptions of satisfaction with the “overall performance” of the Postal Service and 22 other questions on window, telephone, and related retail services. We also analyzed EXFC data to determine changes in on-time delivery rates since the measurements began in 1990 and compared EXFC data with CSI data for the nation and selected metropolitan areas.