Choosing a Road for the Postal Service in the Digital Age

The U.S. Postal Service Officer of Inspector has posted an important white paper entitled, Postal Service Role in the Digital Age, Part I: Facts and Trends. The paper lays out the full range of new mobile and web-based hardware, software, and cloud based technologies that have changed how individuals, businesses and governments communicate.   All of these technologies pose threats to traditional uses off mail and other older means of communications. They also pose threats to older versions of digital and web based technologies.  The paper also illustrates the holes that exist that prevent the full use of web-based and mobile technologies from being more widely used.

The problem that the Postal Service, every firm that faces challenges in their traditional markets from new digital and mobile communications methods reminds me of the last stanza of Robert Frost's Poem, The Road Not Taken.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The poem suggests that: once a path is taken it determines all future choices; there are no do-overs and options and opportunities in the future all depend on the choice made now.   


In how the Postal Service adapts to digital and mobile competition and in deciding what unmet needs that it could fill, those framing a future for the Postal Service must choose between two roads.

The Well Traveled Road

One road is the one that it is now on as framed by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.   That road limits the Postal Service to the services that existed prior to enactment of the Act.   This road is well known and comfortable.   However, while this road is clear it is narrow and generally focuses on dealing with the conflict between protecting existing stakeholders including employees, mailers, and traditional ways of buying and providing mail services and slowly winding down the traditional physical delivery network as demand declines.

The problem with the well traveled road is not the impact on postal employees or for that matter the impact on the firms within the printing supply chain that produces most of what the Postal Service delivers.  The problem with the well traveled road is it does not reflect a contemporary understanding as to the challenges that businesses, non-profits and governments have in communicating with consumers and businesses and government at all levels.

By not fully incorporating the contemporary understanding of communications, the well traveled road puts the U.S. government at financial risk for both providing service guarantees to areas with the lowest level of demand and the costs associated with winding down the enterprise that cannot be rung out of cuts in employee counts, salaries and benefits and rate increases on customers.    More importantly, the well traveled road does not allow the Postal Service to fully take advantage of the needs of its customers and potential customers to communicate with consumers, businesses and governments that will be unmet in tomorrow's digital and physical delivery markets whether in digital or physical form.

The Less Traveled Road

The less traveled road requires the clearing of brush and other obstacles in order to begin travel.  The USPS-OIG paper is the first step in that process but cannot be the last.    The paper focus's on the changes in communication from the perspective of  the choices that recipients make in terms of communications.    In doing so it identifies a number of problems relating to the lack of industry standards and gaps in the digital marketplace that could provide part of the path for the Postal Service.

However, it clears only part of the brush on the less traveled road which keeps the direction of that path unclear.   What it misses is the challenge facing senders of communications in adapting their communications strategy to reflect their needs.   These include but are not limited to how senders have to deal with:

1. recipients want multiple options and platforms for receiving communications from them or sending replies; 
2. restrictions that recipients want to and/or can place on sender access to their use of a particular mode (e.g., do-not-call lists, do-not-mail lists, opt-in requirement for much of e-mail and social media advertising)
3. differences in how new communications options act as a adequate, equal or superior substitute for each of the set of more traditional communications differ (e.g. Hulu , ESPN3 and CBS Sports online streaming of the NCAA tournament act have a significant impact on TIVO, as well as broadcast, cable, and satellite television for the delivery of advertising but have little impact on personal communications or transaction related communications);
4. the impact of various communications options depend on the purpose of the communications as the effectiveness of each option differs;
5. the financial challenges caused by recipient's preferred choice may not be the most cost effective option for handling the message;
6. the difficulty of shifting consumer choice toward the sender's preferred method as both negative and positive incentives to shift recipients have significant limits with those limits being greatest in business to business communications;
7. the process of transitioning a population of recipient to a new method when the sender can compel the switch as has been the case of payment of Social Security and other cash benefits to individuals;  

Either the USPS-OIG or some other entity needs to take a number of additional steps to clear the brush from the less traveled road so that travel on that road can commence .   The first step is to look carefully at the needs of senders and how they are adapting those needs to full range of  in-person, voice, event, broadcast, print, digital and mobile communications options.   This step will identify what senders view as the problems caused by the lack of industry standards and current and future gaps in the digital marketplace.   This step will likely change the perspective of the USPS-OIG as to what the digital divide is and how the extent that it effects commerce, the activities and fund raising of non-profits and the provision of government services.

This step will also provide a better understanding as to how the Postal Service can generate the revenue that it needs to survive whether it stays on the well traveled road that only involves delivery of printed communications or embarks on the less traveled road and incorporates digital solutions that meet the needs of senders that complements the Postal Service's physical delivery services and brand equity.  It is this information that will determine whether senders that are expected to send 150 billion pieces of printed communications 10 years hence find that they will have the a cost-effective delivery service neccessary to get the impact that they will need.  
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.