The Postal Service’s Consumer Advocate team acts as the “voice of the customer” throughout the organization and provides resources to help employees maintain positive customer relationships.
April Callens, customer policy and engagement strategy program manager, works on the Consumer Advocate team’s goal of ensuring a good customer experience at every encounter.
She wants employees to know they can better respond to customer inquiries by reviewing the team’s tools and resources, attending webinars and using its “communicating organizational responses effectively” language, or CORE.
“We have the resources, but I have found employees just don’t know where to find them or that they exist, but they’re there. Our resources are valuable to anyone who responds to an inquiry in any part of the Postal Service — and that doesn’t have to be your main job description or job function,” Callens said.
The CORE language resource is part of the Consumer Advocate Blue page, which can be found under Featured Topics. It offers responses to frequent customer inquiries about delivery of mail and packages, Election and Political Mail, facilities, pricing, products, retail and more.
“A lot of the responses are policy-related, so you’re providing customers with correct information,” she said.
CORE language responses are also embedded throughout the Customer 360 platform. The C360’s complaint handling system also offers employee guidance and templates for email and letter responses.
The Consumer Affairs staff, Customer Relations teams, local Post Office employees who handle C360 cases, and the Consumer Advocate team at USPS headquarters in Washington, DC, are the primary users of the CORE language.
But “any employee who might need guidance on how to respond to a customer” can benefit from using the CORE language tool, Callens said.
The team also provides research-based responses to consumer and residential customers’ appeals claims as well as inquiries sent to the Office of the Postmaster General, Postal Regulatory Commission and other leadership teams.
“Primers,” a Postal Service explanatory column, appears occasionally in Link.
