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Private Mail See Processors Slower Service, Higher Costs
YOUNGSTOWN -- Six months before the mail processing center at the Youngstown Post Office downtown closes, private mail processors say already they see longer delivery times.
Paul Mahin, mail specialist and consultant for City Printing, says his company used to get “exceptional service” when it mailed letters and packages to destinations within the city. Now, letters take two days and packages even longer to arrive.
“What you're expecting now isn't going to happen. It takes two days to get a letter across town where the norm used to be one, and you could count on that,” Mahin says. “It was fabulous and we had a great post office here. Now, with [mail] going up to Cleveland, [we have to ask ourselves,] how long is it going to take to get to homes?”
In July, when the processing center here closes, services will be consolidated at a center in Cleveland.
While John Slipski hasn't heard complaints about service changes from his clients, the major account manager at Pitney Bowes says he can see impediments to processing mail in Cleveland.
“Most clients I work with haven't had delayed service or service interruption because they're typically mailing bills, which get sent out well in advance,” Slipski explains. “When it comes to direct mail, then it's becoming more of an issue because you're trying to know exactly when it's going to get delivered. With this delayed service, it's becoming a challenge.”
City Printing often handles the mailings of special offers for companies in the area. Such offers typically have a narrow window for when the mail is scheduled to arrive.
“If you have offers that have to be responded to by a certain time, you have to time it. In the past, we knew when it was going to be delivered,” Mahin says. “Now, it's going to take us a while to see how fast the mail can travel.”
Except for the elimination of first-class overnight standard mailing, the service standards haven't changed, Harry Myers, district marketing manager for the United States Postal Service, told the Steel Valley Postal Customer Council Friday.
While what Mahin calls “exceptional service” might have changed, Myers adds, the Post Office has not changed express or standard mail.
With the transfer of Youngstown's processing to Cleveland, Mahin says, private processors now have to work out whether using the sectional center facility discount – 4.3% for sending mail from a processing center – is worth the trip.
“If I have a thousand pieces to mail, that's only going to save me $43. It's going to cost me more than that to transport it up there. If I've got 10,000, that's $430, which is a little more [of an incentive],” he says.
On top of that, he continues, companies must determine whether mailing from Cleveland is the best way to deliver dated material and packages.
“I have to figure if it will be faster to send the mail up to Cleveland, have it accepted then sent back to Youngstown and delivered, or drop it off here and have the Post Office take it up there and get it back to homes,” Mahin says. “We have to go through a period of tracking how the Post Office works.”
When full consolidation is achieved, Myers informed the council, Youngstown will be absorbed into the Cleveland region, meaning mailing times won't change.
Slipski notices that most customers have opted to just work through the changes in service and are adjusting as they go along, he adds.
Before the center closes – scheduled for July – Mahin says City Printing is looking at adding an extra vehicle and driver, which won't be cheap, he points out.
“We're trying to find how this will fall out and how to do it. We're going to do what our customers want us to do,” Mahin says.
Pictured: Members of the Steel Valley Postal Customer Council question Harry Myers, district marketing manager for the United States Postal Service, at their meeting Friday.
Related:
Costs Will Go Up for Private Mail Processors
Moving Mail Processing Could Cost Local Business $2.3M
Copyright 2015 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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