June 28, 2021

To augment its required quarterly service performance reports, the Postal Service has taken to issuing press releases when service improves, or at least holds steady.  The latest release shows service improvements by 6 to 9 percentage points through most of the current third quarter:

Performance numbers below include the weeks of April 1 through June 18:

• First-Class Mail: 87.5 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on-time against the USPS service standard, an over 9 percent increase over the second quarter.
• Marketing Mail: 90.8 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a nearly 6 percent increase over the second quarter.
• Periodicals: 79.1 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a nearly 8 percent increase over the second quarter.

Meanwhile, the USPS Office of Inspector General has launched a new service performance web page that is updated through the latest full quarter and provides data by USPS district and class of mail, in comparison to postal targets.  In addition to a useful dashboard, the page includes links to OIG service performance reports and projects.

We would be interested in hearing from our members about whether any of this information is useful to your operations, and what is missing.  One thing a member already brought to our attention is the lack of district information on Periodicals performance. That’s because the Postal Service reports Periodicals by the seven areas only, not at the district level.