Edward Rehor Jr. is a talker.
Rehor, a mail handler at the Flushing Main Post Office in Queens, NY, never misses an opportunity to discuss USPS when he’s out and about in his community.
“If [a customer] asks a question, I’ll try to answer it or offer to have an expert contact them. It’s just good customer service,” he said.
It’s also a good way to identify potential sales leads.
Rehor recently spoke with the representative of a neighborhood business that did most of its shipping with a Postal Service competitor. Rehor suggested it might be more cost-effective to switch to USPS.
The customer had additional questions, so Rehor submitted the firm’s contact information through the Mail Handlers employee sales leads program.
The lead was one of 12 that Rehor submitted last year that totaled an estimated $1 million in new annualized revenue for the Postal Service.
“It just goes to prove that whether you deal with customers all day as part of your job or work in the ‘back of the house,’ new revenue can be found anywhere,” said Mary Anderson, small-business engagement director at USPS headquarters in Washington, DC.
The Postal Service is encouraging all employees to follow Rehor’s example during Race for a $Billion, a campaign to raise $1 billion in estimated annualized revenue through sales leads from the postal workforce.
The Postal Service offers several programs for employees to submit leads, including Mail Handlers, the program Rehor uses; Customer Connect (for letter carriers); Clerks Care (for retail associates and distribution and machine clerks); Rural Reach (for rural carriers) and Submit a Lead (for everyone else, including Executive and Administrative Schedule employees).
The Sales Blue page has more information about each program, as well as an updated ranking of all USPS districts in the Race for a $Billion campaign.
Despite his success in identifying sales leads, Rehor said he doesn’t think he’s doing anything unusual.
Said Rehor: “I just talk to people.”