Ashley Ortiz never misses an opportunity to help USPS grow its business.
The Derry, NH, letter carrier particularly enjoys finding sales leads, which she submits through the Customer Connect program.
“I have just enough life experience that I can connect with a lot of people,” she says.
The Postal Service wants all employees to follow Ortiz’s example.
The organization is conducting Race for a $Billion, a campaign to generate $1 billion in estimated revenue through employee-provided leads before the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
To help other employees find leads, Ortiz follows these tips:
• Know how to find leads. One example: While on her lunch break at a restaurant in her community, Ortiz learned from a cashier that he was running a T-shirt business out of his home.
She told him that she could arrange for someone from USPS to give him a call to discuss his mailing and shipping options. Next, she took down his contact information and submitted it through Customer Connect — a process that eventually led to the man agreeing to ship his shirts through the Postal Service, generating $55,000 in estimated revenue for the organization.
• Know the Postal Service’s offerings. Educate yourself on shipping products like Priority Mail, as well as services like Every Door Direct Mail.
• Know how to participate. It also helps to be familiar with the differences between the Postal Service’s various lead programs.
In addition to Customer Connect, the letter carrier-oriented program that Ortiz uses to submit her leads, USPS offers Clerks Care (for retail associates and distribution and machine clerks), Mail Handlers (for mail handlers), Rural Reach (for rural carriers) and Submit a Lead (for everyone else, including Executive and Administrative Schedule employees).
The bottom line, Ortiz says, is you have to be willing to talk to potential customers.
“I talk to everybody all the time,” she says.