Emiliano Chapa is always on the lookout for new revenue for the Postal Service.
Chapa, a USPS customer services manager at Lake Highlands Station in Dallas, spends a lot of time talking to businesspeople in his community. He never misses an opportunity to tell them about the organization’s products and services.
“I keep my customers connected by telling them about the value of USPS shipping,” he says.
The Postal Service wants all employees to follow Chapa’s lead.
The organization encourages workers to discuss postal products and services with businesses they encounter — such as a merchant seeking new ways to advertise his or her wares, or a home-based business that uses another shipping company — and submit any tips from these conversations through one of its employee leads programs.
To help employees participate, the Postal Service offers these tips:
• Talk to business people. While speaking with the owner of a beauty supply company recently, Chapa learned that the business was seeking alternative shipping options.
After Chapa submitted the lead through Business Connect, a local USPS business development specialist followed up with the customer and closed a shipping deal valued at $2.08 million.
• Familiarize yourself with the Postal Service’s offerings. In addition to shipping options like Priority Mail, learn about services like Every Door Direct Mail and Informed Delivery.
• Know which program is right for you. While Chapa submits leads through Business Connect, a program for Postmasters, managers and supervisors, other programs are available.
These include Customer Connect (for letter carriers), Rural Reach (for rural carriers), Clerks Care (for retail associates and distribution and machine clerks), Mail Handlers (for mail handlers) and Submit a Lead (for everyone else, including Executive and Administrative Schedule employees).
It all comes down to one thing, Chapa says: serving customers.
“Without customers or their business, we simply would not exist,” he says.