USPS, The Government, FOIA and All Your Questions Answered

Well maybe not all your questions, but if you're curious, the information around the mystery shopping program is published by the Office of Inspector General here --->> (https://www.uspsoig.gov/). They provide annual reports, findings from the mystery shops, the program guidelines as well as other details. Additionally, if you submit a FOIA request, you can obtain the USPS video footage if you really wanted to.

I read an interesting report around the MSC who had the contract prior to the current MSC. Apparently in 2011 they made significant errors which allowed Post Office employees to search their site, find the dates that the service locations were being shopped etc.

There are some reports of locations that failed 50% or more of their shops and actions taken by investigators.

Here is some info around the program with items placed in hold. Comments? Thoughts? Does anyone even care haha. I am an investigator in my full time job and mystery shop on the side so this was fascinating to me.

@ wrote:

The Mystery Shopper Program uses independently contracted individuals who visit Post
Offices as customers and document their experiences through a questionnaire. Mystery
shopping is intended to provide the Postal Service with an objective view of retail
transactions through anonymous third-party assessments of the customer experience.
Such assessments are consistent with the postmaster general’s emphasis on improving
customer service.

According to Postal Service’s Handbook PO 209, Retail Operations Handbook, mystery
shops are conducted at offices that generate $500,000 or more in annual walk-in
revenue or are in the top 20 percent of the highest revenue-producing offices within a
district. Using these criteria, mystery shops occur at about 8,800 retail units, eight times
a year, for a total fiscal year count of about 70,000.


The Postal Service’s mystery shop process involves using a questionnaire that is
divided into six weighted categories: waiting time in line, hazardous materials, product
offerings, product explanations, promotion and merchandising, and image. Additionally,
mystery shopper results provided to the Postal Service include the amount of revenue
lost when retail associates do not ask appropriate questions. Further, the information
gleaned from “shopped” Post Offices is disseminated through Postal Service systems,
such as the Retail Customer Experience folder in the Retail Data Mart of the Enterprise
Data Warehouse and through the weekly Retail Digest. The Retail Customer
Experience folder provides mystery shopper results in various reporting formats. The
Retail Digest includes recommended dialogue for mystery shopper service talks, as
appropriate. Both resources provide useful feedback to postmasters and managers who
want to improve the customer experience. As previously stated, program results also
measure the effectiveness of retail operations under the NPA, which is part of the PFP
evaluation system.

No current Postal Service employees or those separated from the Postal Service for
less than 1 year can act as mystery shoppers based on a written agreement required by
the contractor. In addition, Postal Service policy prohibits management from attempting
to identify mystery shoppers in an attempt to discredit shopper evaluations.


Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2023 03:10PM by Capurato.

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Interesting. Thank you for posting. There are many companies that know they are shopped and their employees have signed up for the company that shops them. They look and see when they are shopped and even the target person to be shopped by certain companies.
Nice post. After an employee is notified that they provided great service, were out of uniform, etc. then they know that they are mystery shopped. I don't know that any MSC can prevent the target company's employees, in this case postal employees, from finding out the date range of when they might be shopped if some postal employees or their relatives are also mystery shoppers. The date range gets adjusted if no one picks up the shop at base or when it is initially released. I could see that they find out the exact date on those rare times when the MSC makes a plea for a today only shop for a specific location.

If you submit a FOIA, don't you have to provide the address of the postal station and one specific date and time range or can you ask for the last three months of video footage. What would you do with that anyways? Don't they charge for video copies?
Moderator Note:

Quoted portion deleted because the former MSC's name was mentioned. This is a violation of Forum rules, which state not to mention any MSC/Client in the same thread/post. Feel free to edit your quoted portion and repost.

@heywave wrote:

Nice post. After an employee is notified that they provided great service, were out of uniform, etc. then they know that they are mystery shopped.

I read that the Post Master/Employees are instructed to not review footage or make an attempt to ascertain the identify of shoppers. I also read in one report that Post Office Leadership (district and local) at one branch never opened the reports and did nothing to address the issues at hand. In the report, it says the lost revenue due to the poor service (wait times, lack of upsell) cost the branch an approximate $32.5 million in lost revenue over the time span they reviewed.

It is wild to me that the government pays for 70,000 mystery shops a year with what appears to be little oversight as to the process of how the information gets relayed and how often follow up occurs.

@heywave wrote:

If you submit a FOIA, don't you have to provide the address of the postal station and one specific date and time range or can you ask for the last three months of video footage. What would you do with that anyways? Don't they charge for video copies?

FOIA can be both general or specific. Some requests cost money, others do not. Instances where they make hard copies or print the material often involve a payment. I have requested 30 days of police body camera footage from all patrol officers in a certain patrol area, as well as CCTV footage from city hall. It depends on what you are looking for and if you have the time/manpower to process all the data.
This is really interesting!

The service issues can be quite uneven. Everyone needs help and if they have their once a month visit to the PO with certified mail letters they don't know how to fill out and packages they don't know how to package. Or stamps they want to look at the whole book to pick out, it's going to take some time. That's literally what happened on my last shop. 2 windows were occupied with customers having those issues for the majority of the time I was in line.

But now I have a better understanding of the purpose of the shops being about revenue. I was wondering why some of the smaller post offices in my area were not getting shopped at all. They don't make enough revenue.
Also, I looked in my old emails for name of former company and I found it. I strongly dislike that former company. So glad it moved to one I like better.
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