Broad Street Post Office Cuts Hours – Does It Matter?
The Postal Service could teach the banks something about “banking hours.” The Broad Street branch just cut hours to 9-5, Monday to Friday, and 9-12:30 Saturdays. Until this week the daily hours were 9-5:30.
Meanwhile, down the street at the BB&T, the drive-through stays open until 7 p.m. weekdays. The PNC bank up the street goes one better, with Saturday drive-through hours of 9-4.
Does it matter? After all, as the saying goes, “You have options.” There’s more than one way to send a package, and in the interest of consumerism I set out to try them all.
Broad Street Post Office
Time: 4:45 p.m. This is by design; I want to see if there’s a madhouse at closing time. Two clerks are on duty and only one person is ahead of me in line. In less than three minutes it’s my turn. I present a 21-pound box of books to ship to our son in California. My wife, a practical sort, also tucked in a sweater. Bad idea: The sweater disqualifies the package for the special media rate of $9.58. Instead the cost is $25.44 for 7-day delivery and $45.50 for 2-day delivery.
Retaining my package, I recede to the back of the room to watch as the clock approaches 5 p.m. By 4:50, five people are waiting in line, but at that moment two more clerks appear. Customers continue to arrive but are quickly attended by the four clerks. Precisely at 5 p.m. the door is locked and blinds pulled. We can leave but no one can enter. As I exit I hold the door (illegally?) for a man rushing in. He will be the last customer of the day. I wait around in the outer lobby another couple of minutes. One man holding a large envelope tries the door, and peers inside. As the earlier customer exits, he considers sneaking in but thinks better of it. Bored, I depart down the street for
Mailbox Extra
Across from CVS on Broad Street, this little shop offers an array of mailing services. But when I pull on the door around 5:10, it’s locked. Now I know how the latecomer at the P.O. felt. But wait – the man inside is opening the door for me. I explain I’m doing a “consumer survey,” which he takes in pretty good humor for someone who was ready to go home. “We used to be open from 9-6, but business is slow, so now it’s 10-5 — If we have business we’ll stay open.” Mailbox Extra will send my package through the U.S. mail for $37 for 7-day delivery and $58.25 for 2-day delivery. That’s about a $12 premium over going straight to the post office. Mailbox also offers both UPS and Fedex service – again at prices somewhat higher than going straight to the source.
Fedex Kinko’s
No stinking banking hours here! Kinko’s is open 6 a.m. – 11 p.m., seven days a week. And more to my luck, the friendly clerk tells me, I can still make the 6 p.m. cutoff for shipment today. The 5-day Fedex rate to California is $28.18, and 2 days is $97.68.
UPS Store
Hours here are 9-7 weekdays, 9-5 Saturdays. My package will cost $31.27 to deliver in 5 business days, $64.27 for 3 days, or $97.88 for 2 days.
Conclusion: The Postal Service has the best prices but the worst hours. The media rate is a steal (it’s a leftover from a previous century when the Government was promoting distribution of books, magazines, and newspapers to a rural population). That said, you get what you pay for: our son came home for Christmas and mailed several boxes of textbooks back to California. When the first box arrived he noticed it looked pretty beat-up, but the big surprise was finding an anatomy textbook inside. The books he mailed all concerned computers.
Worse, another box of books never arrived at all; instead, the Postal Service mailed a form letter to our return address enclosing some fragments of the mailing label. If we could identify the contents of the destroyed package, they’d look around. I dutifully compiled a list of all the book titles my son could remember sending, and mailed it back to some sort of dead-letter office in Minnesota. That was over a month ago; so far I haven’t even received a postcard.
I haven’t mailed that package yet. Should I pull out the sweater and go for the $9.58 rate, or save the bother (and risk) and take it to Fedex?
By George Southern
March 5, 2009
No, we’re taking it to Mail Box Extra.
The post office has lost it edge for sure. Their primary mission is service, yet they cut it without looking at other options. I have tried for months to get the self-service package mailing machine back in the local office. Then attempted, but failed to at least get the simple scale back in lobby that has been gone for at least 2 years. Each of these could help maintain some service capability for the customer. Service hours could be adjusted to better service working people, like maybe staying open later 1-2 nights a week for people who work. I would much rather cut out Saturady home delivery to maintain customer service at the Post Office.
Until fairly recently the local office’s hours were 8-530 M-F and 830-1230 on Saturday. But the decline in service isn’t just a matter of shorter hours.
Delivery usually is late in Winter Hill, which ironically is close to the Post Office. There were times in 2007-08 when my mail didn’t come until after 730. It’s improved a bit lately and is generally here by 530, but it’s a far cry from the sort of service I can remember from my younger days. Then we usually received it no later than 1230, but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Incidentally, the office may be moving to the Flower Building by the end of the month.