I had my second visit today from the Postal Service (see dot #4334), with the carrier telling me that her supervisor said the stamp in question was 76 worth cents and the letter cost $1.66 to mail, so I had only 96 cents of stamps and still owed 68 cents.
There are three problems with that: 1) The stamp is worth 92 cents, not 76; 2) a square envelope only costs $1.12 to mail, not $1.66, but even if they were right about those two things, 3) do the math and it would mean I owed 70 cents, not 68. I pulled up the USPS app and showed my carrier that the stamp that “wasn’t a real stamp” yesterday, that today her supervisor believes is 76 cents, is actually 92 cents (first class + an additional ounce). She took a picture of my phone showing their website and said, “They don’t teach us that.”
That I can believe. Too often, we fail to teach or inform those on the front line things that the general public knows. We forget to tell the receptionist that an outside group is meeting on-site today or that an event has been postponed or rescheduled. We don’t tell the clerks that an email went out announcing a big sale, or let the front office know that forms are due today and should be delivered to X office. It puts those in customer-facing positions in an awkward situation and makes the whole organization appear inept.
As part of your onboarding or training, it would help everyone if you included a component that has your new hires interact with the organization in ways that the consumers will. It’s great for employees to know the back of the house, but also knowing how others experience you can help your service earn a stamp of approval.
