One Moment, Please… Continued USPS Delays Will Lose Customers

In recent months, we’ve noticed significant mail delays and lost mail.

As one example, we’ve had customers mail our newspaper a payment dated May 29 and not arrive until June 30.  It literally took more than 30 days to go from Lanesboro to Preston.  We’ve mailed payments to our vendors and noticed it takes up to 30 days.  This has been an ongoing issue since about March 2026.

And, we are seeing more mail arrive without a postmark stamp on it.  That never used to happen.

This is becoming a trust factor.  When you pay postage for something to be mailed and it gets delayed or lost, you start to think you can’t trust the USPS to get the job done.

This has nothing to do with our local postal clerks and carriers.  They do a fantastic job and always go the extra mile for their customers.

This has everything to do with decisions made at the top of what I consider a very top-heavy USPS institution.

Unfortunately, we have leadership at the USPS who are extremely disconnected from what’s involved in serving customers at the local level.  Leadership needs to get their hands dirty.  They need to step into a local office and work alongside the clerks and carriers at the local level to see what they deal with every single day.  They need to ask “how can we make your job easier” and “how can we do a better job of serving customers.”

The USPS leadership needs to start with the customer experience and work backwards in the process.  Leadership can’t sit in an ivory tower and make decisions that impact the frontline employees and ultimately the customer without their involvement in process improvement.

If mail delays and lost mail continues to be an issue, this will force customers to start paying their bills online.  Yes, many people have converted to this method already, but this will push long-time loyal USPS customers to consider switching their billing and payment methods to online options.

Right now, the loyal USPS customers are theirs to lose.  They need to fix these issues soon or they will be losing more revenue from those who shift to other options.

And, trust me, I want to see the USPS succeed.  We need them to succeed for everyone’s sake.