I had an interesting experience at our local post office today, and I think it’s an analogy for how some businesses are trying to survive or even emerge from our current murky economic depths.

And it’s the wrong approach, at least in my opinion.

The total cost of the package I was trying to mail — a half-pound of candy and two thank you notes — probably didn’t break $6. Its destination? Just over the Wisconsin state line.

If you’re a frequent USPS customer, you can answer the “liquid, fragile, perishable, hazardous” question before the clerk asks you because for the past few years, it’s started every transaction, even those meant as a benign thank-you gift from an 11-year-old child.

But there’s something new. Faced with declining revenues, the USPS clearly has required some more mandatory sales training for its clerks. After declaring that there was nothing suspicious afoot, I listened to a solid litany of the most expensive mailing options available to me for this six-dollar package, in descending order.

It started at about $30, which included guaranteed overnight delivery, insurance, signature confirmation on the other end and a few more add-ons that were clearly meant to elevate my package to postal VIP status.

My last presented option? Priority mail at six dollars and change. Guaranteed to arrive — most likely — in two days.
When she finished, the clerk waited for me to make my selection, her fingers poised at the computer terminal.

I finally said to her, “Can’t I just send it First Class?”

It’s a method that, I should point out, usually means that my package arrives a day or two after I send it anyway.

It wasn’t an option she’d presented to me, but I could clearly see the cost on the little, ubiquitous screen now found at most post office counters. (I was a little afraid to ask if there were any cheaper options.)
She sighed and collected the $2.42 due from me.

It’s not the first time I’ve encountered overselling recently, both as a consumer and as a businessperson. In today’s experience, the emphasis was on getting me to spend the most money possible, not on getting my package where I wanted it and when I wanted it to arrive. My timeline wasn’t even considered as part of the sales process.

It doesn’t matter whether your customer is seeking to fill a multi-million contract or simply mail a bag of crunchy candy. To close that sale, you need to listen to your customer … not make your customer listen to you with the short-term goal of increasing your revenue stream.

I certainly didn’t feel duped today, but I could clearly see the harder sales approach in play. And ever so slightly, that changed how I felt about the post office. Will I mail my next package there? Perhaps, but that little change in tone might just be enough to make me find a different option, one that starts out by asking me the questions rather than giving me the answers it thinks I need to hear.

By Laurie Arendt

Laurie Arendt is editor of CRW. She can be reached at crweditor@crwmag.com