This week on Mailin’ It, we talk about the Postal Customer Council® (PCC®), a network of organizations with a long history of connecting the Postal Service with local businesses. Join us as we discuss what PCCs are and what they do with Lindsey Taylor, the Postal Services' Director of Industry Engagement & Outreach.
In this episode, we learn all about a network of local organizations that help connect the Postal Service with large and small business mailers. This network is called the Postal Customer Council® (PCC®). Join us as we learn more about what PCCs are and how they help extend the Postal Services' efforts into local communities with Lindsey Taylor, the Postal Services' Director of Industry Engagement & Outreach. We’ll also dive into some of the great things PCCs have done and how they are essential to the Postal Services' success moving forward!
Dale Parsan:
Hey everybody. Welcome to Mailin’ It!, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Dale Parsan.
Karla Kirby:
And I'm Karla Kirby. In this episode, we're going to talk about a network of local organizations with a long history of connecting the Postal Service with commercial mailers all across the country. As you know, Dale, the Postal Service is a big operation that can sometimes be difficult for customers to navigate. These Postal Customer Councils or PCCs are a great way for the Postal Service to be more accessible to our customers. Here to tell us all about the great things the PCCs do is Lindsey Taylor, the Postal Services Director of Industry Engagement and Outreach. Lindsey, welcome to mailing it.
Lindsey Taylor:
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Dale Parsan:
Lindsey. Why don't we why don't we start you off easy. Let's tell the audience a little bit about yourself. You work here at the Postal Service, how long have you been here with us?
Lindsey Taylor:
So I started with the Postal Service in 2005 as a letter carrier in Jacksonville, Florida. And then I did that for a few years, and then I transitioned into an office job. I was part of a pilot program where they were trying to create a team to go out and attract small businesses to use the Postal Service for their mailing and shipping needs. And eventually it became a permanent position. And I did that for a few years, and then moved to Washington DC in 2012. Now, as you mentioned, I'm the Director of Industry Engagement and Outreach. I have a team of 17 and we manage four national programs. The PCCs, which we're going to talk about today, as well as the National Postal Forum, which is our own trade show that we put on. We also have a trade show program where we go out and we go to 60 trade shows a year. We have a team that does that, and we have the Postmaster General's Mailers Technical Advisory Committee. So that's where our largest customers come to headquarters quarterly and hear from our leadership team about what's going on in the Postal Service.
Dale Parsan:
Well, that sounds like quite a lot, Lindsey. So with a big operation like this, I'm sure that there's lots of opportunities to interact with Postal Service customers. Let's speak specifically about PCCs and why they're so important to the Postal Service. What are they, and what do they do?
Lindsey Taylor:
So, PCCs, they're a grassroots organization and they're Postal-sponsored. So it's a combination of postal and industry members working collectively together to grow the shipping and mailing industry and to learn more about the Postal Service, how to do business with us, how to use our shipping services, how to use our mailing services, how to grow their business.
Dale Parsan:
Is this a super secret club? Who can join the PCCs? Is there a limitation on how big or how small an entity has to be to join?
Lindsey Taylor:
So really the only requirement is you need to be a commercial mailer. So no residential customers, but anybody who uses the mail for their business or to ship something, they're welcome to join the Postal Customer Council.
Karla Kirby:
So one of the things that I like about PCCs based on the information you provided, of course, with the exception of the pandemic, is that members have always gotten a chance to interact with each other and local postal officials face-to-face. Is that why PCCs were created in the first place?
Lindsey Taylor:
PCCs were actually created over 60 years ago, and they were formed as Mail Users Councils. It was open to anybody, so businesses, residential customers, and the goal of the PCC - it was part of an ad campaign. The Postal Service wanted customers to enter their mail earlier in the day so that it would get processed more quickly because most businesses will enter their mail later in the evening. And so the bulk of the mail gets processed as part of our overnight crew. And so we wanted to get the mail spread out throughout the entire day for more timely processing and delivery.
Dale Parsan:
Lindsey, so diving a little bit deeper into the PCCs, what I'm imagining when I think about this is it's a town hall, something where local communities can get together and discuss Postal Service items or things that are happening that may be beneficial to them. So talk to me a little bit more about it. Is there one PCC? Are there numerous? What are the sizes like? And what is a typical structure? Do we have Postal Service employees involved? Is it something where there's a community leader? Talk to us a little bit about that.
Lindsey Taylor:
Yeah, so there's quite a bit of structure. We have a charter that we follow, and PCCs are run by a combination of both postal and industry members because we wanna show that partnership. That's the most important thing in the PCCs, it's industry and it's Postal working collectively together. So you will have that at every PCC. And we've got over a hundred nationally - in most major cities. And each PCC is comprised by a postal co-chair and an industry co-chair. You also have a secretary, an admin, and a treasurer, and you can have a vice-chair as well. So quite a bit of structure and they meet bimonthly or monthly. You know, we leave it up to the local PCCs really to manage their own PCC. We'll provide guidance from the headquarters level with the overall strategic message. But, you know, we like to give a lot of wiggle room for the PCCs locally to make it their own and to make it successful and to, because you know, things are regional, right? So we want them to figure out what works best for them on their local level.
Dale Parsan:
I would imagine that following the release of the Delivering for America plan, that this was a big topic at PCCs. So understanding that, what was some of the feedback that you were hearing from the PCC meetings, events around that time?
Lindsey Taylor:
Yeah, so we actually report directly to the postmaster general. So we've had conversations with him about PCCs, he's met the PCC leadership team. He's very supportive of PCCs and his vision is that the PCCs at the grassroots level can serve as messengers for the Delivering for America plan. And we can continue to push out local updates. It's been a year since the plan's been out, we can give a year update on what's going on. So it's an opportunity to share what's going on nationally at the local level.
Karla Kirby:
It sounds as though a big part of what PCCs do is create a network of contacts for their members. That seems pretty important for today's businesses, both big and small because it's seeming like e-commerce and shipping have only gotten more important over time.
Lindsey Taylor:
PCC’s are a network. In addition to working locally at the National Postal Forum, our own trade show, a lot of them come together and they meet other members from across the country. So they have the opportunity to interact nationally and locally. And in addition to the monthly meetings, you know, sometimes PCCs will do plant tours or will tour other industry facilities and really get an idea of how mail-in packages move through not only our system, but through the industry members' business as well. So it's an opportunity to learn and grow and expand your knowledge.
Dale Parsan:
So you mentioned Lindsey, that a lot of these members get to interact with each other. So we're talking about different entities, different businesses all creating that network, as you mentioned. What what other types of impacts do PCCs have on its members? I mean, what kind of interesting ideas come out of PCC members interacting with each other?
Lindsey Taylor:
Yeah, so really interesting concept here. A lot of PCC members, they're actually competitors. So you've got, you know, multiple mail service providers, marketers, printers, and they're all part of this local community. But what's so interesting is that they genuinely want each other to succeed. So there's many opportunities across the country with PCCs where an industry member has been, you know, asked to do a certain type of job and they don't have the skillset to do it well. They can call another PCC member and say, “Hey, I know you do this. Can you show me how to do this? I'd, you know, like to do business with this customer.” And then their competitor will either train them on how to do it or the industry member might say, “I don't have the ability to do this job. I've got, you know, I have too many jobs backed up. I need to, you know, hand this off. You know, are you interested in taking this job?” So there's job sharing that's going on as well within the PCC community.
Karla Kirby:
So, Lindsey, in doing a little bit of research on the PCCs, I saw that we even extend the Postal Service efforts into academia. I'm thinking specifically of one program I came across: Direct Effect campaign. Can you tell us more about that?
Lindsey Taylor:
Yeah, so what we've noticed over the past few years within a lot of college programs within the marketing department or the graphics arts departments, is there's so much emphasis on digital marketing, email marketing. And we noticed that sometimes college programs weren't even addressing mail at all. And, you know, mail has been proven to be a great driver of getting results, getting great response rates. So we started a program called Direct Effect, where we challenged our local PCCs: Hey, if you have a contact in a local community college or you know, a university, if you know someone in academia and you think that they would be a good fit for including information on mail into their programs, let us know. And so the PCCs really took that as a rallying cry, and they turned in tons of leads for colleges across the nation. And that team you know, started with a bench - with tons of leads to follow up on. And so now I think we're in the third or fourth year of the program and it's just expanded since then. And so we're reaching college students in more universities and we've partnered with the industry again. And so some of our PCC industry leaders are going out and teaching college courses on mail.
Dale Parsan:
That sounds like a really good way to show new generations of young people that the Postal Service is relevant to them in their careers.
Lindsey Taylor:
Absolutely. We have quite a few colleges that are members of PCCs as well. You know, I hate to call attention to it, but you know, our mailing industry, we're on the older side
Karla Kirby:
I understand that one of the ways PCCs keeps things interesting for their members is by encouraging them to come up with new and creative ways of working, and the Postal Service recognizes and awards top PCCs for their work. Can you share an example?
Lindsey Taylor:
Yeah, so we have PCC awards that we host annually and we encourage PCCs across the country to submit their ideas for things that they're implementing in their local PCCs related to education, innovation, networking. Because really what we wanna do is, one, we wanna spotlight those overachieving PCCs and give recognition to them. But in addition, we want the other PCCs to glean information from what the more successful PCCs are doing so that they can replicate this in their local PCCs. Because we want over a hundred super strong PCCs across the country. And you know, if you can, if you can get it a good idea from another PCC,you know, I don't call that stealing, that's, that's sharing
Dale Parsan:
What do you see in terms of the future of these organizations?
Lindsey Taylor:
So there's so much change happening at the Postal Service right now. We have a fairly new postmaster general still with a Delivering for America 10-year plan. We're redesigning our network. We wanna be partners with the Postal Service in that growth and redesign. So we see PCCs helping provide ideas or getting the message out on Delivering for America. We're also trying to rebuild our PCCs. They were devastated during the pandemic because PCCs are successful when they're meeting in person together. They're networking with each other, they're developing those one-on-one connections. So we're really trying to focus on getting PCCs back meeting in person again. And, you know, we're just gonna continue to provide information, provide resources to PCCs. We like to provide support from the headquarters level with officers and executives as well. Our leadership team will go out and speak to local PCCs, you know, there's nothing better than hearing it from the horse's mouth of what's going on at the national level and then implementing that on the local levels too. And then also the PCCs. It's such a great way for you to connect with your local leadership team. Mentioned earlier, the Postal Service is a huge organization. It's very difficult to navigate. There's nothing better than being able to put a name with a face. Oh, you're my postmaster, you are my plant manager. Or oh, now I have someone that I can call when I have an issue or, or something along those lines. So it's, you know, it's growing knowledge at the local level and at the national level just to be well-rounded.
Dale Parsan:
Great. So before we close things out, if anybody's here listening to the podcast that's interested in joining there PCC or just learning more about it, how do they go about doing that?
Yeah, so we have information on our website, PostalPro.usps.com. There you can see where PCCs are located across the country. We have a dropdown menu. You can select a PCC, you can request more information, you can reach out to my team. Being a member is super easy. It's a very low threshold to meet. And, we encourage any small to medium or large mailer to consider joining the PCC.
Dale Parsan:
Wonderful.
Karla Kirby:
Well, Lindsey, thank you for joining us today. Very informative and we look forward to having you on in the future.
Lindsey Taylor:
Thanks guys. It was a blast.
Karla Kirby:
And now it's time for Did You Know? In this segment we explore some of the lesser known facts about the Postal Service. Dale, didn't you tell me earlier that you've got a really good one for this episode?
Dale Parsan:
I did, and I do. It's a question that I really didn't think had an answer, but the question is: How fast is the eagle in the USPS logo flying?
Karla Kirby:
That's an interesting question, but I'm not sure how one could find out.
Dale Parsan:
That's what I thought too until I did some digging. It turns out a mechanical engineering professor was wondering the exact same thing, and he came up with an answer,
Karla Kirby:
This oughta be good.
Dale Parsan:
In April, 2020, Andrew Higgins, a professor at MacGill University in Montreal, calculated the eagle speed as part of one of the classes he was teaching. If you don't have a copy of the logo in front of you, I'll describe it. It's a blue and white drawing of the head of an eagle in flight. You know it's in flight because there's an area of white space around the eagle's head that's angled to make it look like an eagle is cutting through the air. That white space is a shock wave and it's the key to figuring out the eagle's speed.
Karla Kirby:
Okay. I'm following you so far.
Dale Parsan:
This may be oversimplifying things a lot, but basically the formula uses the speed of sound and the angle of the shock wave to help calculate the eagle's velocity.
Karla Kirby:
Very interesting. So…
Dale Parsan:
So what?
Karla Kirby:
So how fast is the eagle flying?
Dale Parsan:
Oh, right, it's flying at Mach 4.93… Or more than 3,650 miles per hour.
Karla Kirby:
Very cool and very fast!
Dale Parsan:
Karla Kirby:
Exactly. And that wraps up this episode of Did You Know.
Dale Parsan:
Karla, a great episode with Lindsey. I really learned a lot about PCCs and frankly, I didn't know much too begin with.
Karla Kirby:
You know, me too, Dale. I had no clue that they existed. This was great information and I'm definitely gonna find my local PCC.
Dale Parsan:
Wonderful. For me, one of the biggest takeaways is something like this where prospective businesses can receive a lot of firsthand knowledge about things that are changing with the Postal Service. I would think that that would be something very difficult to do. But from what Lindsey was describing, it seems like it's fairly easy - just going to that website, registering, attending some meetings, getting some information.
Karla Kirby:
Yeah, and I think another huge benefit that I didn't even consider before this conversation is just the information sharing across the members and how they can use each other's experiences to better their own businesses.
Dale Parsan:
Absolutely.
Karla Kirby:
Well, that's all for this episode of Mailin’ It! Don't forget to subscribe to Mailin’ It wherever you get your podcast. To make sure you don't miss the next episode and follow along on Instagram @USPostalService, Twitter @usps, and on Facebook.