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- First Time Home Buyer - Find a real estate agent that is willing to pay you the next time you are looking for a home.
- Driver's License - You must make sure you change your address with your State's department of motor vehicles (DMV).
- Magazine Address Changes - We have collected some great information on how to change your address to keep getting the magazines you love at your new home.
- Name Change Checklist - If you have recently gotten married, divorced, or changed your name for any other reason, then this list of resources will help you make sure you notify organizations that need to know your new name.
- Nanny - If you are looking to hire a nanny or if you want to learn how to become a nanny, this site offers tons of information directly from professional nannies.
- Babysitting Jobs - We can help families find babysitters in their area that are available and locally certified.
- Nanny Jobs - Find INA certified nannies that have been pre-screened with full background checks at your fingertips.
- Driver's License - You must make sure you change your address with your State's department of motor vehicles (DMV).
- USPS COA Site - You can pay a small fee to change your address here OR you can use our FREE service.
- USPS Options for Receiving Mail - This is an interesting page where you can see what your options are for receiving mail. Did you know you had any?
- Call to Change Your Address - This is an FAQ entry on how to change your address over the telephone.
- USPS State Abbreviations - This is a real quick table for looking up State abbreviations.
Mail Delivery Times and Realistic Expectations
For as long as I can remember there has been a running joke about how long it can take the USPS to deliver mail. I think this somewhat tarnished reputation may be more due to people procrastinating and not actually putting the letter or package into the mail more than anything. With that said, I dug more deeply into just what the USPS says the American public should expect for standard delivery times. In addition to that I went ahead and did some research on how often they actually hit these standard delivery times as well as how the USPS rates compared to other governmental agencies in terms of public satisfaction scores. You might be surprised by the results.
Standard Delivery Times
One of the most important points that can’t be over-stressed is that for STANDARD mail, the USPS doesn’t make any guarantees at all (even that the letter or package will be delivered). That does not mean they won’t try to deliver every package in a timely fashion at all it just means that the sender doesn’t have any service guarantees to work with for standard mail.
| Class of Mail | Estimated Delivery Time | Trackable | Guaranteed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Express Mail Service | Items will make it to their destination by 3:00 PM the next day or second day if that option was chosen. | Yes | Yes |
| Priority Mail Service | In the U.S. your delivery should arrive in 2 to 3 days. | No | No |
| First Class Mail | In the U.S. your delivery should arrive in 2 to 3 days. | No | No |
| Standard Mail | The delivery times for standard mail vary wildly from 2 to 9 days. | No | No |
| Periodicals | These are simply not guaranteed to be delivered at all. | No | No |
As with most things in life and certainly in business, the responsibility lies with the sender to understand the levels of service and to plan properly to get things delivered in a timely manner. For instance it is not reasonable if you live in San Francisco, CA to send a birthday card to your mother in Cleveland, OH via standard mail and expect it to arrive the next day. The smartest thing to do would be to plan to the outside window for standard mail which is 9 days and make sure you send Mom’s birthday card 9 days early.
As promised early on in the article, I did some research on how often the USPS actually meets their stated delivery times and the answer was 96% of the time for overnight express mail and no worse than 93% of the time for express mail. In addition, according to a recent study by GfK Roper Consulting, 92% of the American public is very happy with the service provided by the USPS (92% of the respondents rated the service very good). You can read more about this at National Association of Letter Carriers website (nalc.org). The bottom line is that the USPS does deliver on their service promises and most people do recognize their commitment to service. Here is a quick breakdown of public perception of the USPS versus other governmental agencies:
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I still get mail that is addressed to my mother.My mother died in 1994.Full time career carriers would not let this happen.The information collected from this year’s census should be used to update all mailing list and find out what mail is real mail and what mail is mail that is being sent for profit ie;Magazines,circulers and periodicals.All mail should be bar coded and tracked.No mail should be storred.Shelley Driefuss reported to the Senate in 2004 that 23% of the mail that is processed by independent mail processors is not delivered within the 10 day window,if at all.The CEO of Pitney Bowes projacts that his company will grow at a 20% rate shortly.Postmaster John Potter says that the post office is losing so much money that they may not be able to make payroll.Mr.Potter just obtained 102 mail processing machines from Pitney Bowes in 2007.Each machine processes 25,000 pieces of mail per hr.Unless tha mail is first class mail it is not monitored for delivery.Pitney Bowes is the primary supplier of postal equipment on the planet.His machines,(with the help of postal workers who debugged them)have reduced the cost of processing the mail to $1.50 per 1,000 pieces.The post office processes 47% of the mail that is processed on the planet.The post office generates $100 million to $200 million per hr. during peek mail periods.The post office gets a 10 day float on reporting this revenue.The post office does not pay taxes.It gets the equipment on a tax free lease and give the equipment to the independent mail processors on a tax free lease.These companies are also given discounts for processing the mail.23% of postal revenue is not accounted for yet Mr. Potter is allowed to tell the public that his company is broke.Mr.Potter is lying!Once the census data is crunched Mr.Potter and all of the politicians who are allowing him to spread the lie that the post office is losing money will have to go.Return the processing and delivery of the mail to full time postal employees and enter the census data into the machines to insure accuracy.Make the full time clerks and carriers the front line of “Homeland Security”.The eldery and the disabled should get free postage as a result of the money that will be saved.When the census data is crunched the modern post office will be born.Up until now mail volume has been speculation.
Your mom’s birthday card is first class mail, going across the country 4 days, should be plenty of lead time. That is four days from actual placement in a mailbox, not 4 days from when you realized you should be sending her a card.