Post Office April Fool’s Joke?

I went to the post office to mail two greeting cards to Sweden. As usual, the line was long, so I was excited when I spotted an available kiosk. I wasn’t sure if it would do international, but I decided to give it a try. Sure enough, it was as simple as typing the country name and selecting from a list. I found Sweden, weighed my first card and got the postage info: 94 cents. I looked around for “weigh another,” but I couldn’t find this option. So, I decided to check out and essentially do the process twice (starting to get annoyed…). Then it said:

“Fooled Ya!” or rather, “Cannot process purchase of less than $1.00. Would you like to purchase a 42 cent stamp or a booklet of stamps?”

What!!??! Is this the most sneaky cross-sell methodology in post office history? I really didn’t want to stand in line, so I ended up with two extra 42 cent stamps and two charges on my debit card. The post office ended up with a disgruntled customer.

Let’s take a look at this from a product management perspective:

1. The product is intended to solve a very real market problem: Long lines at the post office.
2. The persona it’s targeting is pretty obvious: Impatient, doesn’t have time to stand in line, likes self-service.
3. It meets the basic requirements: Weighs letter, provides price, allows user to pay, and provisions the postage sticker.

However, somebody (with too much power) decided that it was OK for the kiosk not to accept cash and not to accept charges less than $1.00 even though many purchases are less than $1.00. This somebody may even have thought that the solution was pretty clever, because of the cross-sell trick.

Considering the fact that there is still a long line at the post office, no line at the kiosk, and apparently kiosks being pulled because of low usage, I would say this product is not as successful as it could have been had they let the product manager make the final decision. Because the product manager would have gone out and talked to potential customers (like you and me) and asked what we like/don’t like about going to the post office, what types of letters/packages we typically send at the post office, what payment method we prefer to use, etc. Then he or she would listen to us ranting about how much we hate long lines, especially if we’re just there to send a greeting card, and be able to speak intelligently to executives/developers/customers about the market problem and market requirements. Aaaahhhh, Utopia!

Perhaps there is a new version coming out soon… Until then, I’ll just go to The UPS Store.