The Future of The Post Office Is Not Post

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

— The Persian Wars, Herodotus (500–449 B.C.).

Around the world, post offices are among the most trusted, reliable, and accessible public institutions. In part due to their community roots, technology and communications infrastructure, and last mile network coverage.

We have been using postal services since BC. And much has remained unchanged. We’re about due for an overhaul.

Why? Because the future of the post office is not mail. Its future is still in sending, sorting, and delivering — but not only parcels. It is in providing society’s other important services. Services such as banking, health, identity.

Could postal workers be kept on alert for missing persons or sent to check on the elderly? Could post offices provide loans, dispatch nurses, or verify identities? The answer is: yes! And it is already happening.

Post offices are pretty much the only buildings that can bring a physical connection to everyone, everywhere in the world. They represent a global network built to bind us together. We need to start taking better advantage of that. Doing so will also ensure a more profitable and sustainable future for the post office (important given their rising costs and decreasing demand).

In this article, I break down how post offices globally can provide key services such as banking, identity, health, and more. I also reflect on the trends shaping the future of the postal service industry and how the postal service could improve its ways of operating.

The Futuristic Post Office pavilion. Shanghai, China.

Banking

Some forward-thinking countries have started empowering their post offices to go beyond, well, posting. Japan, Canada, and Luxembourg, for example, are providing comprehensive postal banking services.

In Japan, nearly 90% of the entire population has an account with the postal bank. Japan Post’s banking and insurance services represents the world’s largest financial institution. Its assets are worth over $3.3 trillion — more than the entire GDP of France.

In Canada, a free online billing service called ePost allows customers to pay bills online and manage financial documents through the Canada Post’s website.

In Luxembourg, a mobile app called eboo POST enables customers to check their bank balance and credit card charges, make transfers (both domestically and internationally) and recharge their Easy Visa card. With eboo, customers can also get directly in touch with a POST employee.

Postal banking app eboo. Luxembourg.

Identity

Postal networks have widespread coverage, with high levels of trust in their communities. This makes them ideally situated to offer identity services — either on behalf of the government or as a service to the private sector. A couple of interesting examples of identity services come from the UK and Australia.

In the UK, the Post Office is enabling government departments to offer people a suite of ‘bricks and clicks’ identity services, including digital identity, in-branch verification, and document certification. The advantage to the government is that the Post Office use its reach (11,500 outlets, with 93% of the UK population living within 1 mile of a Post Office) and existing counter and retail technology.

In Australia, the Australia Post has launched a new employment screening service called Workforce Verification. The service offers employers a smooth and well-run verification solution. In Australia, for the private and public sector, background employment checks are becoming common. The Australia Post Workforce Verification service includes identity, police, and visa checks in one interface. More comprehensive identity, qualification and integrity checks will be added to the platform down the road.

Health

Postal services have robust delivery networks that could be used for life-saving health care and resources.

In Switzerland, Swiss Post started trialing a medical drone delivery service — carrying a medical sample or specimen, such as a blood sample — in March 2017 in partnership with drone company Matternet. Using these drones, laboratory samples are now being transported between numerous medical sites in three Swiss cities. Swiss Post has successfully completed well over 3000 medical deliveries via drone.

Swiss Post drone medical supplies delivery. Switzerland.

In the United States, it emerged that UPS is preparing to test a U.S. service that dispatches nurses to vaccinate adults in their homes. UPS says that healthcare and life science logistics is a priority segment, and the company is building new relationships and technologies to deliver better patient care with streamlined logistics and supply chain.

In France, the French post office has tried to find a joint solution to two very different challenges; the growing number of elderly people living alone; and a decline in letter-writing in the digital era, which means France is looking for new ways to make a profit from its 73,000 postal workers. In 1990, delivering letters accounted for 70% of the state post service’s turnover; in 2020 it will be less than 20%. A solution was launched recently called Watch over my parents (Veiller sur mes parents). Customers — often in their 50s and living in major cities — pay from €20 a month for postal workers to visit their elderly parents living alone far away. La Poste, France’s publicly owned postal service, says it is using its extensive presence in every corner of France to bring this new service even to the most isolated areas.

Additional Services

Banking, identity and health services are only the tip of the iceberg. The last-mile connectivity that post offices boast could be used for immeasurable societal good. The distribution rails and networks could provide access to urgently needed services. There is so much to be explored. Here’s a few more interesting post office use cases:

In Korea, Korea Post has taken advantage of its location in the most remote areas of the country to provide its customers with services like travel, train and airline bookings.

In the UK, a charity is to send images of high-risk missing people to Royal Mail postmen and women on their handheld digital devices so they can keep an eye out for them. Missing People, which reunites missing children and adults with their families, started working in partnership with the Royal Mail after a child was reported missing on a postman’s round in London in 2014.

In Mongolia, in 2016, the Mongolian postal service became pioneers — adopting a 21st-century digital address system called *what3words* in place of its old postal system. In doing so, it gave everyone in the country a formal address — many of whom had never before had one. The what3words app identifies 3m x 3m squares across the planet with a unique three word address. For example, the three words for the Chinggis Khaan Statue Complex is backlashes.snakes.gremlin.

Address for a home using what3words. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Trends Shaping The Future of Post Offices

Why is the future of post not going to be mail?

• Urbanization will continue and rural inhabitants will be reduced to 15% — 20% of the population.
• Letter mail will be replaced by electronic mail.
• Focus will be mostly be on parcels.
• Even if mail continues (though trends show it is on the decline), post offices won’t often be needed. Distribution centers will have robotics to produce (the Shentong Express factory in Tianjin has robots that carry 200,000 packages a day (24/7) to different areas across the 21,000 sq. ft. sorting centre, sort through at least 300 billion route combinations then deposit them into underground chutes. The cost now is half of the costs it typically required to use human workers. Once in the plant, all packages get distributed within just three-and-a-half hours), drones and automated vehicles to deliver (the USPS intends to introduce small self-driving trucks on rural routes across the country by 2025).

Innovating in Operations, Too

As post offices adapt their services, so will they too have to adapt their way of working.

In Australia, the Australia Post allows privately owned post offices in small towns that operate like franchises, with owners purchasing a license to provide official postal services.

In Korea, the Korea Post stands out for the transparency of its customer service: It lists all customer complaints individually on its website for the public to see.

In Germany, German post offices are now, for the most part, within other business like banks, grocery stores, and — in some rural areas — private homes. Deutsche Post has been innovative in other areas such as E-Postbrief, which allows customers to sent e-mails that are delivered as physical mail.

In Singapore, the Singapore Post opened its first Smart Post Office. Singpost’s traditional, brick-and-mortar outlets are augmented by a digital network, including the SAM self-serve kiosk, which offers anytime and anywhere access to postal and other essential services.

SmartPost in action. Singapore.

As for passengers visiting Paris airports, whether for business or pleasure, they’ll be able to take advantage of one of the two private spaces, rent a WiFi box (to access broadband anywhere), purchase a 4G ‘tourist’ smartphone package (to help them discover Paris), buy mobile phone accessories, print postcards from their personal photos, purchase La Poste-brand souvenirs, and much more.

Conclusion

Post offices are underestimated. They are these incredible hubs that connect the entire world. We trust them. We rely on them. They meet us where we are. It is time that they step up and into the modern world with us. Because their potential to help our societies flourish is immense.