A Postal Corporation of Kenya employee collects letters at the General Post Office in Nairobi. The parastatal needs to change its business model to stay afloat. FILE
I got an interesting call one morning from a number I did not know asking me to pay my post office dues.
At first I was confused and because I have a really short fuse — that I am constantly working on, I charged with questions of how the person on the other end would have my number and why they would call a personal line or text asking for payment for a State-owned entity.
But after cooling off, I realised I was grateful for that phone call. When a Mr Omenda called me, it was a great reminder that my payment was due and excellent customer service was in play.
I can only imagine that Kenya Postal Services has increased its fees because it must be struggling due to the convenience of paperless mail and the increasing communication via social network and phone apps.
Technology has revolutionised how business is carried out all over the world and some businesses have reaped great profit from it, while others have had to go back to the drawing board to re-think or create a strategy that would keep them afloat with this change.
For a business to succeed it is almost impossible not to have a working address or post office box where one can receive mail that can otherwise not be sent via email.
The United States Postal Service was hit very hard by the impact of technology, going green and other parcel handling courier service carriers.
This competition saw the US Postal Service end last year with a loss of close to $354 million — making it the 19th quarter of losses out of the last 21.
With this in mind, it would be prudent for the Postal Corporation of Kenya to take active and quick measures to curb losses and tackle technology by thinking a little bit differently in order to keep the postal services afloat and with sustained profit.
And the timing could never be better —with the Constitution we have seen how the governors of different counties are working and devolution could be used to our advantage with this. Our post offices can invest in computers in the 47 counties with Internet access and try the following to increase its revenue, stay afloat and venture into different business services:-
First, issue out Kenyan passports via the post office. This would ease the burden of the office that issues passports in Nairobi, reduce travel from different parts of the country, increase revenue for the different counties via passport fees and ensure accountability on the issuing of the travel documents.
Therefore, the case of illegal immigrants or fake passports would be tied to a specific office and would be a small step towards fighting corruption in our country.
Second, create a database of customers, especially clients with businesses and target them with products or services from other entrepreneurs.
Third, the corporation should launch a marketing and advertising division.
And lastly, use email more efficiently to reach a wider target market.
This would all be possible and the beauty about it is that the postal services would charge cheaper rates and attract clientele from all over the country via smaller divisions — counties.
A good friend once told me that it is better to learn from other people’s mistakes than to learn from your own and if our postal service might want to take a tip or two from the US Postal Service, then we can try and avoid falling while still sustaining profit and improving on our services.
The training required would be intensive and the profits or sustainability would show in the long term for this beautiful country and its wonderful citizens.
Ms Munywoki is the director of Business Sense Africa. Email: [email protected].
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