Thanks to the U.S. Postal Service’s adoption of modern technologies like cloud, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence, Americans can now get a digital preview of their household’s incoming mail before it’s delivered.
The program is leading to a growing level of digital engagement with U.S. consumers and mailers and helping to generate new revenue streams for USPS. Called Informed Delivery, the USPS program delivered 12 billion digital images to 24 million consumers in 2019 with a growth rate of more than 200,000 customers a week. Along with that, Informed Visibility also offers “a wealth of real-time information to our customers and employees about the movement of mail through our network,” according to the Postal Service’s annual report.
The pilot for the program started in 2014 in the Northern Virginia region with about 10,000 users, said Bob Dixon, USPS’s director of product technology innovation. The vision for Informed Delivery was to offer Americans a more digital, responsive experience with their mail.