Background
The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requires the U.S. Postal Service to submit annual customer satisfaction reports to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). To support this requirement, Postal Service personnel document and resolve customer service requests in the Customer 360 (C360) system, which triggers a customer satisfaction survey. This survey feedback underpins the required reporting. In fiscal year (FY) 2025, the Postal Service sent 5.5 million survey invitations and received 1.2 million responses.
What We Did
Our objective was to evaluate the Postal Service’s approach to ensuring the integrity of C360 customer satisfaction survey results. We evaluated controls implemented after the Postal Service reported a scheme of manipulated surveys to our office. We also analyzed 40.2 million customer service requests and responses from FYs 2023 to 2025.
What We Found
The Postal Service’s early adjustments were sufficient to address one scheme of survey manipulation, but more widespread manipulation continued. The Postal Service reported a 5 percent increase in customer satisfaction from FYs 2023 to 2025, driven, in part, by nationwide manipulation of C360 scores through two schemes, impacting over 124,000 of 3.8 million surveys (3.3 percent). Specifically, we found employees created fake issues so when they received the customer satisfaction survey at their personal email addresses, they could complete the surveys with favorable results. Secondly, we found a coordinated “booster” effort in one area where employees improperly entered normal interactions (like daily mail delivery) as customer issues to generate surveys that were then manipulated to inflate local C360 scores. Although management was aware of these schemes, it did not address the underlying culture driving score manipulation. Some employees faced pressure, at times, from supervisors who benefited from the misconduct. Additionally, we found weaknesses in policy, deterrence measures, and processes that allowed this misconduct to persist. Without corrective action, the integrity of C360 reporting will remain compromised, potentially exposing the Postal Service to fines by the PRC from uncorrected, inaccurate reporting.
Recommendations and Management’s Comments
We made six recommendations aimed at addressing excessive pressures and improving its system and processes, and the Postal Service disagreed with all six recommendations. We will pursue the disagreement through the audit resolution process.
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