The U. S. Postal Service established the Customer Advisory Group in 1991 to serve as a sounding board for new postal ideas and programs, a vehicle to field customer complaints, a community resource to offer the customer's perspective on the nature and quality of mail delivery service and other postal services in Cambridge.  Eleven citizens serve on the Advisory Board and meet monthly with postal officials. The members represent the wide spectrum of postal customer: the senior citizen, the small business customer, the student, as well as simply the diverse population base of all other postal customers. Paul J. Schlaver, the director of the Cambridge Consumers' Council is a member of the Advisory Board, and has established this Web Page to further provide Cambridge consumers with helpful consumer information.

April 1999 - Advisory Group issues a Report to the City.

The Advisory Group meets in the main postal office in Cambridge, Central Square.  The meetings include a full report from the postmaster of her activities of the past month and any new programs or policies of interest to the Advisory Group.  Some topics might include recruitment of new employees, affirmative action efforts, staffing patterns, new ideas from the Washington D.C. headquarters of Postal Services and complaint handling statistics.  Comsumer complaints and inquiries are reviewed and any ideas or concerns of the members are fully discussed. The Advisory Group offers its advice and perspective on all matters and works closely to help plan new events and programs for Cambridge postal services.

Several improvements in the postal services in Cambridge have resulted from ideas and discussions that have occurred during meetings of the Cambridge Postal Customer Advisory Group.  Here are some of the accomplishments:

• Conducted a survey of all Cambridge postal customers and received 10,000 responses that lead to many improvements.
• Longer lobby hours in Central Square and Harvard Square
• Improvement in mail sorting procedures to avoid mis-deliveries to similarly numbered locations on different streets.
• Recycling program started in Post Office lobbies.
• Developed a targeted educational mailing for apartment building customers.
• Public ceremonies and celebrations to promote new commemorative stamps with significance to the City of Cambridge or groups within Cambridge. i.e.: The Gospel Stamp series at a House of Blues Gospel Brunch event; Organ Donor stamp; Benjamin O. Davis stamp; Cinco de Mayo stamp; the American Ballet stamp, "Those Who Served" stamp and a 150 years of Cambridge as a city cache and postmark.
• Development of the Carrier Alert Program in cooperation with the Postal Carriers Union and the Council on Aging;
• Co-sponsored with the Cambridge Health Alliance a mini-health fair and stamp unveiling ceremony of both the Breast Cancer Research and the Prostate Cancer Awareness Stamps.

    If you have questions about the Cambridge Postal Customer Advisory Group you may send an e-mail to the committee.  Your personal complaints about postal services can be filed electronically as well.
      If you have an interest in becoming a member of this Advisory Group, please also send an e-mail to begin the process of consideration for appointment to serve with the group.

  E-mail to: Consumers' Council