If you go to the Kenai Post Office, you might notice that employees have a little more pep in their step. Known for its exceptional customer engagement, the Kenai branch recently competed against 128 qualifying post offices in the state for best customer feedback. Kenai won the state competition and will be competing at the Retail Madness National Championship against the top post offices from all fifty states.
Customer feedback will determine who can advance to the next level in the bracket-style competition. Postal customers can rate their post office experience via an online survey, which is brought to the attention of customers at the end of each transaction.
“For this contest, it was really the customers in Kenai that won,” said Rick Sierer, Postmaster at the Kenai Post Office. “Our customers responded more than any other community in Alaska, any other post office. It’s really the Kenai community that won this contest.”
Part of why the community was so receptive to completing the survey was because of employee interactions with customers. These engagements have allowed the post office to be recognized on the national level.
“For me, the award is really not what I felt good about, it’s really the response of the customer,” said MaryIrene Ray, Lead Clerk at the Kenai Post Office. “A lot of customers will just come in, get their transaction, and they go, but the customers here in the Kenai Post Office, they’re always excited to know what’s going on, so that makes us a winner right there. There’s no need for an award, just to know that we have a good relationship with our customers is better than an award.”
Ray began working at the Kenai Post Office as a custodial worker about a decade ago. She has since risen through the ranks to lead clerk and will become postmaster when Sierer retires. Ray and other employees were instrumental in bringing the Kenai Post Office to national recognition.
“Just because you start as a custodian doesn’t mean it stops there, the journey can go as far as you want,” Ray said. “It’s really limitless, it’s up to you. You just have to have the drive and the love for the job.”
“If we didn’t have the best clerks, we probably wouldn’t have communicated so well with our customers to make us and our community the winners of this contest,” Sierer added. “To be able to go on a national competition, being a small community like Kenai, is outstanding.”
So far, the Kenai Post Office has beat out competitors from Wisconsin and Connecticut. They are now facing off against a post office in New York to advance to the next bracket.
