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The US Postal Service has taken customer service to the next level of incompetence.

Instead of fixing the problem - the long wait in line - it has decided to work on perception instead: 37,000 post offices across the country have removed their wall clocks from retail areas.

This as part of a “retail standardization program” launched last year.

A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service says: “We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock.”

The USPS seems to have lost track of what it means to build a positive customer experience.

USPS Customers know that the USPS is not as fast as FedEx, for example, and they don’t expect to be. They’re not using the USPS for efficiency but for cost.

So what’s the big deal? My research tells me that the clock is a fundamental part of the checkout experience - whether you’re in a grocery store or the post office. And not having a clock actually makes the perception of service quality go down, not up.

Says service guru Leonard Berry, “It’s silly, I guess they think people don’t have watches.”

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