There’s also this machine called the V-Sort. It practically sorts mail into assigned tubs at the end of the run according to the customers wishes. Doesn’t that sound great? Yeah! Except the mail pieces that go through get shredded, jammed, or lost into another tub. Again, good luck.

The only positive I would say about ECM is being able to see your document online. Oh yeah, military retirees aren’t the only ones opening your documents, but anybody who knows how to use a scanner will do the job. So much security for the customer, right? As long as the job gets done, it doesn’t matter who opens a customer’s mail.

Thanks for the terrific feedback. We certainly appreciate the praise, and we are defiantly listening to the criticisms! We’ve created a new Community Manager role (that’s me!) to ensure that our Product teams get to hear what the user community has to say, and to do a better job of letting the community know about new features that we’re hard-at-work on delivering.

Earth Class Mail is on the brink of releasing new shipping options that will alleviate most frustrations our users have expressed over shipping costs. Many customers ask why we can’t just slap a stamp on the item that we’ve already received in their behalf and send it their way? The challenge is that US Postal Service regulations prohibit us from doing so. To make sure that we’re in compliance with those regulations, we made some business decisions early on that have us sending items to customers via private carriers.

The good news is that our forthcoming solution will be the next best thing to “slapping a stamp on and forwarding”. It will dramatically lower the cost of forward shipping individual items, for instance those times when you only need that individual document or occasional check.

I also want to mention that thanks to feedback we’ve received in the press, the blogs and from our users (and our own struggles, as we’re all users too!), our engineering and user experience teams have been working diligently to rebuild the user experience of Earth Class Mail. We have learned a wealth of information about how people use and interact with our online postal mail service, and we are translating that feedback into a beta of the new UI, expected to launch sometime in early 2009.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to specifically address some of the comments you’ve received on this post regarding our customer service.

Alan Friedrichsen mentions that the cost of shipping documents seems expensive, and as I mentioned above, we’re working to change that. He goes further to say that he felt that our customer service is somewhat lacking, and I wanted to let your readers know that we’re working on making that experience better for everyone. We’re lucky to have a smart and dedicated Customer Support team that have become veritable experts of USPS regulations that govern Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies (CMRA) like Earth Class Mail.

Alan also expresses dismay over our cancellation and refund policies, and I wanted to let your readers know that we are currently reviewing every bit of communication regarding our policies. We want to make sure that they are clear, transparent and up front. We don’t like surprises and we don’t expect that our customers should feel as though they are getting any either!

“Be Warned” writes that Earth Class Mail is ignoring USPS change of address forms, however we have absolutely nothing to do with the handling nor processing of change of address forms. Generally, it’s executed by the Post Office bearing the Zip code from which you are directing mail away from.

The really important thing to note is that the US Postal Service regulations do not allow anyone to use the US Postal Service change of address form to direct mail away from a CMRA. Earth Class Mail is but just one example of a CMRA, and other include mail forwarding services and private mailbox stores than many of us are familiar with. This is why we try to stress that people getting started with Earth Class Mail SHOULD NOT use a USPS change of address form to have their mail directed to us, especially if there’s even a slight chance that they will need to have their mail redirected somewhere else if the future. We always recommend that you notify your mailers as to the new address to avoid this situation.

Thanks again, and we appreciate the thoughts from you and your readers. Keep ‘em coming!

Nate DiNiro
Community Manager
Earth Class Mail Corp.

Also, I found ECM’s customer service to be somewhat
lacking. I didn’t find out about the $10/shipment thing until I received my first critical piece of mail, and by then, it was too late. I was forced to have that piece of mail shipped, and I immediately canceled my account thereafter. ECM was happy to cancel the account, but they didn’t inform me until the cancellation had been processed that I wouldn’t be receiving a refund for the months I had already paid in advance.

Buyer beware.