Imagine that you can take a look at your mail before getting home. Not your digital correspondence, but the good old "snail mail" that gets delivered to your mailbox.
Thanks to a new USPS service called Informed Delivery, users can receive a daily email with photos of the mailpieces that are due to arrive that day, or a few days later. The email shows up to 10 grayscale images of the exterior, address side of letter-sized mailpieces. Should users receive more letters, they can check all the images on their online dashboard. There, images are available for seven days.
The service, which is provided at no additional cost for all Informed Delivery users, is rolling out in Boston to selected areas and addresses. Users can check if they're eligible by entering their ZIP code and their address on the online portal, and eventually create a USPS account to sign up.
This in an image showing what customers would see on their phone:
It's worth noticing that living in a ZIP code where the service is available does not guarantee eligibility for your specific address, as explained in the FAQs. In Fenway-Kenmore, where I live, Informed Delivery is available since last Wednesday.
"I and many people manage their life through a cellphone or tablet or some other digital medium," Bob Dixon, the executive program director of Informed Delivery, said in an interview with NPR. "As we become busier and busier, it's important to have things in one place."
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