How digital revolution sent the post office on its deathbed

Customers check their mailboxes at the Kibra Post Office in Nairobi. Very few Kenyans use postal services nowadays. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

I recently saw a question in primary school math explaining how to price a telegram. 

To generations Z and Alpha, telegrams were small urgent messages sent through the post office before we got SMS, email and WhatsApp. 

The message was priced based on the number of words. The trick was using as few words as possible without losing the core message. 

I guess Twitter learnt from telegram and rode on our reduced attention span.   

The post office, for some reason, was ahead of its time. Beyond telegram, we sent money orders. Back then, there was no M-Pesa or internet banking.

We loved money orders as they allowed one to get out of school when you had to pick one up at the post office. And you all know a student is always hungry! Are money orders still operational?   

Post offices pioneered branchless banking long before internet banking. We all had a post office bank small book that allowed us to deposit or withdraw money anywhere in the country. Now you can withdraw money anywhere in the world.

Think of it: Amazon, for all its success, has mimicked the post office. Amazon delivers your shopping just like the post office delivers letters.

The most advanced innovation can be broken down into basic principles. 

WhatsApp is like PowerPoint, only that in a group chat, all participants can read what is presented and respond to that message. Other such platforms include Telegram, WeChat, and Signal. 

Back to the post office. Its national network has always been its greatest strength. But it failed to keep up with technology.

Interestingly, some of the first cybercafés were in post offices. I think that was ingenious: if you can’t beat them, join them. Banks did that by embracing Mpesa instead of fighting it.

Technology made sending letters unnecessary. I can bet no Gen Z can give you the price of posting a letter. When I last did that it was Sh2.50. Next time I will send a success card for Sh35. How much is it now?  

Shareholders used to get documents through the post office. It’s rare now. Who uses the post office?  

The post office has fought back. They used to be M-Pesa and Airtel money agents. On my last visit to the post office, the agency was not working.

The post office gave us virtual boxes with your phone number as the box number. They recently hiked the fee. Have you ever used that facility? 

Can I write my post office box as my phone number in official documents? The post office is a victim of Schumpeter’s creative destruction. 

I own a post office box, but I go for even a year without a single letter. The Gen Zs in my house ask for that when filing up documents that need a post office address.

A formality? Remember when owning a post office box was a hallmark of prestige? 

To make life harder for post offices, courier services have thrived, and even matatu Saccos have ventured into that. What next for the grand old post office? 

Curiously, post offices are still vibrant in developed countries, and public telephone booths too! There is a generation lag and we should take care of that. 

Do you know how many elderly people can’t use WhatsApp? As we bring new technology, we often think of the youngsters, but what of the elderly who are reluctant to change, which is normal.  

Post office problems go beyond technological change. At one time, it over-employed. If you are old enough, you should remember when post offices got a lot of new faces, and they spoke a certain mother tongue.

That was soon followed by technological change, which compounded the problem. 

Here are a few lifelines for the grand old post office. One is courier services. That will not go online.

E-commerce can ride on a post office network to deliver goods anywhere in the country. This is a low-lying fruit, but trust must be built. 

Two, and most feasible, is turning all post offices into Huduma centres. There are enough government services that can be offered through Huduma centres, including the issuance of passports and IDs.

I found Americans get passports through the post office. Why do we copy their constitution and not operations?  

Three, we can lease post offices. In private hands, it will surprise you what one can do with the post office and its network. 

Finally, do you recall fixed-line telephones or house telephones? We did away with them, yet that wiring could have been the nucleus of cable TV and the Internet.

That’s what Faiba, Safaricom, Zuku and others are doing. We should let the post office go the same way. When did you last visit a post office?