USPS Inspector General finds widespread customer survey manipulation

An investigation by the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General has revealed widespread manipulation of customer satisfaction surveys between fiscal years 2023 and 2025. The watchdog report found that employees utilized two primary schemes to artificially inflate C360 customer service scores, resulting in a false 5 percent spike in reported consumer satisfaction.

One method involved employees creating fake service issues so that satisfaction surveys would be sent to their personal email addresses, allowing them to submit favorable results. A second method, described as a coordinated ‘booster’ effort, involved employees improperly logging routine interactions, such as daily mail delivery, as customer issues to trigger and then manipulate surveys.

The report highlights that the misconduct was driven by an underlying culture of cheating, exacerbated by management. Supervisors reportedly placed excessive pressure on staff to raise scores, and in some instances, benefited from the misconduct. The Inspector General noted that despite being aware of these schemes, management failed to address the root causes, and weaknesses in policy and deterrence allowed the data doctoring to persist.