= Operating and releasing mail at reduced production levels 
= No current production
15 Mar A Focus on Address Quality Pays
Did you know undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail costs the United States Postal Service® (USPS) billions of dollars each year? It can cost your business, too, in slow payments, higher postage and frustrated customers. Nearly one-fourth of all mail that goes through the USPS contains some simple error such as misspelled street names and improper abbreviations, which can result in significant postage cost increases. For our customers mailing high volumes of customer communications, we explore and use every avenue possible to offset all postage costs to cleanse and standardize address data.
There are a number of tools designed to identify undeliverable addresses and link old addresses to new addresses. For one, we always utilize the latest address pre-processing and address update technologies offered by the USPS to ensure we are able to remove specific non-address words or symbols that are frequently found in addresses. We also remove stray characters that are invisible and may affect address processing. If an address has missing, incorrect or extraneous data it can prevent the Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) software from correcting and matching street addresses and is flagged with a CASS error and may not be eligible for postal discounts.
Our goal is to provide fast and accurate address hygiene that can manage address standardization and correction, keep you in compliance and push postage savings to your bottom line. Here are three more steps we take to avoid any unnecessary errors or lost mail:
- We take every step possible to remove extraneous data from addresses by using the output from the CASS validation tool to present the correct and standardized address onto the physical mail piece. This ensures the best chance of mail being resolved to a single delivery point.
- We provide Address Exception Reports which lists any address that did not qualify for discounted postage and the possible reason it didn’t.
- We encourage all our customers to correct these addresses so subsequent mailings will qualify for discounted rates and train staff on proper USPS addressing standards.
Every year the cost of postage rises and this trend shows no sign of slowing, which is why it is more important than ever to keep abreast of the continuing efforts on the part of the USPS to reduce costs. If we all work together to make sure that the addresses you collect are always accurate, standardized and up to date, you will be rewarded with the best postal discounts and most efficient and accurate delivery of your communications. Ensuring targeted recipients are reached reduces both postage and payment turnaround, which is always good news.