Survey Findings on Move Update Compliance
By Robert B. Swick,

Vice President Data Services, Anchor Computer, Inc.

As many know by now, the U. S. Postal Service’s results of its first year of Move Update were a bit surprising. A primary purpose of the regulation was to stimulate address cleansing (preferably pre-mail cleansing) by First Class Mailers which, in theory, would have reduced the volume of Undeliverable As Addressed (UAA) return mail. Initial findings don’t completely support that objective.

1998 fiscal year-end results revealed that UAA mail volume failed to drop in spite of dramatic increases in the United States Postal Service’s FASTforward^® and National Change of Address (NCOA) pre-mail cleansing services. In a nutshell, pre-mail cleansing increased by tens of million records while return mail volume was basically flat. A contradiction of such magnitude demanded action by the Postal Service. Accordingly, they created a Compliance Review Team that launched the first in a series of in-depth field studies. Mr. Michael Murphy, Manager Address Management and the National Customer Support Center, presented the team’s findings at Mail Advertising Service Associations (MASA) Mailer Strategies Conference last month.

The mission of the United States Postal Service Move Update Compliance Review Team was to identify methods and procedures used by First Class Mailers to update addresses, evaluate compliance and report noncompliance to District personnel.

One hundred eighty-four (184) randomly selected First Class mailers were surveyed within 42 Postal Districts over a ninety- (90) day period. Team members were equipped with appropriate guides, publications and a complete flowchart of Move Update options, which enabled them to properly inform all survey participants. Survey coverage and findings are presented on the first chart.

As the chart shows, efforts were made to survey a reasonable spectrum of First Class Business Mailers. Of course, issue always can be taken as to the composition of the survey universe as well as the degree of coverage given to particular categories. Nevertheless, I believe the Postal Service achieved its objective. However, future selection criteria also should include database size. This will assure proper representation of businesses by size. (For instance, 63% of customer databases are under 250,000 records.)

The second chart presents the team’s findings.

The first surveys results appear to be mixed, at best. Only 77% of the survey participants were found to be in compliance. The "Questionable" group consisted of companies not met with for various reasons, hadn’t completed the survey or found to be processing change information in a far less than timely manner. Questionable or not, the sharp reality is that upwards of 23% of the companies surveyed were not in compliance. Using the old grade card system, First Class Mailers presently are rated a lowly C for their compliance to the Move Update regulation. This, too, is surprising considering the consequences, which are presented below.

At this point it is important to note that the U. S. Postal Service is taking the high road and focusing solely on educating First Class Mailers … as opposed to enforcing the fines and penalties signers subject themselves to, as presented in the 3600 Postal Form extract shown above.

• The Postal Service believes the UAA problem is attributed to a combination of (a) noncompliance and (b) envelope endorsements, which are widely used.
• The survey findings demonstrate a need for the Postal Service to share survey findings with Industry organizations such as the Direct Marketing Association and Mail Advertising Service Association and for the associations to inform their constituents in a timely and thorough manner.
• First Class Mailers using ancillary envelope endorsements should seriously consider adding NCOA or FASTforward^sm pre-mail service as their primary cleansing technique. Pre-mail cleansing services are easily 2 – 3 times less costly and certainly more timely than endorsements.
• All mailers should test the additional benefit of using pre-mail services 3 – 4 times per year to keep ahead of the population move dynamic. Some mailers are finding the usual twice-yearly frequency is not providing any net gain overall. It is analogous to treading water.

In reality, the United States Postal Service’s Compliance Review Team Surveys are serving the best interests of First Class Mailers. Identifying a problem is the first step in correcting it. Now we have the responsibility to share these findings as well as the penalty potential with our colleagues, so costly UAA mail is abated and we avoid future postage increases attributed to this problem.

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