We are looking at our returned unclaimed mail at work and one of the parties involved is touting the use of address verification software. He believes that this will significantly cut the number of returned items.
Now I understand that by using DPIDs we can save 2 cents per article but I insist that most mail gets delivered regardless of the quality of the address information. I think that most of our returned mail is due to us having the wrong address for the person we are after.
I am trying to get an idea of the percentage of mail undelivered due to address errors that is, stuff the post office simply cannot find the physical address for. My feeling is that it is a very low number but I can’t find anything from any Post Office.
Any help, particularly TLD’s will be greatly appreciated.
Hey don’t ask.
Just got back from a very long day, and ze head she spins!
I can’t give you figures off the top of my head, but leave it with me and I’ll try to find out for you (email me, hassle me, bump this thread, etc).
As a general rule, you can allow for ten per cent of mail to have critical addressing errors. The slowly increasing ability of gradually evolving software is improving the likelihood of a given article being delivered correctly and on time, but I can’t give you any numbers off the top of my head for that.
DPID is good, but not yet used to its fullest extent. For arcane and boring reasons, expect that to change within 12 to 18 months. Also, postcodes are pretty much obsolete (you heard it here first!).
Thank you. It has to be about the most boring subject I can think of to be interested in, but at least I know where to get the gen.
On reread of the OP, I’m just trying to be a bit more helpful than I was above…
Delivery time depends on a lot of variables. There is the physical state of the mail (if it needs to be manually sorted or is “machinable”), there is the quality of the addressing, and then there’s what delay you the customer are willing to accept and how much you’re willing to either pay a premium or gain a discount for that.
In a nutshell, if you’re asking about mail that, after we’ve exhausted all efforts to “find our man”, is sent to the Dead Letter Office, or returned to sender, then yes it is very low. On the other hand, if your mail is time-critical, and you want to eliminate all stray letters arriving even a day late, then it’s rather high.
Do have a good look at your addressing software (even the quality of your printers, etc). Consider whether you want speed or economy (or decide on the ratio of the two suitable to you), and UPDATE THY DATABASE. To be honest, most customers, both corporate and individual, are their own worst enemies.
OH, and if you are an American Express member - or you know somebody who is, and can show you an uinopened statement - their mail is the epitome of perfection. They provide us with literally tonnes of the stuff, but it’s all addressed perfectly, the mail is like crack cocaine to the machines, and almost nothing is rejected. All bulk mailers in Australia would do well to copy them. Whatever they’re doing, it’s right.
The argument is largely about how much we could reduce our returned unclaimed mail by using software that verifies address information. This software simply verifies that the address has a DPID. My argument is that without any regard to DPIDs most mail is delivered to the correct address - even if street names are misspelled, or suburb names or anything else. I remember when I was working at Redfern someone walking the the floor with a letter addressed Berkelouw and asking if anyone knew what it meant. I told him to sort it to Mittagong because it is a bookshop between Mittagong and Berrima on the Hume. Some of the old hands could even tell you where most well known Aussies lived, so you could call out someones name and be told where to sort it if you got something for, say, Phillip Noyce with no address.
It’s rather borderline to my area of expertise, but at a gut feel, I’d say the software is worth considering.
I’m in an unusual situation where I’m a supervisor in a rather eclectic area these days (manual sort), where I take my thousands-of-placenames-learned-by-rote knowledge of twenty years ago, and do the floor walking bit around twenty or thirty young sorters who were never trained at all (postcode monkeys). Anything they don’t understand, and they call me over so I can tell them with paternal gravitas: “Bundanoon goes via Goulburn MC, my boy. Remember that as you go through life…” Well maybe not, but the thing is the “old hands” are dying out and shouldn’t be counted on.
The software resolves known streets etc against localities and postcodes, and sorts on probabilities. Once again, it depends on whether you’re interested in getting the stuff sent in a hurry (even with some potentially bouncing - the likes of direct marketers choose this end of the spectrum) or not caring, but making sure it gets there (Australian Electoral Commission etc). It’s hard for me to say without knowing that.