In our May issue of B2i Today we published an article about the forthcoming changes to the USPS Move Update standards. These changes, which take effect in November of this year, will affect all mailers who use Standard Mail or automation-rate and presort-rate First-Class Mail. If you are not already familiar with and preparing for the new standards, we recommend that you read our prior article that is available here.

A key point to remember is this. If you mail to addresses which have not been updated by an authorized Move Update method during the 95 calendar days prior to the mailing, and the USPS detects that during mail processing, you can lose your automation discounts.

If your organization hasn’t been doing Move Update processing on your mailing lists, we recommend that you begin doing so this summer, at least on a trial basis. While sending a file through a Move Update process like NCOALink is fairly simple, many mailers find it challenging to apply the returned changes of address back to their address lists. Therefore, we recommend that you begin developing and testing your Move Update procedures so that you will be ready when the new standards take effect.

Starting Move Update processing now also makes sense from a cost management standpoint. You might find that the percentage of changed addresses because of moves is in the double digits in your lists. If you’re mailing First-Class, pieces mailed to recipients who have moved and have a change of address on file with the USPS should still be delivered, but delivery may take longer than usual. And if you’re mailing Standard Mail, it is very likely that pieces mailed to recipients who have moved will be discarded by the Postal Service.

The MCH Response Lab is ready to provide Move Update processing via NCOALink today. Contact your MCH Sales representative for more information.