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Data Services |
NCOA |
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National
Change of Address Service Overview |
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Each
year over 40 million Americans change addresses. This creates formidable
obstacles in maintaining a high quality mailing list that tracks customers who
move. The National Change of Address (NCOA) program makes change of address
information available to help reduce undeliverable mail pieces. The NCOA service
is a comprehensive program that aids mailers in identifying changes of addresses
before mail enters the mail stream.
It also brings your mailing list in compliance with new
postal regulations that require a "move update" service be performed
on your mailing list at least within the last 6 months prior to any first class
mailing.
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| Benefits of NCOA |
- Reduces
undeliverable mail by providing the most current address information
for matches made to the NCOA file.
- Prevents
the need for duplicate mail pieces or re-mailings after address
corrections are received, since the address correction is applied
prior to the mailing.
- Using
the most current address information reduces mailer costs by
reducing the number of undeliverable and duplicate mail pieces.
- Address
changes are received electronically rather than costly manual data
entry.
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| Financial
Benefits of using NCOA |
| NCOA
reduces the amount of mail that may be undeliverable, returned, or delayed. This
helps ensure that your mailing is delivered in a prompt and efficient manner. It
also save you money by reducing your cost of printing, mail processing, postage,
and address correction changes. Since new addresses are provided to you
electronically, it saves you time and money typically associated with updating
and maintaining an accurate mailing list. Additionally, you will be provided
with a standardized address including Zip +4, carrier route, and delivery point
barcode. This can enable you to take advantage of lower postage rates and faster
delivery, when used with the proper presort schemes.
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| Limitations of NCOA |
| NCOA
will not make your lists 100% deliverable! While many factors
determine the overall quality of your mailing lists, NCOA will help you in
reducing the amount of undelivered or delayed mail. Since the NCOA database
contains 36 months of move data, you can receive new addresses from NCOA that
are not available from other methods (such as Address Correction Requested -
available for 12 months after a move).
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| The accuracy of your mailing list is very important.
Incorrect spellings and missing information both play a key role in determining
an NCOA match. For example, the NCOA database contains "John Doe" at
"123 First St Apt 101" and your Database contains "J. Doe"
at "123 First St". In this example no match would be made for several
reasons. First, the name is not complete, and second, the address is missing the apartment
number. This is a good example of an address that would not be updated by NCOA,
however Nixie footnotes will be returned explaining why a match was not made.
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| LACS Conversion:
Locatable Address Conversion System |
| Included in
NCOA process, the Locatable
Address Conversion System (LACS) corrects address lists electronically for areas
that have undergone permanent address conversions. The LACS database consists of
address conversions that the USPS has obtained and verified, primarily as a
result of Emergency 911 system implementation. These permanent address
conversions typically involve renumbering and renaming rural route, highway
route, and box numbers as city-style addresses. Input address information you
provide is standardized according to USPS requirements and then matched
against the LACS file. If a match is made, we provide you with the permanent
address conversion.
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