Despite the growth in digital communications, undeliverable and returned-to-sender mail, including bills, late payment notices and other transactional communications, remain a serious burden for businesses. In FY2022, the number of undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mailings exceeded 5.6 billion pieces, or 4.3% of total volume, according to the U.S. Postal Service.
Companies often struggle to handle return mail. It can be very labor intensive, requiring processes and staff to:
- accept and record each piece of returned mail, often at multiple locations
- notify billing or other appropriate departments so they can update their records
- track down correct addresses
- securely dispose of returned mail, especially communications with personally identifiable information (PII) and/or personal health information (PHI)
Streamline return mail with Nordis
To give our clients more solutions for addressing this persistent problem, we’ve added new automated return mail options to our existing mail processing and return mail services:
- Electronic Address Correction and Forwarding. Leveraging the USPS’s Address Correction Service known as ACS, this premium service reroutes mail with undeliverable addresses. It uses automation to identify new forwarding addresses that have not yet been added to the National Change of Address database, then readdresses and forwards the mail. It also delivers daily reports with change of address information and universal reason codes for mail that could not be forwarded, then USPS securely destroys mail that could not be forwarded.
- Skip Tracing. In cases where ACS automation identifies no deliverable addresses, our clients can go one step further with skip tracing. Nordis electronically seeks out addresses for client-designated customers by searching a national database with public records, then delivers electronic reports with the results. We can work with clients to set parameters in your Expresso® files to automatically trigger skip tracing for, say, any of your customers that owe $100 or more.
Optimizing mail delivery
Nordis has always taken mail delivery optimization seriously and works to catch problem addresses before mailing. Every file from Expresso is processed using NCOA database, Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) software and Delivery Point Validation (DPV) database. Collectively, these systems correct addresses to meet USPS formatting and verify that specific addresses exist. We then provide any changes so you can update your records.
NCOA and CASS processing on every mail piece is the foundation. As Nordis continues to expand its Advanced Mail Services with ACS and skip tracing capabilities, it offers new insight and advanced reporting for our clients to improve reach and confidence across mailings.
Please ask your CSM if you’d like to learn more about how we can help you close the loop on return mail. They would love to help find the right service for you.