February 2003

Mailers And USPS Designing Flat Mail Guidelines
George Hurst, USPS Flat Mail Manager, and several mailers around the country are working together to develop a set of guidelines for flat mail design. While these guidelines are not meant to be standards and the USPS has no plans to restrict the design of flats, they are going to help mailers limit the damage to flats mail caused by USPS machinery.

The USPS claims the biggest problems facing flat mail processing at their facilities are glossy covers,  thickness over 1/2 inch, and loose inserts such as blown-in subscription cards.

Mailers participating in the group include Time, Publishers Clearing House, L. L. Bean and AARP Publications.

Change Of Address On CD-ROM
January 1, the USPS began a new program that delivers Address Change Service information on CD-ROM. For companies that do not have the capability to receive electronic updates to their address database from the USPS can take advantage of the new program. Mailers can now receive address changes on CD-ROM that comes complete with search, view and printing capabilities.

Mailers Not Using Move Update Will Pay
The USPS estimates that undeliverable mail costs the service $1.8 billion annually. In an attempt to reclaim some of that cost, the USPS will soon enforce Move Update for First Class Mail.

To be eligible for presorted or automated First Class rates, a mailer is required to have updated its database with change of address information every 180 days. Trials in several areas of the nation by the post office have revealed that many mailers claiming presort and automation discounts have not used Move Update properly or not at all.

While not revealing a specific start date, the USPS announced to the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee that it is beginning a ramp-up of enforcement and will soon begin assessing higher rates to mail it finds to be non-compliant with Move Update.

CCI offers many Move Update solutions including ancillary endorsements, National Change Of Address service, and FastForward database updates.

News Poll
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34% Surveys
31% Call-backs
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See the results of other surveys CCI has conducted online at http://www.mailcci.com/data/surveys.asp.

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