Move Update Services
Using The Marketing Department's Move Update Service allows you to:
- Reduce undeliverable mail by updating your mailing lists with the most current address information for available from the United States Postal Service.
- Reduces mailer print, production and postage costs by reducing the number of undeliverable mail pieces.
- Take advantage of the best postage discounts available.
- Provide faster product/service marketing through accurate mail delivery.
- Meet United States Postal Service Move Update requirement for First Class Mail allowing you to claim presort or automation rates for First-Class Mail. (Addresses appearing on pieces claimed at First Class Presorted or Automation rates must be updated within 6 months before the mailing date by a United States Postal Service approved address updating method. The Marketing Department's Move Update Service will allow you to meet this requirement.
Follows are overviews of the the various Move Update Services we provide including NCOA, FASTforward, LACS and DSF.
Click here for the list and meaning of the Move Update Service Codes you will receive with your returned processed list.
NCOA (National Change of Address)
The United States Postal Service has developed and implemented a National Change of Address (NCOA) system. The system reduces the growth of undeliverable-as-addressed mail volume and dramatically improves the quality of the addresses on mail entering the mail stream.
Under the NCOA system, all change-of-address (COA) data submitted by relocating customers during the past 48 months is tele-communicated daily from over 210 Computerized Forwarding System sites to the United States Postal Service's National Customer Support Center (NCSC) in Memphis, Tennessee.
The NCSC consolidates the COA information and standardizes it by matching the COA information against the National ZIP+4® file. The resulting standardized NCOA master file, consisting of more than 117 million permanent COAs, is provided to a number of private companies operating under a licensing agreement with the United States Postal Service. Licensees receive master file updates every week from the NCSC to ensure that the mailing lists they correct are as accurate as possible.
The provision of new address data from the NCOA file is controlled by strict name-and address-matching logic. No NCOA address information is provided without a match to a name and address record already present on a customer's input file.
Many of the "almost matches" are actually moves, and won't be deliverable as Standard Class mail. The matching specification used depends on the type of move filed--family, individual, or business. If a close match is made (i.e., first name in the mailer’s list does not match the first name on the change of address card), no new address is assigned. Close matches receive special codes called nixies.
Think of a NCOA nixie as a potential move, which may translate into undeliverable or return mail. Ranging from 1 to 4, a nixie score indicates the accuracy of a near match. Mailers must understand the nixie scoring and the nature of the mailing (purpose, cost per piece, type of mail list, etc.) to determine the best way to process nixies. Some mailers choose to ignore them altogether, while others find them a valuable tool to improve the effectiveness of a mailing.
The FASTforward system contains more than 38 million permanent change-of-address (COA) records filed with the Postal Service by relocating customers who want their mail forwarded to their new address. These COA records are updated weekly and filed with the United States Postal Service for an 13 month period from the move effective date. The FASTforward system consists of a licensed computer system containing FASTforward name- and address-matching software and the COA database. The Postal Service is the sole owner and distributor of the FASTforward hardware and software components that comprise the FASTforward system.
FASTforward was developed in two separate and distinct versions. The original FASTforward application was developed to interface with commercial mail-processing equipment, such as multiline optical character readers (MLOCRs) and remote video encoding (RVE) stations.
The second version, FASTforward for Mailing List Correction, provides FASTforward licensees the ability to update computer-based name and address mailing lists electronically prior to the creation of the mail piece. This version requires licensees to have a FASTforward interface that meets Postal Service specifications, which The Marketing Department's Mail Manager software contains. The new address information is obtained through a matching process of the name and address contained in the mailing list against the national database of permanent COAs filed during the preceding 13 months. Address change information is only provided for those records that, in fact, have a matching name and old address present. In the event that new address information is returned, the effective date of the move and the carrier identification for the new address are also returned. This returned information is used to update the mailing list.
LACS (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 United States Postal Service has been able to obtain and verify, primarily as a result of Emergency 911 system implementation. These permanent address conversions typically involve the renumbering and renaming of existing city-style addresses or the changing of Rural Route and Highway Contract addresses to city-style addresses.
The current LACS file has approximately 3,900,000 records and will continue to grow with monthly file replacements from the United States Postal Service National Customer Support Center in Memphis, TN.
Input address information provided by a mailer to the LACS licensee is first standardized according to postal requirements outlined in Pub 28, Postal Addressing Standards. Then an attempt is made to match the address against the LACS file. If, and only if, a match is made with the old address information on the LACS file, will the LACS licensee be permitted to provide the permanent new address conversion to the mailer.
DSF (Delivery Sequence File)
The United States Postal Service has developed an electronic file that contains every deliverable address in the country. It currently has more than 135 million addresses on file and is the most complete address database available, with detail that allows validation for both correctness and completeness of addresses. If records cannot be matched with DSF, they probably are undeliverable. DSF can also be used to obtain walk-sequence codes.
Mailer's claiming the Enhanced Carrier Route Basic, High Density or Saturation discounts must present mail in either Line of Travel (LOT) or Walk Sequence. Mailers can have walk sequence codes assigned to their database through The Marketing Department's DSF Move Update Services. Address records with walk sequence codes can be sorted into walk sequence during the presort process using The Marketing Department's Mail Manager Software. Without the DSF coding, TMD will sort a list in line of travel.
