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Mail that has an invalid, incomplete, or illegible address. Undeliverable-as-addressed mail is costly for direct marketers, not only because it involves wasted package and postage expense, but also because a high undeliverable-as-addressed volume can negatively impact response to such an extent that the marketer incorrectly assumes the mailing was unsuccessful. The USPS automatically returns undeliverable first-class mail to the sender. For a small fee the USPS will return other classes of mail (see Ancillary Service Endorsements).
The key to maintaining good data quality is validating customer address information at the point-of-entry. Correcting and validating customer data from the start is an effective way to significantly reduce UAA mail.
How do address errors get into your database in the first place? They can come from a variety of sources – internally from within your IT department due to data migration or system errors, or by customer service or sales reps doing data entry, to external ones like customer order entry, reseller databases, etc. Customers themselves are often the main cause of address errors. Your customers are not static data, they are constantly changing: moving to new locations, changing their jobs, getting new phone numbers, changing their names due to marriage, etc.
To reduce UAA mail, implement change-of-address processing before you mail!
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