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Reduce Undeliverable-As-Addressed Mail

The Postal Service will continue to increase the value of mail by working with the mailing industry to reduce undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail by 50 percent by 2010. UAA mail is mail that must be forwarded, returned to sender, or treated as waste because the recipient information or address is incomplete, incorrect, or out of date. The handling and processing of UAA mail costs the Postal Service over $1 billion annually. In addition, because the return on mailers' investments in mail is reduced by the amount of mail that cannot be delivered, address quality has been identified by the Mailers' Technical Advisory Committee as one of its major areas of focus.

The Postal Service in developing new or enhanced services to ensure that mail is delivered to the right recipient, at the right address, the first time. New address hygiene services such as Address Element Correction will be offered to improve the completeness and accuracy of mailing addresses. Mailing lists that are sold commercially will be certified as to their use of these hygiene services.

Mailers will be encouraged to update customer information more frequently and closer to the date of mailing to reduce the need for forwarding services. Policies such as MoveUpdate requirements will be reviewed and strengthened for these mailers. Other types of UAA will be reduced by providing mailers with address hygiene tools and products based on secure technologies that identify incomplete or incorrect delivery address information before mail entry. Once UAA mail is entered into the mail stream, new processes will become available with the implementation of the 4-state barcode, such as OneCode/Address Change Service, to provide efficient feedback to mailers regarding their UAA mail. This will ensure that addresses are corrected before the next mailing.

Customers will benefit from the Postal Automated Redirection System (PARS), which reduces the number of days required to redirect mail that requires forwarding to a new address by recognizing and redirecting mail earlier in the distribution process. PARS is expected to substantially reduce UAA costs and greatly reduce the need for computer forwarding units that handled this mail before.

2. Improve Customer Service Across All Contact Points

Postal customers define quality as reliable, courteous, and responsive service. Further, they expect accurate, consistent information regardless of whether they come to a Post Office, contact the Postal Service by phone or the Internet, or ask their carrier about a product or service. The Postal Service recognizes that customers form expectations on critical attributes such as waiting time in line based on their experience with other similar services, and compare Postal Service performance to best-in-class providers.