Finally, address quality, validation, cleansing and scrubbing had its due highlight. This week at the National Postal Forum–the USPS kicked off a new Address Quality Symposium. The kickoff on Monday was presented to a packed house. Not one single open seat was available and it was standing room only in the back and sides of the room.
It was an honor to speak on the panel for Address Quality Best Practices. My competitor associates and USPS partners all did an excellent job–we did not push software or specific mailing solutions–we taked hard core address quality best practices. Jan Caldwell, manager of Address Management in Memphis devised an excellent session and guided our conversation on stage in what felt like a productive exchange of ideas, concepts and hopefully actionable items for attendees.
As a highlight, the major content can be found from the MTAC Work Group on Address Quality Best Practices. All users should track that document down and read it. There are some very good ideas and items you can use as key information to move a project forward.
As we gear up for some possible address quality initiatives in the upcoming year, it is key you and your organization start preparing. I expect to see changes in
- DPV (Delivery Point Validation)
- LACS (Locatable Address Conversion System)
- Standard ZIP +4 coding.
These rule changes are excellent for address quality–but the price will hit companies and users that do not perform the best practices in address quality.
All of the tools are available–they just need to be used. DPV, LACs, EWS, NCOA, AEC, AEC II, ACS and change your business process to take the output and feed it back into your source address lists. If you do not know those terms, ask me and other users of the blog.
What did others think of the NPF Addressing sessions?