How to Optimize Your Postal Program

Posted: 9/2003

How to Optimize Your Postal Program
By Ron Whaley and Lenny Taylor

If you are like most telecom service providers, you mail out thousands of invoices month after month. Isnt it galling that you have to spend so much money in postage just to get paid for a service youve already delivered? Its not only natural but practical for you to ask how your business can take advantage of postage discounts, guarantee your mail gets the best delivery possible, and keep the weight down to prevent additional postage fees. By answering these questions, you can dramatically reduce postage expenses, enhance piece delivery and reduce float on receivables, which speeds cash flow.

Optimizing your postal program starts with understanding and making the most of what the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has to offer. Here are some tips and techniques to get you started:

Standardize Addresses/Presort Discounts. Stand-ardizing addresses means your addresses are accurate and consistent with USPS formatting guidelines. By standardizing addresses according to USPS specifications, you become eligible for postage discounts through presorted mail, which guarantees faster delivery of mail. For specifics on how to standardize addresses, you can refer to USPS Publication 28 (visit http://pe.usps.gov/ text/pub28/welcome.htm).

When addresses are standardized, they can be matched to the USPS national ZIP code directory. When a match occurs, the mail piece receives a delivery point bar code and is entitled to a first class discount of between 6.1 cents and 9.5 cents per piece, depending upon the number of pieces going to the same ZIP code. Multiply that by the thousands or tens of thousands of invoices and you can see how pennies quickly turn into significant dollar savings.

Additionally, standardized addresses and presorting will get mail to customers considerably faster than non-presorted mail. By presorting mail to its delivery point destination, you are doing a portion of the work for the post office, which allows them to skip several steps in the sorting process.

Presorted mail will shave at least one or two days off the delivery time. The benefits are obvious: Faster delivery equals faster payment equals improved cash flow.

Reduce Invoice Pages. In terms of mail-piece weight, the difference between a four-page invoice and three-page invoice is one ounce. An additional ounce costs 2.25 cents in postage. That is why it is critical to evaluate the layout of your invoices to make sure you are making the most efficient use of the space and consolidating data wherever possible.

When looking at the layout of your invoices ask yourself the following questions: Can we use a twocolumn format? Can we revise the page breaks to consolidate data from multiple pages onto one? Reduce font sizes where feasible. Some simple format and design changes can translate into significant postage savings.

Manifest Mailing. Manifest mailing is the process of combining multiple ounce groups into one mailing. With manifest mailing, you can get greater density to any particular ZIP code, which translates into greater postage discounts. Another benefit of manifest mailing is the mail no longer has to be metered with the sloppy red ink dispensed from standard postage meters. Instead, mail has a preprinted indicia the USPS uses for collecting postage, based on postal paperwork that accompanies every mailing. No metering also means there is no indication of the mailed-from location allowing you to maintain anonymity regarding the mailing location of your bills. In addition, with all manifest mailings, there is a corresponding USPS receipt that can be used for verification of mail date, total pieces mailed, and total postage cost for a particular mailing.

Reply Mail. Make sure the remittance addresses are USPS standardized or formatted and include the delivery point bar code. This guarantees USPS will sort and deliver payments accurately and without delay.

Change of Address (Move Updates). Customers are constantly relocating; yet you need to get their bills to them as accurately and efficiently as possible. In order to stay updated with change-of-address information and to ensure invoices for people who have moved are handled properly, consider adding one of two possible endorsements on your outgoing mail:

1. Address Service Requested. By having this endorsement just below your return address, you are providing instructions to the USPS as to how to handle moves. If during the USPS sorting process they detect a mail piece that has filed an active change-of-address request, for a 70 cents-perpiece service charge, the following occurs:

• Your mail piece is forwarded to the new address.
• You receive a postcard that contains the old and new address to update your database.

The benefits:

• The bills get delivered to your customers in a timely fashion.
• You do not receive return mail that you would then have to re-insert, re-stamp, and re-mail.
• You get the new address information. Enter this into your database and never have to pay for this information again.

2. Return Service Requested.With this endorsement, when the post office detects a move, the piece is returned to you with a label that contains the corrected address. There is no charge for this service. At that point, you need to handle the remailing of the piece.

Its easy to take the mailing process for granted. However, by taking a closer look at USPS offerings, service providers can realize significant postage savings and enhanced delivery of mail.