InsightIQ Blog

Managing Customers’ Data Quality Expectations

May 13 2009

A recent client concern was raised when an unusually high number of mail pieces were returned as undeliverable by the US Post Office (USPO). The negative impact to the customer is obvious: Not only did they spend good money on postage to mail the piece in the first place, but now they have to expend internal resources to determine the correct addresses, resubmit the documents to the USPS and field customer concerns of late and/or missing mail pieces.

Having just run the NCOA (National Change of Address) updates for the client, it was natural that the client wanted an explanation why the NCOA processing did not catch more of the undeliverable addresses.

After a careful review of the steps that were used to update the client's address information using the NCOA database, we determined that there was nothing wrong with the procedures to execute the update process.

The next step was to contact our NCOA contact at the US Postal Service to find out why so many addresses did not get captured in the update process. It turns out there are several factors that can undermine the best intentions to produce a super clean customer relationship management system. Based on our conversations we can conclude:

Data Reliability and Completeness: The NCOA database is very dependent on the quality of the data that is provided by the individual or business. This is the classic case of garbage in - garbage out. If the constituent updates his address information on the web we will have a better chance of getting good data than if a hand written postcard is submitted. Unfortunately, when a person is in the process of moving there are many things on that person's mind and the post office may not be at the top of the heap. To add to the confusion factor he may simply not have the correct address in the first place or think he remembers it but forgets a detail like the apartment number or worse, enters the incorrect apartment number, zip code, etc.
Data Availability: The NCOA database is at the mercy of the timeliness of the constituents' move. If a homeowner moves in December but doesn't report the address change until the following May, we'll have a 6 month delay right out of the gate. A 6 month window is plenty of time to run several campaigns.
USPS Internal Delays: Another potential source of delay is within the USPS themselves. If an incoming change of address record does not meet certain criteria the record will not be automatically delivered to the NCOA database. Instead the address may be diverted to be researched and verified before allowing into the NCOA database. Records that get kicked back to be researched may be "offline" for weeks if not months.

Another delay that is just a fact of life is the time it takes to get a newly supplied change of address record into the NCOA database. It will typically take 10-14 days from the time the USPS receives and updated address record and the time it makes it to the NCOA database. Add another 1-2 weeks for Quaero to receive the updated NCOA records and process the data. Now we can easily be looking at a month from the time the change of address record and the time we update our own address records.
USPS Inconsistencies: The USPS maintains several internal databases themselves, which are not always fully synchronized. When speaking with non-technical customers we can refer to the USPS "field database"; technical clients may be more comfortable referring to the "field" database as PARS: the Postal Automated Redirection System. In a perfect world the NCOA and PARS databases will always be in synch. The reality is that they are not and getting them in synch may not ever happen. Out of synch records may cause a record that looks good in the NCOA database to be rejected by the PARS system.
The Target Market: Who the campaign is directed to can have a huge impact on the success of the postal campaign. College students not only reside at home and school, they also change schools frequently, move between on and off campus locations, share apartments with other students, etc.

While not fluctuating as much, retired and semi-retired people that maintain summer and winter residences can also pose interesting challenges for the USPS-based marketer.

Ultimately, the data quality of a marketing database is dependent on an intimacy with the prospects and existing customer base and a dogged response to returned mail pieces. Returned records need to be researched and corrected as quickly and completely as possible. The NCOA process is just one of many valuable tools that can be utilized to achieve and maintain a high-quality CRM database.

As value-added consulting marketing experts, it is our responsibility to help our customers realize that no single process or strategy should be relied upon to solve the myriad of potential data quality breakdowns. By emphasizing a holistic approach to data quality, our customers' campaigns will be more successful making our partnership with them even more valuable.

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