Last November, the Move Update requirement — the USPS mailing standard that requires business mailers to match their address lists with official USPS change-of-address orders — was revised to help mailers improve the quality of their address lists.

The new requirement increased the minimum frequency of Move Update processing from 185 days to 95 days prior to the date of the mailing. The revised standard also extended for the first time Move Update requirements to all Standard Mail — including letters, flats, parcels and Not-Flat Machinable mailpieces.

“Mailers who follow the Move Update standard have cleaner address lists, resulting in more mail reaching intended recipients,” said Pritha Mehra, vice president, Business Mail Entry and Payment Technologies. “These customers also qualify for postal discounts, further increasing their return on investment.”

Move Update also helps reduce the number of mailpieces that are undeliverable as addressed, reducing USPS costs.
Though the new standard was implemented in November, customers were given six months to improve their Move Update processes. Beginning May 11, as long as a mailing’s error rate for Move Update compliance is under 30 percent, the mailing will qualify for postal discounts.

USPS will verify compliance with a new Performance-Based Verification (PBV) system. PBV evaluates mailers’ use of change-of-address information by drawing on live samples from mailings. It also streamlines mail acceptance and improves customer service by providing mailers with Move Update Reports — electronic feedback on their address quality. Move Update reports are available on PostalOne! to mailers whose mailings are processed on MERLIN (Mail Evaluation Readability Lookup Instrument) at sites that have the PBV process.

Local business mail acceptance employees should share the Move Update reports with their customers and work with them to improve their address quality. USPS has posted a Guide to Accessing Move Update Reports at ribbs.usps.gov. Click on Move Update, and then Latest News. The guide is listed in the blue box titled “Important Links.”

National deployment of the PBV system has begun and will be completed by March 31, 2009.