The Ethics of NCOA Move Update®
Scenario – I own a mailing service and in preparation for the new Move Update regulations coming in November of 2008, I have just signed up for an ‘all you can eat’ NCOALink® 18 month service (NCOA-18), or maybe I have even invested to get my own USPS® NCOALink® license.
Now, as a business owner, I realize the more clients I can run through NCOA-18, with its fixed costs, the more profit I can make. On the other hand, many of my clients have historically been using the 48 month version of NCOALink (NCOA-48), because it catches more moves and cost only fractionally more than the NCOA-18 service.
As a business owner, do I arbitrarily decide to run all new orders through NCOA-18, justifying it by saying I am sure all the client wants is to secure the postal discount…they are not really that interested in catching the maximum number of moves? Do I ask the client in such a way that steers them to the answer I want, i.e. “Your primary interest is in saving money and securing the postal discounts, correct?” Or, do I sit down with the client and go over the pros and cons of both NCOA-48 and NCOA-18 and help the client make an informed decision, thereby setting up client specific guidelines for when a file would be processed through NCOA-18 and when it would go to NCOA-48?
Some providers suggest to a client that they run their list through NCOA-48 the first time and NCOA-18 after that. On the surface, this sounds logical, but if you don’t ask the client what percent of their file is changing/updated every month and how old are the input sources being used to update the file, then this advice may be provided erroneously.
That fact is, a third more moves are caught by NCOA-48 than NCOA-18, and as we all know, the USPS created the Move Update regulations to reduce the amount of Undeliverable As Addressed mail.
