As one of the most significant postal changes in decades, you can count on Pitney Bowes for the information, expertise and resources you’ll need to simplify this transition and improve your results. We’ll be presenting a webinar on how to fully utilize the IMb this Thursday, May 24th at 2:00pm ET. Would love to have you join the conversation and hear your thoughts. Register now at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/875525178.

• Basic IMb has a fairly easy implementation, and will enable your company to continue receiving discounts in 2013.
• Full Service IMb provides you with much more data that is unique to your customers than the Basic IMb. Many of the companies that implemented a Full Service IMb are receiving additional value from data-mining capabilities. In addition, it has been proposed that Full Service IMb will be required for discounts in 2014.

With multiple options, there are decisions to make. For example, “which version of the IMb should I implement?” I recommend that mailers partner with an industry expert to develop an IMb roadmap. Knowing that eventually you’ll need to implement Full Service IMb, an industry expert can help personalize the value of a Full Service IMb specific to your company’s goals. The main goal here is to avoid performing a costly integration project twice (once for Basic IMb and second time for Full Service IMb) by deciding what your company’s IMb platform should look like in 2 – 3 years. The roadmap tells you how you’ll get from where you are today, to where you want to be.

If you’d like to learn more about the Intelligent Mail barcode, join my colleague, Adam Collinson, Thursday, May 24 at 2:00pm EDT for a discussion on how you can fully utilize the IMb to impact your bottom line. Register now.

As a postal consultant, I know that my future is very much tied to the USPS, mailers, and how choices will influence communication strategies. The general session and executive sessions will give me a beat on where the USPS is going to make sure that their business is sustained. That means change is coming, and when I know the USPS’s direction, I can help my customers plan for change.

But I can’t overlook the networking opportunities at NPF. I’m a big believer that once you have knowledge that you need to apply it before the information has value. The true value of a show like NPF is that when I hear about a change (technology, regulatory, or service) I get to talk to the people that manage the environments that that will be impacted. This is the first year at NPF that my team will be scheduling one-on-one consultations with mailers in the PB booth. There are so many choices out there, what is the best one? As a consultant I can help interpret information, and more importantly, apply it to your environment.

If you want to meet up at NPF, there are a few ways to connect:

- Voltaire

Having spent more than a decade in the high volume transaction output industry, I have witnessed numerous waves of innovation, automation, and optimization in how businesses communicate to their customers and prospects.  These waves have levered information, document, IT, and production assets to streamline processes, wring out cost, improve integrity, refine targeting, increase relevance, and strengthen messaging in the never ending battle to optimize the customer/channel mix, lower the cost to serve, and yet maintain an ongoing profitable dialogue.

I have also witnessed how businesses have attempted to change the behavior of their customers to move to lower cost channels. With regards to e-messaging they have attempted to raise awareness of environmental benefits, offered improved record keeping, “secured” email, provided modest financial incentives, all the way to treating a mailpiece as a lottery ticket where the customer could win thousands in cash or a new car if they would only go paperless.

In both of these cases it has been business setting the terms of the relationship with the customer. However with the consumerization of IT, the ubiquity of broadband, and the explosive growth of smartphones and now tablet computers, the terms of the relationship are changing quickly.

A vicissitude is a sudden or unexpected change or shifts encountered in one’s life, activities, or surroundings. For high volume mailers, they should now take heed from the quote from Voltaire above. It is time to let customers define the terms of the conversation – yet at the same time not go broke in trying to manage the relationships with these newly empowered patrons.

Resolving this dichotomy was a core design principle of Volly™– to create a level playing field for both mailers and consumers – what Gartner coined as the “mutually managed experience.” Consumers have been provided a platform and experience to opt-in, be alerted, receive, and manage content, payments, and opportunities when, where, and how they want. Mailers and other providers have been given an opportunity to securely send content to consumers via Volly at a substantially lower cost while levering their existing production, document, and information assets to make it happen.

Take a look at Volly. And get in the game…

Along with the changing colors of trees and cooler weather (at least here in WI), Fall brings a few changes to First-Class Mail® parcels. Effective October 3, 2011, First-Class Mail commercial Base and commercial Plus parcels will be removed from the Market Dominant (Mailing Services) product offering (recall that these pricing categories were just introduced in April!), and replaced with a new First-Class™ Package Service Competitive Product (Shipping Services). In doing so, the USPS will have greater pricing flexibility based on a price floor, rather than a price cap (e.g. CPI).

With the move of Commercial FCM parcels to the Competitive category, parcels mailed at commercial Base prices will be open to Postal Inspection and cannot contain documents or personal correspondence, i.e. content defined as a ‘letter’ per 39 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 310.1. (The CFR describes a ‘letter’ as a message directed to a specific person or address and recorded in or on a tangible object.) An exception to this limitation of personal, ‘letter’-type content is that parcels may contain invoices, receipts, incidental advertising, and other documents that relate in all substantial respects to merchandise contained in the parcels.

This change may impact some of you… There are generally two applications for FCM parcels. One application is that of light-weight merchandise such as electronics or pharmaceuticals. In most cases, the new regulations won’t impact this application as these parcels may contain invoices, receipts, incidental advertising, and other documents providing they relate in all substantial respects to merchandise contained in the parcels.

A second application for FCM parcels is often used as a cost-saving alternative to Certified Mail™ and Return Receipt pieces. Documents, i.e., ‘letters’ are placed in parcel-type containers and then combined with Delivery Confirmation™ or Signature Confirmation™ to gain delivery information at a lower overall cost. And since April, with this type of application, you may have enjoyed the discounted single-piece FCM Commercial Base parcel price (15 cents lower than the retail price). However, with the Oct. 3rd change, since personal correspondence won’t be permitted within the new First-Class™ Package Service commercial Base parcel category, you’ll need to resort back to the FCM Retail price for those parcel applications. For “non-personal” type parcels though, First-Class™ Package Service commercial Base parcel pricing can apply.

Pitney Bowes will be providing information as to how to process packages based on the new pricing category…. So please stay tuned!

And as always, I welcome your feedback… including how you most often use First-Class Mail parcels… for documents? for merchandise?

Until next time,
Elizabeth

CASS stands for Coding Accuracy Support System and serves as a common platform to measure the quality of address-matching software. This is important to mailers as using CASS-certified software can significantly reduce costs associated with UAA mail such as wasted postage and material costs, or even delayed delivery resulting in unhappy customers.

The USPS periodically updates the rules and specifications for CASS-certified software; these periods are called Cycles. With each Cycle, additional CASS requirements are put in place to further reduce UAA mail. In this current Cycle M, CASS-certified software must include a number of functionalities such as accuracy in five-digit, ZIP + 4, delivery point and carrier route coding, locatable address conversion and SuiteLink® (optional), just to name a few. The objective of their functionalities is simply to reduce undeliverable mail by providing the most current address information for matches made to these files.

CASS Cycle N takes effect August 1, 2011.The most significant change with Cycle N is the mandated use of the SuiteLink® product. SuiteLink® enables improved business addressing by adding known secondary (suite) information to business addresses, and allows automated delivery sequencing for the Postal Service™. While SuiteLink will be required, a June 10th DMM® Advisory stated that mailers will not be required to show the suite number returned by SuiteLink in the printed address. Instead, mailers may generate a delivery point barcode derived by incorporating the suite number indicated by SuiteLink.

For additional information, please go to the CASS web page on the Rapid Information Bulletin Board System (RIBBS®).

Pitney Bowes solutions are ready for CASS Cycle N. SmartMailer™ included CASS Cycle N certified software in our June 2011 release. AddressRight Pro will include CASS Cycle N certified software in our August release.

I welcome your comments. And for technical questions regarding SmartMailer or AddressRightPro, please see our support page.

Thank you ~ and enjoy the remainder of the summer!
Elizabeth

One frequent question and answer that I’d like to share is “Which Priority Mail and Express Mail packaging qualifies for Commercial Base pricing?” Many mailers have the impression that Commercial Base pricing is limited to only Priority Mail or Express Mail flat-rate boxes or envelopes. Rather, USPS-provided Priority Mail or Express Mail packaging or packages properly identified/labeled as Priority or Express Mail along with an approved postage payment method may qualify a mailer for the discount, i.e., Commercial Base pricing.

Here’s a quick re-cap of some of the qualifying postage payment methods that you may be familiar with as a PB customer.  The Domestic Mail Manual states that Priority Mail Commercial Base prices are available via a number of methods.  Some include approved PC Postage products with a qualifying shipping label, such as our pbSmartPostage solution, or mailers using a permit imprint such as our SendSuite outbound shipping solution (keep in mind, the use of a permit imprint means that you must meet a mailing volume requirement), or approved IBI postage meters that print the IBI with the appropriate price marking (that’s the inscription next to the indicia that reflects Commercial Base pricing) and electronically transmits transactional data to USPS, such as our DM Series and Connect+™ mailing systems.

Express Mail commercial base prices are available via a number of methods as well.  Some include mailers using an Express Mail Corporate Account, or approved PC Postages solutions and IBI postage meters as noted above, and mailers who pay postage with a permit imprint using the Electronic Verification System (EVS) program.

As a reminder, Priority Mail and Express Mail Commercial Base pricing is about 5 – 6% lower than retail rates, so using the right solution is a great way to save!

If you have specific questions, our Forum site is an ideal way of getting rapid support.  And if you haven’t signed up for our Customer Connections e-newsletter, you can do so by clicking here.

I welcome your comments relative to if/how you’re using Priority Mail and Express Mail ~ perhaps as a means of lowering your overall shipping/carrier costs.  So please feel free to post a comment here regarding your thoughts on this topic!

If you haven’t heard, the Postal Regulatory Commission did indeed approve the Postal Service’s Mobile Barcode Promotion! This promotion is pretty exciting because unlike other incentive programs that provide rebates, this promotion essentially rewards mailers launching campaigns incorporating two-dimensional, smartphone-friendly barcodes with an upfront 3 percent postage discount on qualifying Standard and First-Class Mail letters, flats or cards.

According to Tom Foti, USPS Manager of Marketing Mail, the Mobile Barcode Promotion is another step in the Postal Service’s strategy to ensure mail remains relevant as a key element in the overall advertising mix.  The promotion is intended to increase awareness of how integrating technology increases the value.

If you’re not familiar with “mobile barcodes”, the most common one is the QR code, which is a two-dimensional code readable by barcode readers and camera phones. The information encoded can be text, a URL or other data. QR codes appear almost anywhere, i.e., magazines, signs, vehicles, business cards, and in the case of this promotion, envelopes, and they drive consumers to take action, e.g., scanning the barcode to reach a web page, coupon, etc.

Highlights of the Mobile Barcode Promotion include:

• Program period July 1 through August 31
• Open to mailers of qualifying commercial First-Class Mail® or Standard Mail® (regular and nonprofit) letters, flats or cards
• Postage statement must be submitted electronically via PostalOne!® (A separate postage statement is required for all mailpieces with mobile barcodes)
• Permit Imprint is required payment method
• All mailpieces must include a mobile two-dimensional barcode on the outside or within the mailpiece
• Information relayed in the mobile barcode must be relevant to the contents of the mailpiece to market, promote, or educate

Pitney Bowes solutions may assist you in participating in this promotion.  For example, our SmartMailer™ and AddressRight® Pro presorting software, in combination with the USPS Postal Wizard, helps to prepare and submit commercial (discounted) First-Class Mail® and Standard Mail® mailings. Also our document creation solutions including PlanetPress® and PB FIRST enable design of 2-D barcodes within documents.  The Connect+ mailing systems can print QR Codes and messaging directly on your envelopes in a single pass, along with a return address, logos’s and even the required Permit imprint.

Details regarding the Mobile Barcode Promotion can be found on the USPS RIBBS® website.
If you have specific questions about the program, you can reach out directly to the USPS by email: MobileBarcode@usps.gov

I welcome your thoughts regarding this promotion.  What do you think about this promotion?  Great play on the part of the USPS?  Do you plan on participating?  If so, what type of campaign or strategy do you plan to use with your mailings?

Thanks so much,
Elizabeth

TIP #3: Use your Pitney Bowes Mailing System or Shipping Solution to Gain Delivery Information and Help You Save Money!

Hello again!

Customers in my Mail Management Seminars tell me that their biggest mail/shipping center objective or initiative is to mitigate mailing and shipping costs while maintaining efficiency, including the ability to track and/or know that their packages have been delivered. To that end, many are changing the way in which they use USPS Extra Services and also are moving some packages from other expedited and ground carrier services to the USPS.

To accomplish this, the USPS® offers many services that can confirm delivery of letters/flats and packages and so Pitney Bowes customers are using a number of our solutions to process their mailpieces with Delivery Confirmation™, Signature Confirmation™, and e-Return Receipt ~ at the reduced “electronic” prices.

For example, you might consider some of these mailer best practices to gain delivery information of your packages while minimizing costs.

If you simply need proof of delivery, instead of using Certified Mail™ (the fee alone is $2.85), you could use electronic Delivery Confirmation™ and save up to 27%. The “math” works like this… Postage for a 1 oz. letter is 44¢. Add the Certified Mail fee and your total is $3.29. Whereas, if you were to put those documents into a “parcel” type container, you’d be able to use electronic Delivery Confirmation and reduce your postage spend. On most PB meters, the current postage for a First-Class Mail® parcel is $1.56 (that’s the 1-3 oz. Commercial Base single-piece price). Add the electronic Delivery Confirmation fee of only 19¢, and take on a few extra cents for the cost of a “parcel” type container (as that may be a bit more than the cost of a #10 envelope), and you’ve got a savings of almost a dollar per piece.

Or, if you needed proof of delivery with a signature, instead of Certified Mail with a Return Receipt, you may want to choose Signature Confirmation™ and save up to 24%. Postage for a one-ounce letter plus the Certified Mail fee and the “green card” return receipt fee ($2.30) is $5.59. But if you were to put those documents in a parcel-type container and use electronic Signature Confirmation ($2.05), you could save more than $1.00 again per piece!

Some of my customers say that in using Delivery and Signature Confirmation on parcel-type containers, there is a bit more visibility of that piece, i.e, the package jumps out from that pile of mail! They also say that using First-Class Mail parcels and Priority Mail® with Delivery and Signature Confirmation instead of some next-day or second day/ground services of other carriers, their carrier expenditures have been greatly reduced, as the USPS doesn’t add on all those assessorial charges.

If requirements within your business or organization do require the use of Certified Mail and Return Receipt, you might consider using the electronic option of Return Receipt. The fee is only $1.15 as compared to the “green card” fee of $2.30, and in addition to hard dollar savings, you gain efficiency in not having to fill out the forms, and also in the ability to manage the signature files electronically rather than manually!

As always, I welcome your comments on this topic, such as your success stories in leveraging USPS classes of mail and Extra Services to manage costs.

If you have questions or concerns regarding your equipment, please go to www.pb.com/ratechange to find out more or to contact us.

Leverage the Benefits of Flat-Rate and Regional Rate Packaging and Your PB Postage Solution!

In January of this year, the Postal Service introduced a number of new flat-rate packaging options for Priority Mail® and a new “Flat-Rate” legal-size envelope for Express Mail®.  A number of my customers have already taken advantage of the new legal-size envelope and are seeing great results in savings and delivery!

As you know, the attractiveness of Flat-Rate packaging includes that the price is fixed, regardless of actual weight (up to and including 70 pounds) or zone.  The eco-friendly packaging (great if your company has got a “green” policy!” is free and can be conveniently ordered from the Pitney Bowes Expedited Shipping Services website at www.pb.com/expedited-shipping-services/ or on the USPS Postal Store® site at www.usps.com/shop.

Further, packages can be picked up at no charge with the Carrier Pickup™ service (this comes as a pleasant surprise to some of my seminar attendees!), or for a small fee, picked up at a date and time convenient to the shipper with Pickup on Demand® service.  You, or those that send packages to your mail/shipping center, can create a shipping label on, or access the Carrier Pickup™ site from, the PB Expedited Shipping Services website! And as you know, you can enjoy the savings of Commercial Base pricing for flat-rate packages when using an approved postage payment method, such as our Connect+™ or pbSmartPostage™ solutions!

I’d be remiss in not mentioning the relatively new Priority Mail® Regional Rate boxes which were also introduced in January of this year; these are available to Commercial Base and Plus shippers.   Pricing is based on box size and zone. Regional Rate Box A has a maximum weight limit of 15 pounds and Box B has a maximum weight limit of 20 pounds. The box A and B categories have a top-loading and a side-loading design option.  With the “If it fits, it Ships” USPS concept (you got to love those Postal Service ad’s on TV!), these boxes can be a huge postage saver for shippers, especially when the contents are heavy!  For example, a 15# Priority Mail® package shipped to zone 4 would cost approximately $20.00 whereas postage for those contents, if packaged in Regional Box A, would be less than $6.00.  A customer told me recently that in doing an assessment of their most common shipments, they were able to move about 25% of their shipments to the Regional boxes ~ and saved a ton!

So if you’re trying to mitigate postage and shipping expenditures, you might consider doing an analysis of your own.  Combining the lower postage rates (vs. Retail) of Commercial Base pricing via your Connect+™ mailing system or pbSmartPostage™ with the advantages of Flat-Rate and Regional packaging could be a huge win!

I welcome your “best practices”, comments and feedback! And in the meantime, please click to our Postal Info website for more tips on how to save.