Customer address list cleanup

[Keith]

Sometimes the hardest thing about a post s deciding what topic it goes under. There was no Mail topic and I didn't see a Variable Data department so I figured this has a lot to do with workflow and it does occur before press. I'm just wondering how far other mailers go with correcting customer supplied address lists? I'm not talking NCOA/CASS but spelling and format. I just want to know what others are including in "makeready" and what you are charging extra for. Right now, I think deleting white spaces and carriage returns is a part of standard make-ready but man, these lists can be a mess so it takes a lot of time to fix spelling of street names. So an hourly rate to clean it up after the basic preparation is necessary. Do you include a small amount of time to fix things like that and then charge extra for what you can't cleanup in that amount of time?

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I consider this "shit work" and would charge $65.00 per hour, with a $20.00 minimum for me to touch your file. If a customer can't do it themselves, then they should most certainly pay top dollar for it. That is a very valuable service, in my opinion. It would be a totally separate charge, that would ultimately be bundled under "mail services" as a category when billed.

What happens if you make an error when correcting their errors? Do you have an agreement that you are not held liable for those errors (so they can't get refunds?).

 

[Keith]

Thank you PricelineNegotiator. That's how I feel and I am appreciate your feedback. Especially concerning liability. Haven't thought of that so I will put something together immediately. This all started when I had a customer ask why some of their clients didn't get their letter (fortunately for me, they were very nice about it). First thing I did was show them their shitty mailing list with all its misspellings and inaccurate information.

 

[gsbatch]

We don't do it anymore. We advise the customer of the poor quality so they have an opportunity to correct it themselves. Then it's up to them.

 

[baritone]

What we do is use the program and any other will go as dupe or non address and send to the sales rep and let them deal with the customers on those or make them buy a list.

 

[MailGuru]

First, bring the file in to whatever you're using for sort & data manipulation (we use BCC Mail Manager). Then, use your software to filter out "Hi-Bit" & control characters (in MailManager, it would be (from the drop down menu) "Modify Selected Records", "Filter Characters" then check the boxes for "Remove Hi-Bit Characters", "Remove Control Characters" also, at this time, you can pad zip codes with zeros (Ex: NJ zip "7043" would convert to "07043"). Then click the "Begin" button. You can use the same process to remove "redundant" characters (extra spaces, etc.).

Then, CASS your file. Now select all the records that did not CASS. If there are less than 100 records that did not CASS , we will use the same software to look up and correct the bad records (we have an hour labor time fudged in to the data processing charge to cover this). However, if there are more than 100 records that need to be corrected, we will export those records and send them back to the client with an explanation that these are bad addresses and give them the option of correcting and re-submitting those bad records, or, omitting them from the mailing.

 

[Jackie]

We are having the same issue with poor data coming in from our clients, MailGuru I see that you are using BCC Mail Manager. Can anyone else out there recommend software that would work North of the Border in Canada? Canada Post has a list of Software Vendors it recommends, but the list has 28 Vendors, bit daunting to try to collect information on them all and figure out what would be right for us . . . any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[bmiller4jah]

We typically charged a "flat fee" for "List Services" for a customer supplied list. Usually in the ballpark of a few hundred dollars (exact amount redacted intentionally). This includes CASS, Dedupe, and "basic" cleanup.. NCOA is additional at a "cost per thousand", but we will add "Or Current Resident" for free.

By doing a flat fee, you have "winners" (profit makers, i.e. only takes your data analyst 10 minutes to prep file) and "losers" (time drainage upwards of a few hours to correct) - but across the course of a year.. we always made a profit on "list services" by pricing client supplied lists this way... You win some, you lose some.

Hope that helps.

 

[MailGuru]

We are having the same issue with poor data coming in from our clients, MailGuru I see that you are using BCC Mail Manager. Can anyone else out there recommend software that would work North of the Border in Canada? Canada Post has a list of Software Vendors it recommends, but the list has 28 Vendors, bit daunting to try to collect information on them all and figure out what would be right for us . . . any recommendations would be appreciated.

Hey Jackie. I don't know much about Canada Addresses, but, you might want to look in to a company called "Melissa Data". They are in California, but, I do believe they have (or, used to have) software to clean and sort Canadian Addresses. I hope this helps!

 

[scotts]

This all started when I had a customer ask why some of their clients didn't get their letter (fortunately for me, they were very nice about it). First thing I did was show them their shitty mailing list with all its misspellings and inaccurate information.

This is a good way to prove to your customer how valuable your service is, and why they should want to pay the "List Services" fee. For me in prepress, who doesn't really have a say. If it is a small list (under 250) that hasn't gone through our mailing department to get the full treatment, I will clean up the list (extra spaces, returns, and if fields are not breaking correctly). But never spelling, been burnt and learned my lesson. That, the customer has to fix themselves. Spelling comes under the heading - Garbage In - Garbage Out. The printed piece will look good, but with bad data. We will do a data merge and send the customer a proof to approve and let them see their mistakes first.

 

[joshlindsay]

Great topic Keith. Something that we've struggled with for a while.

We do quite a lot to the data to make it ready for mailing. In New Zealand we have a process called Statement of Accuracy where the data is validated against the master list of addresses in the country. I assume this is the same as your CASS process? Any who it's definitely a case of crap in, crap out.
Having spoken with other local mailing companies they spin it back to their client every time whereas we'll typically fix it up for the first mailing for no extra charge (we do charge a $15/000 Import and Standardise fee alongside the charge to run the SOA). Recently we've tried to make make them aware of the time taken and that next time we'll need to charge for it.

I think our biggest problem is we'd prefer to keep the customer happy and make the job easy/stress free which is why in the past we haven't charged for it.