Alliance Report 14/20
October 22, 2014
Postal Service management promised in recent years that it would move much more quickly implementing major system improvements designed to save costs and improve the efficiency of mail. There have been several cases in which the faster pace has caused customers to experience errors and costly fixes. The latest announcement on this by the USPS illustrates the danger in moving too fast:

Important Updates on
Address Correction Service, Mailer Scorecard Reports & Full-Service Electronic Verification Assessment Period

Address Correction Service (ACS)
An issue was encountered with Full-Service Address Correction Service (ACS) that decreased the number of records provided to mailers. A fix was implemented and data is currently being provisioned as expected. Data not previously supplied will be provided by October 31, 2014.

Mailer Scorecard Reports
Recent messaging from the Postal Service advised customers not to use the Mailer Scorecard until further notice. Since then, the Postal Service has been working with the mailing industry to validate the accuracy of the Full-Service Electronic Verification reports (Mailer Scorecard) to help identify system issues when they occur and to validate when those issues are corrected. We are continuing to work aggressively to address issues with the reports that are impacting a small percentage of mailings and specific mailing scenarios. The mailing industry is encouraged to start using the reports again beginning November 16, 2014.

Full-Service Electronic Verification – Assessment Period
Based on feedback from the mailing industry the Postal Service is delaying the deployment of Full-Service electronic documentation (eDoc) postage assessments until April 2015 to allow for the issues to be resolved and allow time for mailers to review the data.

Please visit us on the USPS Industry Outreach website.
Thank you for your support of the United States Postal Service.
–Consumer and Industry Affairs