Getting Smart About Intelligent Mail®
Prepare yourself for the most significant postal change in years.
Download the full white paper PDF or read the summary below:
The Intelligent Mail® barcode is expected to become a required element for USPS automation discounts in January 2009.
This mandated barcode change will not only affect mailers’ 2008 budgets, but could impact many companies beyond the mail production environment, including:
- Legacy systems
- Critical communications
- Business unit applications
- Document creation
- Paper stocks
- Database management
- Marketing call centers
- IT resources
How your organization manages the near-term implementation of this mandate is critical to help you generate better results for your company. To help you prepare for Intelligent Mail®, you should consider:
- Expected requirements of the USPS mandate
- Factors that make this barcode so different
- Benefits one can expect to receive
- Key considerations to focus on now
Intelligent Mail® Expected Requirements
While specifics have not yet been announced, the expected USPS mandate will likely address the following key points:
- Effective January 1, 2009 the USPS will no longer allow mailings utilizing the POSTNET™ barcode to benefit from USPS automation discounts.
- To earn all available discounts after this date, you will be required to utilize the new Intelligent Mail® barcode.
- Without this barcode, you could be paying up to an extra nine cents or more for every piece mailed.
- The Intelligent Mail barcode — previously referred to as the “OneCode” — will combine the functionality of several barcodes into one multi-service code, replacing OneCode ACS™, POSTNET™ and PLANET Code.
- The new requirement not only covers mail piece barcodes, but also new codes for trays and containers such as pallets.
- The new barcode offers more accurate and detailed information about mailings, plus participation in USPS special services that allow you to track individual mail pieces, correct addresses and more.
- The Intelligent Mail barcode includes the same delivery point data contained in POSTNET, plus four entirely new data fields.
- You will be expected to populate these new fields, which may entail multiple data sources. One such field is the Sequence Number, a six- or nine-digit identifier for each mail piece that must remain unique across your mailings for each 45-day period.
- The graphics, fonts, coding and print specifications for the Intelligent Mail barcode are different from any existing barcode used today.
- Migrating to the new Intelligent Mail barcode entails creating the new barcode, plus eliminating all existing postal barcodes.
- In many companies, the current POSTNET barcode is created at different points in the process for different documents.
- For some legacy applications, you may even encounter a knowledge gap as to exactly how the current POSTNET barcode is deployed.
- Overall, the Intelligent Mail barcode was designed with innovation in mind — meaning that it will be used to enable additional USPS services, new applications and future benefits.
What Is Different About the Intelligent Mail® Barcode?
The USPS expects Intelligent Mail® to allow improved customer service in the face of:
- New rate increase limits
- Higher fuel costs
- Changing workforce skills
Further, the USPS hopes it will address four key issues critical to the long-term success of mail:
New Value-Added Services
The new barcode creates a platform for intelligence-based services that add value to the mailstream, and makes it easier to access OneCode ACS™ and OneCode Confirm™.
Improved Deliverability
Intelligent Mail® offers streamlined address correction and piece-level tracking, helping eliminate undeliverable and returned mail — as well as the associated costs.
More Efficient Operations
Intelligent Mail® barcodes add speed, quality and accuracy to the mail delivery process. By some estimates, mail sent using the Intelligent Mail barcode can be several times less expensive to deliver than other automated mail.
Greater Accountability
Mailers will have visibility into the performance of the Postal Service in meeting the service measurement requirements of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.
Similarly, since each piece of mail can be tracked to a specific sender, the USPS can accurately assess which mailers are sorting, traying and preparing their mail according to specifications.
What Are the Benefits of Intelligent Mail®?
Mail piece tracking offers millions in bottom-line savings:
- Cost efficiencies
- Accurate forecasting
- Fraud prevention
- Improved cash flow
- Increased customer satisfaction
There are also a number of other key benefits Intelligent Mail® provides mailers:
OneCode Confirm™
This mail tracking service allows mailers to:
- Measure service performance
- Predict delivery
- Document proof of mailing
- Provide customer service departments with track and trace information
OneCode ACS™
This electronic Address Change Service enables mailers to receive updated address information whenever mail is forwarded or returned by the USPS.
This not only means eliminating the costs of reprints and returned mail, but also ensuring mission-critical communications reach the intended recipient faster.
Also, OneCode ACS™ is free for the first two passes of any name and address.
Additional Advantages
The Intelligent Mail® barcode provides several other benefits:
- A cleaner, consistent and more visually-impactful address block
- Improved accuracy of sorting equipment and reliability of delivery
- Participation in the new USPS Seamless Acceptance program, which will eliminate the need to run mail through Merlin®
- Qualifying for the lowest postal rates available
Considerations for Ensuring a Seamless Transition to Intelligent Mail®
Achieving the aforementioned benefits of Intelligent Mail® means a change in business-critical applications, such as invoicing, statement process and check remittance.
Those responsible for mail production should be thinking about the long-term — even if there is no immediate interest in using the Intelligent Mail® barcode to improve address management, track mail or support new TransPromo communications.
Additionally, how the near-term implementation of this mandate is managed can have long-term implications for mailers.
Planning today can help mailers simplify the process, minimize costs and maximize value.
Four Ways to Apply the Barcode
Document Composition
Applying barcodes at the point of document creation — with all barcode information included in the initial data payload — has become a recent trend driven by other initiatives, such as TransPromo.
Adjusting the document composition process requires some added effort, but with the proximity to databases and business applications, it may be easier for mailers to track data — such as a corrected address — back to the original data source.
Document Production
Today’s document output technologies allow mailers to modify and re-engineer print streams: moving and adding information — such as barcodes — on the fly.
In this same manner, mailers can centralize and standardize barcode creation on the production floor — where the original data files are still available — without impacting the upstream business application.
Document Sorting — In-house
Companies that sort mail post-production can update their existing sorter technology to accommodate the new Intelligent Mail® barcode.
Mailers can even program their sorter systems so that is assigns and tracks the unique mail piece identifiers.
Document Sorting — Outsourced
Mailers that utilize a third-party presort house gain the additional benefits of commingled mail. However, choosing a service provider is essential, because the USPS will be able to monitor the quality of the sortation using your Mailer ID.
It will be important for mailers to coordinate sequence numbers with their vendors, so they can best leverage OneCode ACS&trade and OneCode Confirm&trade services.
Intelligent Mail® Readiness Assessment
Pitney Bowes is the mailstream expert behind:
- The nation’s leading CASS- and MASS-certified software
- The most advanced document output technologies
- The most intelligent inserting and sorting systems
- The largest presort service bureau in the world
With this first-rate postal knowledge and unrivaled expertise, Pitney Bowes can help mailers make smart decisions about Intelligent Mail® — decisions that simplify processes, ensure compliance, reduce postage and add value to the business.
Contact us today to begin a one–on–one consultation or a full-scale readiness assessment.
Now that you've read the summary, Download the full white paper PDF.