Power Of Partnership  

National PCC Day features national satellite broadcast 

When you attend a National PCC Day event next Wednesday, Sept. 19, you’ll hear Postmaster General John Potter discuss the Postal Service’s environmental programs and voting by mail, and share information on technology innovations that include Intelligent Mail and direct mail marketing.

With more than 100,000 members, Postal Customer Councils have an important role in helping the Postal Service add value and make the mail work better for customers. National PCC Day highlights the collaborative nature of this important partnership.

Potter will deliver a keynote address from the Cincinnati, OH, PCC. The speech will be broadcast live by satellite to 200 PCCs across the country beginning at noon ET. Streaming video of the speech will be available at more than 500 postal facilities. Also participating will be Deputy Postmaster General and Chief Operating Officer Pat Donahoe and Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President Anita Bizzotto. 

How to view the broadcast:

            DISH Network Channel 9601

PSTN Channel 15

Satellite coordinates:

KU: AMC2 – Transponder 8 Downlink (H) 11860 MHz

C: AMC3 – Transponder 3 Downlink (H) 3760

Also expect to see postal executives and managers at many local PCC events.

Be sure to join thousands of your fellow PCC members in celebrating “America’s Partnership.” Go to the National PCC website at usps.com/pcc for more information.

New Workshops-In-A-Box

Information on advertising strategies, shipping solutions and address quality  

New PCC Workshops-in-a-Box now are available to help you build business as well as improve mail quality. These workshops are great educational tools for presentation at PCC meetings.

Innovative Direct Mail Strategies To Grow Your Business

Enhance your overall advertising campaign and help grow your business. Learn about the current media landscape, recent trends in media, industry projections and new innovations in direct mail. Recommended tips will help you make sound business decisions when you use direct mail as part of your multi-channel marketing mix.

International and Domestic Expedited Products

Giving customers a Quick, Easy and Convenient method to do business is what makes the Postal Service the shipper of choice for so many business customers.  This presentation explains USPS product and service offerings as well as their specific features and benefits. Learn how USPS shipping solutions can save time and money for your business.  

Addressing & Your Bottom Line – The Big Picture

Gain a competitive edge on the competition by using a comprehensive address quality strategy. Learn how you can improve your bottom line, make better decisions, reach your customers and leverage the effectiveness of your address list by practicing good address quality.

Addressing & Your Bottom Line – It’s Your Money

Get a comprehensive look at how the Postal Service’s address quality products and services can help to improve your bottom line. Learn how to cut your mailing costs, speed delivery and enhance your sales. Discover how “undeliverable-as-addressed” mail impacts your business. “It’s your money, don’t throw it away!”

Also, three National PCC Day workshops also are available online — Flats Sequencing System (FSS), Powering Up Your Business with Intelligent Mail and The Value of Mail.

All workshops are available for download from the PCC Education link at www.usps.com/pcc.

Next Horizon With CASS Cycle M

Looking ahead to next level of address quality

With the Aug. 1 implementation of CASS Cycle L complete, now is the time to start looking to the next big opportunity for improvements in address quality.   

The address quality tools and services in CASS Cycle M will help you further clean up your address list, cut your mailing cost, increase speed of delivery and reduce undeliverable-as-addressed mail. Connect more efficiently and effectively with your customers and ultimately increase your response and ROI using address quality tools from the Postal Service. The new Suite^Link product and the Intelligent Mail barcode are key components of CASS Cycle M that will help you go to the next level of address quality.

Suite^Link

For CASS/MASS Cycle M effective August 2008, the Postal Service will require all software developers to certify Suite^Link as an optional component of CASS address-matching software. Suite^Link improves business addressing by adding known secondary (suite) numbers to allow delivery sequencing where it would otherwise not be possible. Given a business name and an associated ZIP + 4 coded address that matches to a high-rise default, the Suite^Link process will return the appropriate suite number when available.

While Suite^Link won’t be a requirement for automation discounts in 2008-2009 for end users, we encourage you to begin asking your CASS software developers about this process now to better prepare for the future.

Intelligent Mail barcode

Also, as part of Cycle M, all MASS manufacturers will be required to demonstrate their ability to spray an Intelligent Mail barcode. MASS certification cycle is designed to evaluate the ability of Multiline Optical Character Readers, Remote Video Encoding, Local Video Encoding and encoding stations to process address information and apply an accurate delivery point barcode to a mailpiece.

End users are not required to test the Intelligent Mail barcode in Cycle M but will have that option. However, if the requirement to spray the Intelligent Mail barcode for automated discounts is implemented by the Postal Service mid-cycle, end users will be required to recertify their MASS equipment with the barcode.

Start preparing now for the changes to CASS/MASS coming with the implementation of Cycle M.