Don't let undeliverable mail ruin your customer relationships

Case in point: meet the millennial

Here's how quickly it could happen. Logan is a millennial, part of the generation born between 1981 and 1996⁵. Whenever possible, he prefers the convenience of online transactions over the face-to-face options that some older generations favor. He banks online — and doesn't even have a local bank branch. Now in his late 20s, Logan buys his first house. He packs, moves, unpacks and stocks the fridge without ever stopping to think about updating his address with the bank or USPS. Besides, most of what his mailbox receives is junk mail.

So when it's time for his credit card to renew, the card company sends the updated card to his former mailing address. Logan is too busy to notice that his credit card has expired, but when he starts getting the expiration notices from failed monthly transactions, that gets his attention. To avoid any further hassles, he moves all of his regular monthly transactions to another credit card — and just like that — the bank lost a customer. Another situation that's fraught with possible errors involves income taxes. Some entities, such as insurance and financial organizations, are legally required to send to the last recorded address, even if evidence exists that it may not be the most recent address. For example, income tax communications are sent each year, so even if someone does their part by registering their forwarding address with the USPS, that period expires 12 months after the notice was filed. If over the course of that year that individual forgets to permanently change their address, the next tax notices will be mailed to the former property address until he or she remembers to file a permanent change of address with the sender of the tax document.

The solution? Add data

Fortunately, there are measures you can take to make sure this doesn't happen to you, such as outsourcing your mail center services. By enlisting a third party to handle mail that's undeliverable as addressed (UAA), you free yourself up to work on the business itself. A reputable third-party mail service provider relies on more than the national change of address (NCOA) database to regularly update customer addresses, augmenting the NCOA review with other address updates, such as those made with area utility companies, magazine subscriptions, banks and more. Use of these supplemental data sources has a positive domino effect. More documents and packages reach their intended recipients, customers stay informed (and hopefully, happy) and bills are paid on time. But perhaps the biggest bonus, both in terms of effort and expense, is that you're not tasked with trying to chase down a new customer to replace one who just disappeared. That's one small step toward customer retention and one profitable impact. Ready to help ensure more of your communications reach their destination? Contact Ricoh today to inquire about Return Mail Services.