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Mitigate Mailer Scorecard Mishaps
Do Something! Action 5:Mitigate Mailer Scorecard Mishaps
This is the last of the five actions of the BCC Software Do Something! initiative.
Action 5/5
Learn about the initiative and each of the five actions here
Let’s review at a high-level what the Mailer Scorecard is, who it helps and why it’s important to both mail owners and Mail Service Providers. The Mailer Scorecard is a measure of the “health” of your Full-Service letter and flat mail activity (including First Class and Marketing/Standard Mail, Periodicals and Parcels), including daily reports, at any given time. It’s available to both the mailer and mail owner/preparer, with the “mailer” being the electronic documentation (eDoc) submitter (which could be the Mail Owner or Mail Service Provider). The information is presented as a dashboard of results of mailing activity within each of these initiatives over a calendar month.
“So what?” you may ask. Eligibility for USPS® presorted discounts has very tight tolerances. It often doesn’t take much to exceed the monthly allowed tolerance. Postage assessments can be costly and difficult to recoup, resulting in higher postage and missed opportunities.
What can trigger a Mailer Scorecard assessment? Failing Move Updates (which have just a 0.5% tolerance for all mailpieces within a 30-day period), undocumented mailpieces (a .3% threshold), and duplicate Intelligent Mail® Barcodes (IMb) are just three things that can trigger an assessment.
Reviewing your Mailer Scorecard should be a critical part of your quality control process. Proactively monitoring Mailer Scorecard errors will help you avoid expensive penalties and mitigate assessments or mail acceptance issues.
Let’s look at three approaches to mitigate mailer scorecard mishaps using good, better, and best actions.
Checking Your Mailer Scorecard Often is a Good Way to Avoid Expensive Assessments
A good way to avoid scorecard issues is to check your mailer scorecard two to three times per week. Checking often will help you see when you are approaching USPS® thresholds and provide you with timely information to act on if needed. When you can take more immediate action, you may avoid exceeding assessment thresholds or minimize the impact of assessments.
Use a Mailer Scorecard Monitoring Service for a Better Way to Avoid Issues
Use a Mailer Scorecard monitoring service to actively monitor your mailer scorecard and alert you if you are in danger of an assessment.
With BCC Software’s YourScore™, we actively monitor your Mailer Scorecard. We send a daily email with detailed reports and the status of your scorecard with At-A-Glance® alerts for a quick assessment status.
A quick view shows if more research or follow up work is needed as well as the status of the Induction container status, errors, and warnings.
The Best Way to Avoid Scorecard Issues? Use Seamless Acceptance
The best approach to avoid scorecard issues is to enroll in Seamless Acceptance. Be rewarded for demonstrated consistency and excellence in mail preparation by becoming a trusted mail preparation partner, gain expedited mail acceptance and earn a discount. The current discount for Seamless is $1 per thousand pieces; in July the Seamless Acceptance incentive doubles to $2 per thousand!
High volume mailers can also take advantage of the tracking data in a custom Mailer ID for greater data control and reduced mailer scorecard risk.
Let's Do Something! Together
Talk with a BCC Software expert about how your organization can mitigate mailer scorecard mishaps and adapt to the changing postal industry.
Let’s discuss your current state and develop an action plan that will put you ahead of postal changes.
It’s time to Do Something! to proactively address strategic postal changes and make every mailpiece count!