Now that the U.S. Postal Service has licensed its Delivery Point Validation (DPV) program, vendors should have the software available for use early next year.
The DPV program enables catalogers and other mailers to validate the accuracy of address data down to the physical delivery point, which should reduce the volume of undeliverable-as-addressed mail. The USPS estimates that up to 7% of bulk mailings are returned as undeliverable-as-addressed.
Mailers currently use address-matching software with USPS-provided data to standardize address records and assign zip codes. But the existing technology confirms only that an address falls within a range of addresses encoded for a particular street.
For example, the Delivery Sequence File (DSF), another USPS software program, contains all delivery points serviced by the Postal Service, but it can’t flag or suppress records that could technically exist within the range of addresses assigned for a street but don’t in actuality exist. Once catalogers incorporate DPV into the matching process, mailers will be able to determine whether a given address that may be theoretically correct does in fact exist.
The new software will be available from Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS)-certified vendors, such as Group 1 Software, Pitney Bowes, and FirstLogic. For more information on DPV, contact the USPS National Customer Support Center at 800-331-5746.