TCS, A Leader in NCOALink™ Services
TCS can help Mailers develop a sound program of Address Hygiene leading to the overall improvement in the delivery of mailings to customers, subscribers and prospects. Our comprehensive address hygiene service includes NCOALink™, LACSLink™, DPV™, address standardization, and ZIP + 4® coding. Clients may optionally include DMA MPS Flagging, Time Change of Address (TCOA) processing or DSF2™. DSF2™ processing is provided by a non-exclusive licensee of the U.S. Postal Service®.
Many of our Clients are other service companies that need NCOALink™ for their Clients. These firms require the highest quality and fastest possible turnaround and TCS delivers with AUTO-MOVE, a fully automated service. AUTO-MOVE is able to process and return important files in as little as a few minutes. Please contact us and we will be happy to provide you with information on typical turnaround times for different size files.
Benefits of Choosing TCS for Your NCOALink™ Processing
Faster Turnaround – AUTO-MOVE allows Clients to submit files for processing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Any time, day or night, the AUTO-MOVE system allows you to process your critical files without delay. Processing is immediate and your reports and output file are returned as soon as the job is done. The power of the TCS Data Center allows us to provide ultra-fast turnaround at very competitive prices.
Address Standardization and Postal Coding – The Address Standardization and Postal Coding process will “Standardize” the address following the guidelines issued by the U.S. Postal Service (Postal Addressing Standards) and available in USPS® Publication 28. “Pub 28” is available to Mailers through the National Customer Support Center in Memphis, TN, 1(800)238-3150. It may be helpful to become familiar with the Postal Addressing Standards in order to gain insight into the proper construction of address information.
NCOALink™is probably the most effective address hygiene tool available to Mailers today. This enhanced change of address service uses a secure COA database and precise matching technology to provide Mailers with the highest possible level of accuracy in updating Customer and Prospect files with New Address and Undeliverable information. TCS is a Full Service Provider Licensee of the United States Postal Service® offering the full 48 month COA data.
TCOA, More New Addresses – By supplementing the NCOALink™ process with our own Time Change of Address file we are able to return more Address Corrections than other systems. The supplemental TCOA process includes five years of COA’s from multiple sources and returns information not available through NCOALink™ including New Addresses and even suspected COA’s. The TCOA process uses exacting matching logic in order to ensure accuracy.
TCOA - Nixies – The new NCOALink™ does not provide a “nixie” (“suspected” COA) capability, but our TCOA process does. We have made our TCOA-Nixie logic more exacting resulting in a smaller number of Nixies with a much higher probability of being an actual Change of Address. Mailers that have had success eliminating Nixies identified by the previous version of National Change of Address can once again capitalize on the identification of suspect COA’s.
Deceased Screening - This service will match your file to a file of deceased individuals. Our deceased file is created by performing a Social Security Number, Name and Date of Birth match against a file provided by the SSA. The matching logic we will use will be strict returning only Individual matches (First and Last names must match).
Apartment Append - This service will match records on your file, that have been identified by DPV as either missing or having an incorrect Apartment Number, to a National database in order to append or correct the Apartment Number. The database we use for this service is sourced from transactional information and includes only DPV verified addresses. The matching logic we will use will be strict with an option to return Individual and/or Family matches.
DPV - Your addresses are matched to a secure USPS® provided database of all valid Delivery Points (addresses) serviced by the Postal Service™. DPV validates Primary Address, Secondary Address, P.O. Box, Rural and other address styles. It will also flag Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA) addresses which can sometimes be the source of non-payment. DPV is automatically included with all NCOALink™ processing at no additional charge.
LACSLink™ Product provides address conversions, which includes changing rural-style addresses to city-style addressess, due to the implentation of 911 emergency services. In addition, the LACSLink Product includes the renaming or renumbering of existing city-style addresses. These addresses have been changed by the local governments.
DMA MPS Flagging – TCS gives you the option to flag records on your file that match to the Direct Marketing Association Pander File. These records should be eliminated from Prospect Mailings and even from Rentals of your List to other Direct Marketers.
DSF2™processing allows Mailers to take advantage of additional Postal discounts by returning a pseudo Walk Sequence code that can be used to place files into Walk Sequence. It will also code confirmed addresses as being Business or Residential, identify Seasonal addresses and addresses that have been Vacant for 90 days or more.
Preparing Files for NCOALink™ Processing
NCOALink™ process utilizes very strict matching algorithms with the objective of insuring that all “matches” to the COA database are accurate. The Postal Service™ would prefer that we fail to make a valid match rather than matching to the wrong record and incorrectly changing an address. The success of the NCOALink™ process is heavily dependent on the completeness, accuracy and format of the input file. Be sure to provide an accurate file layout. A quality file with accurate and complete name and address information will yield the greatest number of NCOALink™ hits.
Please review the NCOALink™ File Preparation Guidelines.
Processing Options
NCOALink™ offers Clients Five different processing options:
Business Only – Provides Address information for Business Moves only.
Residential – Provides Address information for Family and Individual Moves, but does not perform inquiries on Business records.
Individual Only – Provides Address information for Individual Moves (including Family Moves that match on First/Middle name).
Business & Individual – Provides Address information for Business Moves and Individual Moves (including Family Moves that match on First/Middle name).
Standard – Provides New Address information for all Moves – Business, Individual and Family.
Please Note: NCOALink™ will return an Individual Move Type code on Family Moves if there is a match on First/Middle name. In this situation the Postal Customer indicated that the entire Family was moving, but because the records matched on First/Middle name the code returned will indicate an Individual Move.
NCOALink™ Return Codes
A single Return Code will be present for every record processed through NCOALink™. This code will indicate whether or not the Input record matched to the COA database and whether or not a New Address has been provided.
The Return Codes fall into one of five categories based on the action you will likely take when updating your file. The five categories are:
1. Match to COA File – New Address Provided – A New Address will be present for Return Codes “A “, “91” and “92”. The Move Type and Move Effective Date are provided.
2. Match to COA File – No New Address – Mail Not Forwardable – These codes indicate that there has been a COA but no New Address is available. The Postal Service does not have a new address on file so mail cannot be forwarded and the use of Address Correction Services will not yield any additional information. These records should be eliminated from all mailings. The Move Type and Move Effective Date are provided.
3. Match to COA File – Unable to Return New Address – Mail Forwardable – These codes indicate that your input record definitely matched to a COA, but in order to avoid the possibility of making an incorrect change it is not possible to provide you with the New Address. It is important to note that if your mail is eligible for Forwarding or you have requested any of the Address Change notification services the Postal Service will be able to provide these services as long as the COA is still on file (12 months for forwarding, 18 months for ACS). The Move Type and Move Effective Date are provided.
4. Unmatched to COA File – Return Code “00” means there was simply no match to any COA record. Return Code “66” indicates that your input record matched to a COA record that shouldn’t have been on the file in the first place. This can happen if the Postal Customer checks “Family” Move when they should have checked “Individual”. In this case you could have the actual “mover” or you could have one of the Family members that have not moved. Fortunately there are very few of these records and corrections are made weekly.
5. Match to COA File – Conditional Return Codes Present – Records with any of the remaining Return Codes matched to a COA record based on name and address elements (for example, Surname and Primary Address), but subsequent testing failed to yield a precise enough match. The Conditional Return Codes indicate the condition that prevented COA information from being returned.
The presence of a Conditional Return Code indicates that there may have been a Change of Address for the Input record so you may want to delete these records from certain Mailings. For example, in the case of multiple COA records matching to an Input record, the chances are very high that one of the records is the correct match. That means that you probably do not want to send mail to that record, unless you are paying for Forwarding and/or are using ACS or one of the Ancillary Endorsements.
Please refer to the explanation of the Return Codes for an in-depth explanation of these important codes and recommendations for their use.
NCOALink™ Move Type
The design of NCOALink™ has changed the meaning of the Type of Move codes. The codes haven’t changed, but now code “I” (Individual Moves) will also include some Family Moves (and consequently code “F” will represent only a portion of the actual Family Moves). The NCOALink™ process first tries to match to all COA records using the First/Middle names – what we refer to as Individual matching logic. This is done even for Family Moves. If the match is successful using the Individual logic then the Type of Move code returned will be “I”, even if the move was actually a Family Move.
It might be helpful to think of the Type of Move codes as being the method used to match to the COA record. Mailers that currently use only those Family Moves that also match by First/Middle name will no longer need to check an additional code, they will simply use all records coded with “I”.
Expect Fewer New Addresses
Our tests have shown that NCOALink™ will yield between 2% - 3% fewer matches as compared to the previous version of NCOA. This is due to an improvement in the quality of the matching process in order to ensure accurate results.
TCOA – A Source of Additional Address Changes
Although results vary from one list to another, NCOALink™ will identify between fifty to sixty percent of the actual COA’s on a given file. It is therefore important for you to develop other COA sources. Time Customer Service offers a supplemental COA file that can be run after NCOALink™. The TCOA process includes five years of COA’s from multiple sources and returns information not available through NCOALink™ including New Addresses, identification of known Undeliverable Addresses and even suspected COA’s (aka Nixies). The TCOA process uses exacting matching logic in order to ensure accuracy. Mailers should also consider one of the U.S. Postal Service provided COA services (ACS or Ancillary Endorsements).
TCOA, More New Addresses – By supplementing the NCOALink™ process with our own Time Change of Address file we are able to return more Address Corrections than other systems.
What Happened to the Nixie Codes?
Unfortunately NCOALink™ does not return Nixie Codes (near matches). Although NCOALink™ does provide some Return Codes that are somewhat similar to the Nixie Codes, our tests have identified a relatively inconsequential number of these records. We estimate that only 2% - 3% of the former Nixies will be flagged in NCOALink™.
TCOA - Nixies – The new NCOALink™ does not identify Nixies, but our TCOA process does. Note well that we do not use the NCOALink™ database, but our own multi-sourced file of address changes. Our TCOA-Nixie logic uses exacting match logic resulting in a smaller number of Nixies with a much higher probability of being an actual Change of Address. Mailers that have had success eliminating Nixies identified by the previous version of National Change of Address can once again capitalize on the identification of suspect COA’s.
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*Time Customer Service, Inc. is a non-exclusive Full Service Provider Licensee of the United States Postal Service®.
