Stamford, Conn. - Pitney Bowes Management Services, Inc. (PBMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc. today announced an integrated return mail management service offering that can update up to 60 to 80 percent of incorrect addresses (as compared to only 10 to 30 percent by competitive single source data providers), which can help companies significantly reduce the costs associated with return mail and reconnect with customers.

Pitney Bowes Enterprise Return Mail Services utilizes an automated and centralized process that helps to:

- Improve the deliverability of mail by updating “bad” addresses that were returned because the address was undeliverable;
- Reduce the cost of managing return mail by up to 70 percent;
- Reduce the cycle time for managing return mail from weeks to days;
- Provide flexible on-site and off-site deployment options that maintain an organization’s security while leveraging economies of scale;
- Provide guaranteed quality levels, matching the information on a mail piece with data in a client’s file with a 99.5 percent accuracy rate;
- Provide information on return mail that clients need to make decisions by identifying if an address has been returned more than once, or if a mail piece that was re-mailed to an alternate address also was returned.

Jeff Stangle, director of Solutions, Mailstream Consulting, PBMS, stated that, “Pitney Bowes Enterprise Return Mail Services exemplifies the company’s continued commitment to developing innovative solutions that help our customers minimize costs and maximize business processes. Our Return Mail Solution offers a fully integrated enterprise approach for reducing returned mail volumes and associated costs,” which he cited as wasted postage and print, manual processes, labor to sort and distribute return mail, tools and labor to research bad addresses, and the costs to businesses resulting from delayed mail such as invoices, policy renewals, Explanation of Benefits (EOBs), and other important transactional communications.

In addition, Stangle noted that the United States Postal Service® (USPS®) is strictly enforcing regulations that require companies to proactively manage the quality of their addresses – including enforcement of the USPS’ Move Update regulation – or risk losing their postal discounts if return mail is the result of customer moves.

According to mailing industry research, approximately 1.9 percent (1.4 billion pieces annually) of all outbound USPS First-Class Mail® does not get delivered. Instead, it is returned to the sender organization.

Pitney Bowes Enterprise Return Mail Services integrates multiple technologies for capturing return mail, converting physical mail to usable data and updating addresses. The solution provides organizations with a “timely, efficient and consistent process that is managed by postal experts who provide the centralized reporting needed to resolve enterprise addressing issues,” Stangle added.

The company also released a related white paper on the pervasive problem of return mail for large volume mailers – particularly among organization in these five business sectors: Finance; Insurance; Healthcare; Utilities (Energy, Telco and wireless providers); and Government – that need to communicate with their customers and prospects.

For additional information on Return Mail Services, or to download the white paper entitled “Return Mail Challenges and Solutions,” click and visit Enterprise Return Mail.

Pitney Bowes Management Services designs, implements and operates global solutions that provide enterprise clients with customer communications, mail and document lifecycle services that help in creating more effective, efficient and compliant business processes and operations.