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Innovations in Tracking Your Mail

The value of tracking your mail in the ever changing post office

operations

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#NEDMAInno14

Getting Mail Tracking How?

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The IMb

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The Intelligent Mail® Barcode is used to sort and track letters and flats and offers greater versatility by allowing many services to be requested and embedded within one barcode. The Intelligent Mail barcode combined the data of the old POSTNET™ and the PLANET Code® barcodes, as well as other data, into a single barcode.

What is encoded in the IMb?

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It is all in the STID

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•Track your mail

•Customize delivery strategies

•Confirm delivery

•Understand the response - and act on it

•Delivery assistance service and consulting

•Trigger Cross-Channel Marketing efforts

WebTrack IMb Tracing™

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• Actionable mail delivery information

• Near real-time delivery performance statistics

• Aid in predicting In-Home delivery

• Be alerted when mail is delayed

WebTrack IMbTracing™

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IMbTracing™ data is available on a subscription basis from the USPS. It is comma delimited data that looks like a bunch of numbers until it is rendered into a useful system like WebTrack.

IMb Tracing™ data, along with PostalOne! data is how WebTrack gives you every piece of information in one place, using an online module.

WebTrack IMbTracing™

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The ugliness of raw data

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Webtrack makes it usable …

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It is simple to use …

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It is simple to use …

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… and drill down …

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… and drill down …

State View

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… drill down …

To Individual Zip…

And Even Individual Records

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… and drill down …

Pallet Drill

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…drill for detail

Tray/Sack Drill

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Why do we need this detail?Let’s talk some real life examples

•Changing Post Office Operations•Load Leveling•Network Consolidations

•Quality issues

•Logistics issues

•Client mail file issues

•Post Office mail handling issues

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Use Case 1 – The Insurance Policy

Client is disappointed and fears their mail wasn’t delivered on time because they didn’t get their “seeds” until after the IHD.

Delivery data shows the delivery “in the clear”.

Mailer explains that the seeds were in locally entered mail, and were not barcoded. This is the slowest moving mail. “But look, the rest of the mail moved fine”.

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Use Case 2 – Explain some oddities

Two clients seeds delivered almost 2 weeks apart, and they are at the same address and mailed on the same day. Why?

We query WebTrack, and look to see when and where we see individual scans of the piece, as well as the pallets and trays the pieces were associated with.

We can see the pallet the pieces were on scanned in correctly at the correct location.

The secondary scans for the trays within each pallet were weeks apart, and therefore show the USPS had a processing issue, and temporarily misplaced the one tray, to only find it weeks later.

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Use Case 3 – Save a Sale!

First-Class Mail was cleared on a Friday afternoon. It was for a seasonal sale at a retail operation the following weekend.

As of Monday, there were no scans on any pieces. Worry sets in.

Tuesday, still no scans. USPS contacted, all hands on deck. Client contacted.

Client puts a back-up plan in place. Does extra newspaper advertising, and radio promo’s.

Mail was located at an NDC. USPS mis-directed the skid as Standard Class Mail, rather than processing it as First-Class.

Mail delivered by Friday. The Sale was a success.

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Use Case 4 – Lost Mail – the mystery

Mail destined for South Carolina didn’t have any scans for weeks. The balance of the mail all over the country had scans and was delivering

Alert put out to the USPS that there was an issue at this facility, as WebTrack showed that the USPS had scanned and accepted the pallets.

Mail found later that week in an abandoned trailer near a rest area.

Yes folks, this one remains a mystery.

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Thank You

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