We frequently receive questions about NCOA – what it means, what services are available, and how it impacts our customers’ business processes. We’ve decided to provide a general NCOA overview for you.
NCOA, National Change of Address, is a database of approximately 160 million permanent change-of address (COA) records of persons, families, or companies who have filed a change-of-address with the United States Postal Service (USPS). NCOA is a service provided by USPS that provides mailers access to the COA data. For domestic moves, NCOA will report recipients who have moved and have a forwarding address as well as those without a forwarding address. For foreign moves, NCOA reports the fact that a move has been made out of the country. NCOA can substantially reduce undeliverable mail pieces by identifying and correcting address errors before they enter the mail stream.
Records are found in the NCOA database, but no forwarding address is provided are classified as “Undeliverable as addressed” (UAA).
During QuestMark’s onboarding process, we work with our clients to determine what NCOA rule(s) will be configured for the project.
The following NCOA rules can be set up for reporting. These include:
- UPDATE: Anything that is a known GOOD move is updated and will be mailed to the new address.
- NO UPDATE: UAA and known moves are mailed to the ORIGINAL address. Addresses will NOT be updated. Sometimes this is done to meet legal/regulatory requirements.
- NO UPDATE/NOMAIL: Known moves are mailed to the ORIGINAL address. Documents for UAA recipients are NOT mailed.
- UPDATE/NOMAIL: Anything that is a known GOOD move, is updated and will be mailed to the new address. Documents for UAA recipients are NOT mailed.
- CUSTOM RULE: QuestMark will work with you on a custom NCOA handling rule if needed.
QuestMark provides 18- and 48-month NCOA processing. NCOA reports (Moves) are reported to our clients at the time of each processing. This data can be uploaded to our secure web portal, QMDepot, sent to your SFTP server, or posted to your system via API. You will be able to review the report and update your database with correct addresses as necessary. NCOA reports can be customized to match your system requirements. QuestMark can manage business processes that will automatically trigger letters to old and/or new mailing addresses asking the recipient to contact you to verify their address. Having the correct address ensures that your mailings reach all of your customers.
To learn more about NCOA contact your QuestMark project manager.
