March 30, 2016

Dispatches from MTAC at the Postal Forum in Nashville

Alliance representatives on the Postmaster General’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) report the following important notes from Nashville last week:

• Surcharge removal – The exigent surcharge is set to roll back April 10. Historically in the week prior to rate increases the Postal Service experienced upticks in volume of over 100 percent. Using that same data, but in the reverse, the USPS is preparing for a much lower than normal volume week prior to April 10, and an increase in volume of 127 percent the week of April 11. USPS is scheduling additional capacity in air and road to accommodate heavy volumes.
• Digital/hardcopy connection – The USPS announced that in 2017 they plan to roll out nationally the Informed Delivery program, in which consumers can receive digital notification with images of the mail to be delivered to them that day. Currently they have over 67,000 active users in the New York City area, with an open rate of about 70 percent daily.
• Promotions – In 2015, 1,272 participants utilized the promotions offered by the USPS earning $62 million in discounts across 10,262 million pieces of mail.  Expectations are for a record number of users to register in 2016 to gain additional discounts using the promotions. USPS has committed to giving mailers earlier visibility into the planned promotions for 2017 by announcing them in July, and the intended promotion periods.
• Accepting mail – The USPS and industry have been working on the validity of information in the Mailer Scorecard; the internal and external testing for the Full Service and eInduction reporting are nearing completion; and still in progress is work on the postage assessment and Seamless Acceptance reports. The USPS may be ready to on-board new mailers to Seamless as early as June 2016.
• Customer website – The USPS is launching a new website to replace RIBBS. The new site is in beta testing, and it will be called MailPro.
• FSS – Flats mailers, and printers of flats in particular, remain concerned about the diversion to the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) sortation scheme and adverse effect on Carrier Routes. The officer remarks to the future expansion of FSS did not satisfy the MTAC representatives during their final session at the National Postal Forum.
• International – Enabling Cross-Border e-Commerce presentation by Franca Davis and Nick Colman of USPS reintroduced the global initiatives for US customers that may also be mailers.

MTAC Workgroups, Task Teams and User Groups – A further outreach to invite the industry to participate as auxiliary experts and frequent users of the topics under review: MTAC teams and groups.