What is CASS-Certification?
CASS stands for Coding Accuracy Support System, a USPS maintained certification program that tests and certifies software to help improve the accuracy of the software that validates and corrects US mailing addresses. The CASS certification process requires address validation software providers to verify and correct over 150,000 problematic mailing address that are provided by the USPS. The addresses need to be corrected to the precise and exacting standards of the USPS, matching the USPS database of valid addresses, including correcting errors such as misspelled street names, missing apartment numbers, and incorrect zip codes. CASS-certification is valid for 2 years and requires the validation software to meet a minimum address accuracy level of 98.5%.
Our Address Validation – US engine passes the rigorous testing necessary to maintain certification, even as the USPS makes passing tougher each year. Address Validation – US meets and exceeds CASS-certification’s strict requirements by passing close to 99.5% accuracy.
This blog, along with two previous ones (CASS-Certification Explained Over Dinner and the aptly named What is CASS-Certification), highlights the importance of CASS-certification and how a CASS-certified address validation engine can make a difference in your business/life.
In this article, we will explore how and why CASS-certification matters, no matter what your role is.
CASS-Certified Address Validation Benefits the Customer
Everyone wins when using a CASS-certified address validation engine, from the customer receiving a delivery to the company sending one out, to the USPS or other delivery service – but for slightly different reasons.
From the standpoint of the people receiving a delivery, CASS-certified address validation helps ensure that an accurate and correct version of their address is being used and that deliveries to them will be successful. Customers will have comfort in knowing that their deliveries will be made on time and to the correct address.
While the benefits of CASS-certified engine are primarily for the mailer, there can be some advantages for the customer receiving the delivery. Let’s look at how our CASS-certified engine, Address Validation – US, benefits a customer:
- More Accurate Deliveries: CASS-certification can help ensure that mail is delivered to the correct address by verifying and standardizing the address data. This can reduce the likelihood of misdeliveries, which can be frustrating for recipients.
- Reduced Undeliverable Mail: By using CASS-certified software to correct errors in address data, mailers can reduce the amount of undeliverable mail that is returned to them, helping to reduce clutter in the recipient’s mailbox and ensure that they are only receiving relevant mail.
- Improved Delivery Times: When mail is delivered to the correct address on the first attempt, it ensures delivery times are met.
By improving accuracy and reducing undeliverable mail, Address Validation – US can help to ensure that the recipient is receiving relevant mail in a timely manner. As for the delivery services, USPS or third party, they benefit from our CASS-certified engine because they can deliver more effectively. Ambiguities in addresses can slow their process down, costing time and money at this level as well.
Why Businesses Need CASS-Certified Address Validation for Accurate and Timely Mailings
By using a CASS-certified engine, like our Address Validation – US service, businesses will reach their targeted audience more effectively leading to improved marketing outcomes, increased ROI, and a stronger competitive position in the market.
Here are some ways that CASS-certified address validation software can help a business:
- Increased Delivery Rates: CASS-certified addresses help improve the accuracy of the mailing list by verifying and standardizing address data ensuring that deliveries are going to the correct address, helping avoid returns and customer service issues. This reduces wasted time and resources on customer support, processing and reshipping.
- Better Service: By having a CASS-certified engine to validate and standardize addresses helps preserve your reputation as an organization that serves customers or seeks to gain their trust.
- Improved Data Quality: From a data accuracy standpoint, getting marketing materials to real addresses helps you accurately judge the success of a campaign. If, for example, 20% of your flyers are not delivered, that can skew the results and not return data points a company can act on in confidence.
- Lower Postage Costs: Finally, companies can also benefit from running their addresses through a CASS-certified service to get mailing discounts.
Overall, using a CASS-certified engine, like our Address Validation – US service, can help businesses to save money on postage, improve delivery rates, and enhance the quality of their customer data. Finally, let’s look at how CASS-certification can help a delivery service.
Why Delivery Services Need CASS-Certified Address Validation
Much like a business, delivery services benefit from using CASS-certified address verification engine in a similar way. By using a CASS-certified engine, delivery services can improve their service quality, increase customer satisfaction and have a stronger competitive position in the market.
Let’s look at some of the ways CASS-certified address validation can help:
- Increased Efficiency: By reducing the amount of undeliverable mail and missed deliveries, CASS-certified addresses can help to improve the efficiency of the delivery service, helping to reduce the amount of time and resources that are required to manage undeliverable mail and improve the overall effectiveness of the delivery.
- Compliance with USPS Regulations: The USPS requires that mailers use CASS-certified software to improve the accuracy of their address data. By requiring mailers to use a CASS-certified address validation provider, the USPS can ensure that mail is delivered to the correct address, reducing the likelihood of customer complaints and improving service quality.
- Reduced Costs: By identifying, correcting or removing undeliverable mail, CASS-certified software can help reduce the costs associated with managing undeliverable mail.
In short, CASS-certification can help delivery services improve the accuracy and efficiency of their mailings, reduce costs associated with managing undeliverable mail, and comply with USPS regulations.
What role does Service Objects’ Address Validation – US play using CASS-Certification?
CASS-certification is central to all of the benefits we just mentioned, because it ensures the software validating your addresses meets the strict USPS accuracy requirements, ensuring addresses are accurate, genuine, and up-to-date. However, there is another important role we play – in the security of your data – that explains why our Address Validation – US service does not provide the form or CASS-certified report needed for clients to get a mailing discount.
While we do provide a batch service to run records in bulk for clients, the paramount way our customers use our service is through our application programming interface, or API, which processes your address data one transaction at a time. Part of ensuring the privacy and security of your customer records is that we do not keep any of the data our clients send to us, nor do we retain any of the validation results we send back. This means we cannot produce a report that requires knowing records that were processed before or after each transaction.
However, if you need to prepare a report, all is not lost – please reach out to our experienced product experts for assistance. Depending on your needs, we can help you develop a solution or refer you to one of our strong partnerships to get you what you need.
Your silent partner in Customer Data Validation
Address Validation – US is part of Service Objects’ integrated approach to Customer Data Validation – where we help ensure that ALL of your customer data accurately serves your business needs. CASS-certification, a process by which we partner with the USPS to maintain their ongoing certification, forms an important part of guaranteeing accuracy for your US address data.
You can look at CASS-certification much like good insurance or professional credentials – most people don’t even notice it is there, but it makes a big difference in the confidence you can have in your customer addresses. It forms just one part of an ongoing process of maintaining product quality that has a real and tangible impact on your bottom line.
