We love "list" horror stories. Only fact, not fiction. A new client told us this one. We call it: The $26,000 "Oops!" They had received 100,000 resident records from another list company. When the client appeared at the Post Office ready to mail, they were told the list did not have the CASS certification necessary to get USPS discounts. Uh oh. The pieces had already been stamped with 13 cents postage! After exploring other options to solve this issue, the least expensive one was to stamp each piece with First Class postage. At the time, that was 39 cents per piece - a 26-cent difference. Lesson Learned: Make sure you have a current CASS certificate with every list you order.

At DLT, we always give CASS certification and will not release a file without proper documentation. We hear countless stories of companies paying a high price for a "cheaper" list.

If you have a true horror story you’re willing to share, please respond to our online survey or share it with Michele. If you prefer to share details over the phone with Michele, please email to let me know you're ready to relive that horror. We won’t "name names," but we might publish it in a future DLT Tidbits. And, we will send you a gift for your time and trouble, and the trauma of stirring up those bad memories!

DLT Delivers Highest Quality Resident List

Lots of people "talk quality". We work to prove it. We have to. We are an ADVO AP3 Partner and that allows us to house the entire ADVO resident file at DLT.

Thanks to our partnership with ADVO, you take advantage of:

• The largest resident universe by more than 10 million addresses
• The most accurate resident list used by ADVO to mail over 70 million pieces per week. What an additional great way to check on the quality of the list
• 5 million to 7 million more "city - style" addresses, as opposed to simplified Rural Route addresses
• Occupied addresses, since ADVO flags and removes vacancies every week
• College student addresses
• Identified drop stops
• New construction added every week

Education Tidbit #34
How to Maintain Resident List Walk Sequence Quality

To ensure the resident list maintains current walk sequence for postal carriers, do not sort the list again using any postal sorting software package. Clients have processed the resident file thinking it would somehow improve the sequencing. Unfortunately, this does not improve the list; just bumps the list out of walk sequence. A quality check built into the list gives each address a unique sequence number, in case it gets out of walk sequence order.

Please follow this important guideline:

- Use the resident list in the sequence you receive it, along with the matching CASS report.

USPS Update: Star Wars, August 1 Deadline

Great news when you buy DLT lists! You are already meeting the stricter standard USPS is imposing, as of August 1, to eliminate undeliverable addressed mail.

For those of you following the Star Wars galactic face-off we mentioned last month, the votes are in! Yoda was the winning stamp, of all the characters in Star Wars.

As Yoda himself said, "Always in motion, the future," and "Help you I can, yes."