When to add an Action

Jason Phillips

Hi all,


I'm a newbie to this forum, but have been usigng RE7 for a few years.

I have a "best practice" question for you...


We export constituents regularly for Direct Mail. Of course we try hard, but occaisionally supply duplicates or deceased records to the mailing house who report back that they have not mailed that subset. We also of course get 'gone-aways' and 'return to sender' that we need to process.


Currently we are waiting for 2-4 months before we write the Action as we of the mindset that we only want to write the Action to those who actually received the Direct Mail. The problem that gives us is that the database is constantly being cleansed and records merged therefore a good proportion of records no longer exist or can't be matched due to a change in name or address.


Could I get your opinion as to the best practice of whether we write the action at the time we pull the query (to all exported) or wait to process (to only those who received the mail)?


Cheers! Jason.

Sunshine Reinken Watson

Jason Phillips:

Hi all,


I'm a newbie to this forum, but have been usigng RE7 for a few years.

I have a "best practice" question for you...


We export constituents regularly for Direct Mail. Of course we try hard, but occaisionally supply duplicates or deceased records to the mailing house who report back that they have not mailed that subset. We also of course get 'gone-aways' and 'return to sender' that we need to process.


Currently we are waiting for 2-4 months before we write the Action as we of the mindset that we only want to write the Action to those who actually received the Direct Mail. The problem that gives us is that the database is constantly being cleansed and records merged therefore a good proportion of records no longer exist or can't be matched due to a change in name or address.


Could I get your opinion as to the best practice of whether we write the action at the time we pull the query (to all exported) or wait to process (to only those who received the mail)?


Cheers! Jason.

I add the action or appeal (whichever is appropriate) to the constituents who where mailed the communication. Of course there are returns, but those are pretty minimal.

JoAnn Strommen

I add appeal (what we use for direct mail) based on list sent to mail house.  As Sunshine said, edit as needed.

Faith Murray

We also add an Appeal (what we use to track Direct Mail) to the list sent to the mail house. Under the Appeals tab, you have the option of recording an Appeal "Response". This would be a perfect spot to record information for whether the mailing piece was received or returned by the post office. This way you have a record both of who you sent the list to, and who received it, in one easily-queriable spot. Actions do not have this tracking capability, unfortunately.

Christine Cooke 2

Jason Phillips:

Hi all,


I'm a newbie to this forum, but have been usigng RE7 for a few years.

I have a "best practice" question for you...


We export constituents regularly for Direct Mail. Of course we try hard, but occaisionally supply duplicates or deceased records to the mailing house who report back that they have not mailed that subset. We also of course get 'gone-aways' and 'return to sender' that we need to process.


Currently we are waiting for 2-4 months before we write the Action as we of the mindset that we only want to write the Action to those who actually received the Direct Mail. The problem that gives us is that the database is constantly being cleansed and records merged therefore a good proportion of records no longer exist or can't be matched due to a change in name or address.


Could I get your opinion as to the best practice of whether we write the action at the time we pull the query (to all exported) or wait to process (to only those who received the mail)?


Cheers! Jason.

I always in my head change Action to Interaction and decide accordingly

Bonnie Pearce

Hi Jason, we have a multi-step process.

1. I do download of data based on criteria for mailing
2. I send data to mailhouse
3. Mailhouse returns "backfeed file" of those who were mailed, and corrected addresses
4. I import backfeed file with Assigned Appeal
5. I add action for those who ACTUALLY were mailed
6. I resort backfeed file to find addresses requiring correction

• often same entry error is made
• eg. query all "contains #"  or "Street/Avenue" and correct all according to Canada Post mailing format
• review who entered the data - if single person, educate him/her - if multiple people, educate at staff meeting

Hope that helps :-)

Bonnie

 

Jason Phillips

Thanks all - some really good things for discussion.

Jason Phillips

Bonnie Pearce:

Hi Jason, we have a multi-step process.

1. I do download of data based on criteria for mailing
2. I send data to mailhouse
3. Mailhouse returns "backfeed file" of those who were mailed, and corrected addresses
4. I import backfeed file with Assigned Appeal
5. I add action for those who ACTUALLY were mailed
6. I resort backfeed file to find addresses requiring correction

• often same entry error is made
• eg. query all "contains #"  or "Street/Avenue" and correct all according to Canada Post mailing format
• review who entered the data - if single person, educate him/her - if multiple people, educate at staff meeting

Hope that helps :-)

Bonnie

 

 

Thanks Bonnie, I am thinking that your data remains static between the export and step 5 - and no one is merging records?