Hello All,
We recently had a mailing which produced some returned mailing due to “address not found” with no forwarding address.
I’m curious how you handle constituent mailing addresses in the system that do not have a current mailing address after realizing the address on file is invalid.
Our goal is to have no address on constituent records with outdated mailing addresses so they are not accidentally pulled on a list by any other departments.
We just learned that we are unable to delete or inactivate the constituents' mailing address after our conversion from AV years ago placed the phone number with the primary address. An error message appears: Address cannot be inactivated when there is no primary address on file.
Any shared procedures, reports or insights you have is greatly appreciated as we have another mailing coming up soon.
Thank you,
Darnell Graham
We do it a little differently, we use a Bad Address CSI to track these patrons. We can exclude anyone wtih that CSI from mailing list. Also, by using the CSI we have a little icon on the patron's header that alerts us to the fact that we don't have a current address for them. The CSI are added by our data entry clerk or the box office when we get mail back or information from the mail house.
Once we have a new address, we add it and close the CSI. The problem is getting people to close the CSI, so I'm working on a way to audit changes and make sure they get closed.
Overall, we don't remove addresses, just mark them former/inactive and leave them on the record once we get a new one.