AccuZIP, Inc. customer care specialists attend the USPS' Periodical Professional Training program

Feb 14, 2019

LEAGUE CITY, Texas — AccuZIP, Inc. is proud to announce that two of its longest-tenured customer care specialists, Chrissy Anderson and Donna Sue Tackett, attended the USPS® Periodical Professional Training session February 12 – 14 at the U.S. Postal Service National Center for Employee Development in Norman, Oklahoma. 

AccuZIP, Inc. provides many software solutions tailored to Periodical mailers including the AccuZIP6 Publication Edition.

In order to better serve newspaper and publication mailers and customer partners, they attended this training and professional development course. This course provided training in the administration, acceptance and verification of periodicals mailing. Topics included:

  • Basic mail piece elements and authorization categories
  • Advertising
  • Statements of ownership
  • Publisher records
  • Eligibility reviews
  • Mail piece construction, preparation and sortation standards
  • Documentation

They built on their existing knowledge of Periodicals and are further able to:

  • Identify the elements that a publication must meet to qualify for periodicals eligibility.
  • Identify periodicals authorization categories and the elements of each category.
  • Identify the requirements that must be met as a mailer to qualify for a category, including: how to apply for periodicals, mailing privileges, and how to identify which records are needed to substantiate the application.
  • Identify Outside-County and nonprofit rate eligibility, how to file for additional entry and reentry, and how to complete a PS Form 3510.
  • Identify requirements relevant to the physical characteristics of periodicals mailings, advertising when they see it in a publication, and how to compute the percentage of advertising in a publication.
  • Correctly complete the Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (PS Form 3526), and learn to conduct an exceptional dispatch review.
  • Generate reports of periodicals from the Permit System, identify discrepancies in the reports, discuss the history of periodicals, and use a checklist to verify a periodicals mailing.
  • Identify the differences in verification procedures between Standard Mail, First Class and Periodicals, verify the contents of an Identification Statement, and recognize the characteristics of bound and unbound publications.
  • Determine the mailability of periodical mail that includes supplements.
  • Identify the differences in preparation between periodical mail, standard mail, first class mail, and foreign periodicals mail.

"I am so excited to be attending the Periodicals Class at the USPS training facility in Oklahoma," said Tackett, franchise development manager and customer care specialist, prior to the conference. "The Periodical rate class is by far the most complicated of all the postal rate classes but seems to have the fewest educational opportunities at the BMEU and PCC level. This class at the Business Mail Academy is a great educational opportunity to learn more about the nuances of Periodical presorts and requirements so that I will be better able assist AccuZIP’s customer partners in the future."

The AccuZIP6 Publication/Periodicals Edition is the ideal desktop postal software for any Periodical mailer or publisher. It is an all-inclusive postal software solution that includes the ability to create simplified EDDM® lists allowing periodical mailers to advertise inexpensively to entire neighborhoods. The AccuZIP6 Periodicals Edition supports firm bundle rate processing, subscriber rate processing and adds the county code and county names during the validation process for In-County rates. Container and bundle charge reports are included as well as facing slips. It also includes CASS™, presort, NCOALink® with ANKLink® for change-of-address processing and data enhancement services for deceased suppression, apartment correction, and more. The AccuZIP6 Periodicals Edition also includes the AccuZIP6 Tags module. The AccuZIP6 Publication Edition is PAVE GOLD Certified by the USPS™.

AccuZIP, Inc. promotes professional development and continuing education for all of its employees and team members. It is part of the company’s core values and embedded into its corporate culture. 

“I am thrilled at the opportunity to further my education and understanding with Periodicals by attending this class" said Anderson, customer care specialist, prior to the conference. "Periodicals can be a complicated class of mail to understand for our users and my hopes are to help our customer partners understand what they are mailing and put their minds more at ease.”

For more information on AccuZIP, Inc., the AccuZIP6 Publication Edition or any other questions on mailing products or services, please contact AccuZIP at 800-233-0555 or email sales@accuzip.com

About Donna Sue Tackett

Donna Sue Tackett is a customer care specialist and franchise development manager at AccuZIP, Inc. She has two Idealliance certifications, MailPro Professional Advanced Certification and MailPro Fundamentals Certification, as well as three PCC Certifications and a USPS Professional Certification. Prior to joining AccuZIP, Tackett managed a mailing department for a printing company in Knoxville, Tennessee, for 17 years.

About Chrissy Anderson

Chrissy Anderson is a customer care specialist at AccuZIP, Inc. Anderson joined the team in 2013 and provides support daily to customer partners. She has an Idealliance certification for MailPro Fundamental Certification as well as certification from the USPS for Mail Design Professional. Prior to joining AccuZIP, Anderson was a mailing and billing specialist for a printing company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for 12 years. She currently resides near Pittsburgh, Pa. 

About AccuZIP, Inc.

AccuZIP Inc., a national software company based in League City, Texas, provides feature-rich solutions to manage Contact Data Quality, Address Hygiene, USPS Postal Presorting and Compliance, and Mail Tracking and Reporting. AccuZIP’s solutions are designed to be utilized across many industry verticals to streamline, standardize and simplify processes associated with data entry, data management and multi-channel communications. AccuZIP’s products and services make it easier for businesses to get their message out to the right people at the right location when they need to most. Now into its third decade of doing business and celebrating its 27th-year anniversary, the company has built an outstanding reputation for value, service and innovation. For more information, visit www.accuzip.com.