The Human Factor in Undeliverable as Addressed

While living in a smaller town within a large metropolitan region on the U.S., I received a letter addressed to me with the town, state, and street names but no building number or ZIP code.  The local letter carrier had recognized my name.

In a South American country, a letter addressed to someone in the “white house across from the market” was delivered, correctly, to a green house across from the market. The house had been recently painted and the letter carrier knew that. It should be noted that this occurred during a test in which  the carrier was followed on his rounds.

The importance of the letter carrier’s knowledge is recognized by all posts. “The effectiveness of our delivery service … [relies] on the personal knowledge and experience of our postmen…” according to The Seychelles Postal Service.  Personnel at the US Post Office refer to this as “local knowledge.”

There is clearly an advantage to knowledgeable postal workers when the address is inaccurate, incomplete, or difficult to understand. People are important in the delivery of every piece of mail.  Each piece of mail is handled by many people between entering the system and being delivered – clerks, sorters, and letter carriers.  Ultimately, a postal worker decides whether a piece is deliverable and  takes it to each address or puts it in each post office box.

With over 25 different address formats and more than 50 writing systems used around the world, mail between countries poses particular challenges.  All the parties who handle the mail in transit must understand the destination at each step along the way.  Practically, this comes down to two elements.  First, as a piece of mail begins its journey to a final destination address, the country name must be intelligible to all those that are involved in its transit to the country of destination.  Second, on arrival in the destination country, the sorters and carriers of the mail must be able to read the address.

That the address is correct and deliverable and that it is written in a precise and complete manner of course makes it possible to deliver.  However, it is the knowledge of individuals processing the mail that ultimately determines whether any piece of mail passes on to the next step toward its destination.  Fortunately, the world’s postal systems are experienced at moving mail between countries and sophisticated at translating their own addresses appropriately on arrival.  In some countries, this translation is done by specialists who read each address in a foreign writing system and translate it to the local language.  Without these people, the sorters and carriers would be unable to read the address and deliver it to that address.

With more attention being focused on undeliverable as addressed mail (UAA) internationally, the role of the letter carriers and the people who precede them in the sorting and processing of mail has received little public discussion.  Yet, these individuals are most important to determining whether any piece of mail is marked “Undeliverable as Addressed”.  I have written about the problems of international mail that is undelivered and not returned to the sender.  It is a serious issue for businesses.  But given the number of odd address examples I have seen over the years, I am sometimes amazed at what is deliverable.

The importance of the individuals who handle the mail and, in particular, the letter carrier’s role, should not be underestimated or ignored.  The postal workers in every country of the world stand behind the effectiveness of postal delivery.

Merry Law, WorldVu, Inc.

mlaw@worldvu.com

May 24, 2010