The latest update to the UKs official Postcode address database is now available so we thought it worthwhile to review exactly what the Postcode Address File (PAF®) is and what it can do for businesses.The Postcode Address File from Royal Mail is the essential database of UK addresses. PAF® can provide significant costs savings to any business by reducing the amount of time taken to capture customer addresses either over the phone or via your website. Additional benefits of streamlined address entry are increased customer satisfaction and reduced web purchase abandonments. As the only complete source of UK addresses and Postcodes, PAF® also ensures you get the address right first time – essential for correct mail delivery and protecting your business’ professional image to aid customer retention.
Correcting address spelling mistakes and formatting errors can also be very time consuming and costly if attempted after the event.
PAF® also helps you sort your mail with a full list of correct Postcodes, helping to reduce your postage costs with various Royal Mail services such as Mailsort®, Presstream® and Cleanmail®. Postage costs can further be reduced by improving or removing poor quality addresses by comparison to the national address database.
Whatever the nature of your business, whether you despatch products to your customers or communicate with them via direct mail, you need PAF® to do it efficiently and professionally.
The latest update of PAF incorporates over 50,000 changes to delivery points (addresses) and over 3,000 Postcode changes including nearly 2,000 new Postcodes and over 1,000 Large user Postcodes deleted. As Large user Postcodes are predominantly used by businesses receiving high volumes of mail we wonder whether the reduction of large user Postcodes is a sign of the struggling economy?
For more information on PAF please visit our national address data product page
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