Barbara Gill's recent views (“List Owners With Small Files May Not Want to Use NCOA,” Feb. 9) were well reasoned but, unfortunately, based on two faulty premises that are strongly misleading:
* Cost of NCOA services.
* Match rate (error correction) capability of the service.
The following illustrates NCOA's value to small businesses: A number of NCOA licenses (Anchor included) have adjusted prices to accommodate small database owners. Even using the figures in Gill's case, 100,000 records with only a 3 percent name/address error factor, the savings potential (regardless of mail class) is substantial.
Input records 100,000
Match rate 3%
Quantity 3,000
Cost $300
Cost per match $0.10
To complete the exercise, we compare the cost of Standard-Class mail ($0.183 per piece) times the number of records that would have been mailed to incorrect addresses (and subsequently disposed of as nondeliverable).
Postage for 3,000 $549
Less NCOA fee $300
Savings $249
Were a nominal amount of $0.05 per piece added for cost of materials, this example shows the small database owner expending (losing) twice as much as the data hygiene fee, before reflecting on new sales gained vs. lost to bad addresses.
Note: I'm aware of some NCOA services geared for files as small as less than 1,000 records and for as low as $25 with acceptable formats, etc.
The obvious conclusion: NCOA is a major aid to small database owners.
Robert B. Swick
Vice president, data services
Anchor Computer
Deerfield Beach, FL
