# Royal Mail product helps charities keep track business address changes

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/01/20/royal-mail-product-helps-charities-keep-track-business-address-changes/
- Published: 2004-01-20T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

According to the Royal Mail, UK businesses, including charities, wasted £163 million
in 2002 because of incorrectly addressed letters to other businesses.
The Royal 
Mail says that 69% of all business letters have one or more errors due to poor data:
they were either incorrectly addressed or the company had moved office. A total 
of 172 million items of mail were sent to businesses that had moved or ceased to
trade.

The need to keep supporter data, whether corporate or individual, up to date should
be well-engrained in most fundraising and supporter services departments by now.
Yet achieving that target is becoming more difficult. The latest research from the
Royal Mail Business Changes File shows just how frequently such changes occur. For
example:

 * a company name change occurs every minute
 * a Chief Executive changes every minute
 * a business closes every minute
 * a business fails every four minutes
 * a business moves office every six minutes

In all, 5.7 million business details change each year.

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Royal Mail has launched a new database product for charities and businesses that
is designed to help address these pressures and issues. It tracks, monitors and 
updates changes to businesses each month.

The Royal Mail Business Changes File ™, developed in association with D & B, enables
organisations not only to keep track of present customers, but to identify new leads
of businesses that have just started or have just moved. This should prove useful
for charities both hoping to keep track of existing and looking for new potential
donors.

The new product uses data from the Royal Mail business movers list, together with
D & B listings for businesses that are no longer trading and for new businesses,
and data on new phone line connections.

Richard Roche, Head of Business Development at Royal Mail, said: “Royal Mail is 
in a unique position to help charities of any size achieve more from their post.
It seems incredible that so many fail to accurately target donor addresses. I am
sure the Royal Mail Business Changes File ™, a new addition to our comprehensive
range of data services, will provide them with access to greater and more accurate
data.”

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