I am concerned about a comment I read by Craig Schiller, vice president of Denison Mailing Service saying, “The only people who have problems with Merlin are people who have bad mail.”
My company has been dealing with Merlin for almost 11 months and is now having very good success. But we have encountered several results indicating that Merlin has accuracy and consistency problems. Moreover, we are not alone in having concerns, as many mailers in the Southeast have experienced similar issues.
Major industry associations and logistics companies have collected data showing that Merlin needs further attention before mailers should accept its results at face value. There is ongoing concern among other industry members at Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meetings. The U.S. Postal Service continues to deny any cause for concern, but I feel that the momentum will build and a critical mass will eventually be reached as more mailers are exposed to Merlin.
I am only concerned that other mailers see the reality as I see it. The reality is that Merlin is about the quality of mail that lettershops produce, and I take that very seriously. But even more important is that Merlin itself must be of adequate quality. It absolutely must be accurate and consistent to be a fair tool that can be used at the USPS business mail entry points. And I believe that is not the case at this time.
Ernie Broennle, Vice president, Mail Unlimited Inc., Orlando, FL
