I’m happy to report that Canada Post reacts to client feedback these days.  Several months ago I provided constructive feedback about the size of CPC’s cancellation mark. Part of Prime Data’s role as an Expert Partner is to offer these helpful recommendations. At the time the cancellation mark (on small envelopes) made the return address hard to read, and conflicted with the client’s brand as it ran across the top of the entire envelope. The purpose of the cancellation mark is to date tag the entry of the mail piece and ensure a stamp is not re-used.  I also felt it was inappropriate for Canada Post to be emblazoning the front of every Lettermail envelope with a 16pt dot matrix promotion of their website in both official languages.

The CPC representative, Andy Sampogna, raised this recommendation within CPC and they have revised the cancellation mark reducing the size significantly. Here is what Josee Bergeron, Director, Mail Delivery Products at CPC had to say about the change:

“In order to minimize the impact of this marking on our customer’s mail, we recently removed all non-essential elements of the marking giving back the real estate space to our customers. We were also able to minimize the essential messaging and reduce the size of the characters significantly with an overall reduction of 50%, while still maintaining our ability to process mail effectively through our mail stream. We are pleased to have been able to resolve the issue to the satisfaction of all involved.”

As you can see in the comparative image below, we now have a much better cancellation mark – one that is no longer encroaching on a client’s real estate for branding or return address.

Steve Falk