The Inevitable Mailroom

Question: When you search on Google for the word “mail,” what do you find?

Answer: “e-mail” subject matter.

Warren Buffet says that one of his guiding principles is to invest in “inevitability”; in things that are bound to happen and we can’t avoid.

Growth in business-to-consumer e-mail volume is inevitable.

A decline in U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail volume is inevitable.
Volumes for both channels are still in the billions.

What does this mean? That now is the time for the “Inevitable Mailroom.”

What is an Inevitable Mailroom?

Almost all documents today are created from a digital data source. The design, processing, delivery and archiving all take place on a digital platform that is better, faster and cheaper than the old paper-and-press methods used just a couple decades ago.

The new, Inevitable Mailroom facilitates document workflows by providing the user with all available delivery channels from print-to-mail to e-Delivery. It optimizes these workflows by combining the most effective way of working with the USPS – mail manifesting – with automated electronic distribution channels. Ignoring one channel over the other will result in either falling behind the continued rise of electronic communications or paying too much for the remaining volume of print mail.

Optimizing Traditional Mail Channels and Embracing E-Delivery

The best way to optimize traditional print-to-mail channels is by offering mail manifesting for the USPS. This particular capability not only verifies addresses for deliverability, it also reduces the effective postage rate by nearly 25 percent and eliminates the need to purchase and maintain a meter.

Financial institutions, specifically banks, are a good group to study since they produce a myriad of customer documents, such as daily notices, monthly and quarterly statements and annual tax notices. In the category of first class mail, the banking industry, as a group, has been the single largest customer of the USPS. But the world is changing, and so are banks.

The Inevitable Mailroom also provides e-Delivery so the user can send customer documents through lower cost channels such as online and mobile, including smart phones and eTablets.

According to The Boston Consulting Group’s March report for the USPS, while banks continue to produce large volumes of print-to-mail items, the move to e-delivery has grown to an average of 12 percent, with electronic channels predicted to be 50 percent by the year 2020. One community bank in Texas, which heavily promotes e-Delivery with compelling incentives for both customers and employees, has pushed 60 percent of their customer documents to electronic channels. How the banking industry adapts to new technologies and changing customer demands over the next two years will be a harbinger for businesses across all verticals.

Using Mailroom Efficiencies to Impact the Bottom Line

In a highly competitive marketplace, banks capitalize on new technologies for marketing advantages. Smart ATMs, online banking and mobile commerce are experiencing adoption rates that are increasing at an increasing rate. Banks are also for-profit businesses, and these are not the best of economic times for banks. To survive, they must utilize new technologies to lower their unit costs of growth.

One measure of a bank’s operational efficiency is the ratio of employees to total assets. In 1960, the ratio was two employees per $1 million in assets. Today, that ratio has improved to one employee per $4 million in assets, an improvement of 800 percent. But it’s not good enough. In the year 2020, a bank should double its efficiency and employ one person for every $8 million in assets.

The Inevitable Mailroom is an important contributor to the goal of optimizing efficiencies. Cost savings are additive and they accumulate across the entire enterprise of a business. The Mailroom has traditionally been considered a “cost center” and was mistakenly exempted from efficiency reviews.

The Inevitable Mailroom is at least 50 percent more efficient than a traditional mailroom. This presents substantial, hard dollar savings in postage, paper, labor, equipment and supplies. In addition, the Inevitable Mailroom is a more secure environment since it uses document tracking and auditing tools that assure the user that the number of documents delivered, whether electronically or on paper, matches the number processed. And with the new Intelligent Mail barcode (IMB) for USPS mailed items, even more tracking and auditing tools are available to the user.

Customer life styles are changing every day, and they’re being shaped by new technologies; not just the time and money saving conveniences these technologies offer, but the fun, exciting and instructive benefits that come with them.
In a world populated with paper and electronic documents, it’s prudent to have a mailroom that accommodates both while leveraging technology for best practices and results.

All transaction based businesses such as utilities, insurance companies, telecommunications, oil marketers and the like, should follow the model being set by banks and give their customers the choice of paper, online or mobile delivery.
Your mailroom should be a model of efficiency and functionality. It should deliver what your customers expect in the format they prefer. And the savings are what your shareholders deserve.

Let’s face it.

Customers get what they want.

It’s inevitable. Invest in it.

SynTel, LLC