These days, modern print-to-mail operations have no choice but to stay fit and lean. In today’s complex, multi-channel communication environment, in which mail is one of the most critical of these channels, failure to make it evolve to adapt to the USPS’s new Postal Transformation Strategy can have dire consequences on a corporation’s communication strategy and its financial condition.
Of course, the most dramatic and visible aspect of the USPS strategy is the advent of Shape-Based Pricing (SBP). SBP marked arguably the most significant change within the postal service since the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, which turned the post office into an independent governmental entity. The essence of the new structure is that postage will no longer be determined solely on the basis of weight. Rather, it is now based on letter or package size (length/width) and thickness.
Ultimately, the USPS is making letter rates more attractive (approximately 8% less on 2-ounce letters), while flats (approximately 54% more on a 2-ounce flat) and parcels are getting increasingly more expensive. The push by the USPS, clearly, is to steer more mail towards the letter format, as they are far easier – and less expensive - for the USPS to process.
Clearly, this revolutionary concept will force mailing operations to take a hard look at how to not only re-shape their actual mail but their entire mailing operations, transforming them from traditional cost center model to a cost savings model. Challenging though this may be, it also presents American businesses with a unique opportunity: the chance to convert their mailroom operations from a liability to a real business productivity center.
What are the drivers accelerating the need for corporations to reshape their mail? The USPS is, without question, the primary factor. Currently, the USPS has three major initiatives: increase revenue, reduce costs and improve service to customers. To the first point, revenue must be increased in order for the postal service to keep up with a changing environment and continue to serve its vast client base. Quite simply, the revenue generation aspect of this three-pronged objective is the main reason behind shape-based pricing, premium services and package services.
What, then, are the actions that a business can take in an effort to meet SBP head-on? In contemplating these actions, a business must keep one overriding thought in mind: once mail is produced, it’s often too late to effect any change in its shape or format. When you consider the five steps of the mail flow process - document preparation, document processing, envelope metering, postal accounting, and
inbound receiving – it quickly becomes apparent that it is in the first two stages that any meaningful alternations must occur. With this as a backdrop, here are some basic yet effective ways to reshape the mail:
Fold Your Mail
Systematically fold your mail, minimize the number of unfolded documents, and get away from the tedious manual process of inserting them in flats. Simply folding and mailing them as letters using #10 or 6x 9 ½ envelopes instead of flats will save a significant amount of postage.
By introducing automated folding/inserting systems, it is possible to eliminate the cost of labor and speed up processing by 90%, which supports the increasing demand for faster mail generation. In fact, there are machines on the market that can fold, fill and close envelopes up to 40 times faster than the same functions can be accomblished manually. AS an example, handling 100 envelopes by hand normally takes an hour; some folder-inserters can get the job done is about six minutes.
In addition, it also helps produce crisper folds to help keep letters under the ¼” letter thickness requirement. With today’s current state of automatic folder inserting technology, it is possible today to fold up to 10 pages in 6x 9 ½ envelopes to support the widest variety of mailing needs.
Sort and Group Your Mail
Companies should figuratively “push the envelope” further and exploit the ¼-inch letter thickness limitation to their advantage by automatically managing and grouping documents addressed to the same recipient, then folding and inserting them into one envelope. This will not only save on mailing, postage and labor cost but will also have a positive impact on customer satisfaction by reducing the number of mails some of your customers may receive from your organization. Managing this aspect of the mail can now be greatly facilitated with an effective output management software solution which automates the management of your mail where it affects it the most: at the creation and printing point.
Maximize each ounce
This can be viewed as a corollary to the above suggestion. If you have the room to spare in an envelope with its weight and thickness, think about adding a “tag-along” marketing piece. With the new USPS rates in effect, it will actually cost less to mail a 2 oz. letter than it does today ($0.63 vs. $0.58). Consequently, taking advantage of this change and adding some additional marketing materials may not only prove to be extremely cost-efficient, it will give you a different – and surprisingly effective – avenue to reach your customer.
Take Off the Weight
When possible, transform your mail from single-sided to double-sided (duplex) printing. Combined with the ability to fold up to 10 pages in an envelope, this translates to as much as 20 pages of information. This is very effective for handling business critical transactional mail such as invoices and statements.
To accomplish this function with no disruption to your existing mailflow process consider an Output Management solution, which will make it easy to customize your mail printstream, allowing you to take advantage of today’s laser printer duplex functionality. As an added bonus, this can all be done without requiring any involvement from the information technology (IT) department, minimizing disruption in your current mailflow process.
Reshape Your Address
While not technically a “shape-based” item, no discussion of improving mailroom productivity is complete without some mention of the shape of your addresses. It is hard to escape it these days: applying address quality management software systematically is a must. It will clean up addresses, validate them against USPS databases, check for move updates via NCOA services, de-duplicate your mailings, separate valid mail from that which needs more research, apply the latest automation barcode Postnet or better the Intelligent Mail barcode to your mail at once. Unfortunately implementing and using addressing software can potentially add extra steps in an already complex mail process unless integrated in a more comprehensive Output Management solution.
Rather than looking at all these techniques separately, consider where they all must occur. As previously noted, they all must be addressed during the preparation and processing stages of the mailflow where the mail is created, printed and folded and inserted. This is where an overall Output Management software solution can be particularly effective.
This growing technology area is gaining a strong foothold in corporations by delivering a wealth of critical features while minimizing IT involvement and disruption in the existing mailflow. Neopost offers a superior option called PrintMachine, which works with a company’s server or mainframe based IT system to integrate PCs, printers, Neopost inserters and franking equipment. The bottom line is total control over correspondence and mailing.
Beside reducing costs with the sorting and grouping of documents into the same envelope – a key ingredident in the reshaping recipe - PrintMachine will also create full automation of your business document processes (printed or electronic), while increasing the impact of marketing messages with personalized documents including charts, graphics, bar codes and form letters.
There’s no question that Shape-Based Pricing is here to stay. The companies that can adopt a few basic guidelines while embracing the available technology can not only survive this groundbreaking concept, they can turn their mailroom operations into the picture of fiscal health.