Finding ways to optimize your communication operations can be challenging when managing it all in-house. Rising material costs, complicated compliance rules, and ensuring data security create barriers to efficiency. Businesses may think they can’t outsource transactional mailings, but there’s a whole industry dedicated to it. Managed print and mail services for these letters and statements deliver a streamlined workflow while reducing overall expenses.
In this guide, you’ll learn everything to know about managed printing and mailing services.
What Are Managed Print and Mail Services?
In this context, we’re talking about transactional communications. These mailings are unique because they must follow compliance regulations. They typically include PII (personally identifiable information), PHI (protected health information), or both.
A managed print and mail solution eliminates all your internal production processes. You contract with a provider to cover everything from data transmission to printing, mailing, and delivery.
You no longer have to manage the day-to-day production. Instead, a highly specialized vendor provides all print and mail requirements, along with layers of protection and systems to enhance accuracy.
Benefits of Managed Printing and Mailing Solutions
So, why should you go from in-house to outsourcing? Is it too much effort that you believe won’t have a return? Making this decision requires assessing and evaluating the pros and cons. Let’s look at what you stand to gain.
Costs Stay in the Operating Bucket
Currently, your budget for this work encompasses both capital and operating expenses. Many of these costs are ballooning and fluctuating. Materials such as paper, ink, and toner are becoming increasingly expensive every day due to current economic conditions.
You also have labor and overhead that add to your expenditures. Then, there’s postage, which increases twice yearly. There are more costs, too, including equipment and technology that must be kept current.
By outsourcing, you eliminate many of these areas. You’ll also get better rates for materials and postage because print and mail companies purchase goods in bulk and have a high volume of mailings.
Transactional printers also employ advanced tools to decrease undeliverable mail, such as address scrubbing. This technology corrects wrong addresses and removes duplicates.
With all capital expenses gone, you have operating expenses that are easy to predict, which can help with cash flow and financial planning.
Security and Compliance Get a Boost with Experts
How safe, secure, and compliant are your current workflows? Even if you’re following all the rules, risks remain. Since this is not a core competency, you may struggle with the threats to security and compliance. It may have become a challenge that keeps you up at night.
You can have more assurance when working with transactional mail experts. They use a range of strategies to ensure security and compliance. When comparing options, look for those companies with these attributes:
- They have a Lean Manufacturing culture and apply standard works to processes.
- For data transfers, they provide SFTP (Secure File Transmission Protocol).
- Data encryption is in use when it’s in transit or at rest.
- Multi-factor authentication is the norm.
- They have a defense network of firewalls and IPS (Intrusion Prevention System).
- Network traffic segmentation is in use to safeguard PHI and PII.
- They have dedicated resources for compliance, including a Compliance Officer.
Risk is always present in transactional print and mail. Mitigating and minimizing it should be the focus of the partner you select.
Advanced Technology Delivers Near-Perfect Accuracy
One of the most challenging aspects of transactional mailings is ensuring the right documents arrive at the correct address. It seems simple enough, but mis-mailings are rampant. These can lead to allegations of noncompliance and reputational harm. They often impact trust. Thus, it’s imperative to be as accurate as possible.
The key to bolstering accuracy combines technology with the strategic framework of Lean Manufacturing. The technology consists of intelligent insertion capabilities. Each piece of paper has a 2D barcode. Cameras scan these to understand which pages go into the envelope. Another camera captures an image for validation.
The Lean Manufacturing component involves auditing and improving standard works. In this approach, operators identify inconsistencies or issues proactively so they don’t impact the downstream tasks of inserting.
Steps to Take to Start Your Managed Print and Mail Services Journey
These benefits are very appealing. They’ll help your company improve your transactional communications while you retain control and oversight. In every part of the process, you’ll be able to track jobs and view real-time data.
Take these steps to begin your outsourcing initiatives:
- Determine the weak points in your current workflows.
- Find and compare vendors based on security, compliance, quality, accuracy, and costs.
- Explore how providers onboard you and what the project plan entails.
- Discuss ways to standardize sizes to achieve better postage rates.
- Review your current budget numbers and what expenses you can eliminate or decrease.
If you’re ready to investigate options. We can help. Schedule a no-cost consultation with our team today.
