Outsourcing print and mail communications, when executed strategically, can reap massive benefits for your business. Many organizations have found that the key to realizing these benefits is to take an honest look at their operations and evaluate it against the core competencies of their business.
Maximizing what you do best and outsourcing the rest, has proven to be a winning strategy for many. When you work with a vendor that specializes in a service you are currently doing, you will likely find that they can do everything you are currently doing and many things you’re not. As a result, outsourcing can not only save you money and increase efficiencies, but also allow you to increase concentration on the things that you do best, enabling you to accelerate business growth.
This is most certainly true of outsourcing customer communications. If you currently print and mail your critical correspondence, there’s a huge opportunity for you. Beyond the opportunity to rid yourself of these internal costs, expect to improve accuracy, eliminate equipment and space, and enhance your ability to cross-sell and up-sell customers with products and services they don’t buy from you today.
Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of outsourcing.
Growth Catalyst
One of the biggest inhibitors to growth, is having your resources deployed multiple areas of your business often tied to ancillary operations. This is particularly true with some of the largest companies, who often think they have an advantage by keeping things internal. But if it’s not a core competency, the value is questionable and may even be a disadvantage.
Businesses outsource everything from food services to cleaning and maintenance because they understand that these things are not in their wheelhouse. Someone else can do it better. When companies outsource, they can direct the full weight of their workforce toward their business. This is particularly true when they outsource their print and mail communications. Outsourcing doesn’t have to be about losing jobs but reallocating them strategically.
Pay Less, Do More
As customers opt for other forms of communication, businesses often find that their print and mail volumes decline. Even if it is still substantial, it’s highly likely that the volumes will continue to go down and unlikely that your internal print and mail operations can compete with the amounts of letters run by an outsource provider. A healthy volume for print and mail providers is around one million pieces a day.
With this type of volume, outsource providers are in a much better position to buy material at lower costs and negotiate better postal rates. The bottom line is if someone can do the task for less without jeopardizing quality, it would be wise to let them do it.
Higher Accuracy Ahead
What is your in-plant accuracy rating? Most businesses that have in-plant operations don’t know. One thing for sure even one mis-mailing of customer confidential information can have major consequences. It can damage your reputation or result in in costly fines and/or litigation.
Whatever your current accuracy numbers are with your in-plant operations, there’s a good great chance you can improve and reduce your exposure to these risks with an outsource provider.
Advanced providers of these services will likely operate in a White Paper Factory™ (WPF) environment. The WPF is the most advanced production process for customer communications in the world. This production process marries fully digitally composed files with in-line print production and intelligent insertion to deliver personalized, full color, variable data-generated communications. This is the most advanced print and mail production method available in the market.
Get More Off Your Balance Sheet
You probably have some large expensive items on your balance sheet related to your in-plant. Equipment can run in the six-figures and beyond. Then there’s the space to house the equipment, upkeep and repairs and material costs.
Long-term, the amount of budget needed to cover this process will only increase. It just isn’t sustainable with declining volumes. The moment you decide to outsource critical communications, you can eliminate these expenses. As technology advances, and machines become smarter, you won’t have to keep up with the next best thing. Your print and mail partner will do that for you.
Rethink Customer Communications: Up-Sell and Cross-Sell
Are you happy with the way your printed communications look? Are you limited in design, color, or layout? What about your messaging?
When you get out of the daily grind of pumping out letters, you can begin to think of them in a more strategic manner. First, you can go to full-color [CMYK] printing to enhance your brand image and make it easier for customers to read what you send them. Professionally designed communications have proven to improve the way in which your customers read and understand the information you send them.
You also have the chance to personalize messages to customers directly on the documents, rather than by insert. You know which customers purchase which products from you, why not market products and services to those that are not purchasing from you today. For example, several telecommunications/media companies offer phone, internet, and television service packages. For those customers that only subscribe to one or two of the services, there is a great opportunity to promote what they don’t currently sell to customers today.
There are so many ways to improve and optimize customer communications. You will have the ability to look at the tasks in a different light when you aren’t responsible for the production.
Claim Your Benefits with PCI Group
This is just a highlight of all the benefits of outsourcing.
As you can see, outsourcing has the power to change the way you look at printed and mailed customer communications. With PCI Group, we’ll help you realize these benefits and more. We’ve been a communications partner to clients since 1970 and are proud to boast a 99.99999% accuracy rate. We use the most advanced printers along with our WPF process for quick and clean workflows. Learn more about whether outsourcing is right for you by taking the Snapshot Assessment.
