Is it time to finally wind down your print and mail operations for compliance-related communications? The costs are staggering, and the regulations grow more complex. In the past few years, the trend has been to transition from in-house printing. Most organizations found it unsustainable to keep their in-plant.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a significant decision. There are lots of things to assess. The transition from in-house printing itself can be bumpy and cumbersome without the proper guidance. Here are our best pointers for main houseking it as seamless as possible.
Transition from In House Printing Best Practices
Transactional print and mail always have compliance components. It’s a unique subset of communications that requires adhering to regulations, highly secure operations, and sophisticated technology to ensure accuracy.
You can reap the benefits of outsourcing, but you have to navigate the transition first. From our decades of experience, we’re sharing the best practices that you should follow.
Smooth Transitions Start with Assessments
The state of your compliance communications may not be the ideal one. You may have limitations. If this is a pain point now, the way to remedy this is for the print and mail company to assess it and provide recommendations.
This assessment serves as the starting point of the transition. It should be thorough and capture what you require. It’s more than how they’ll improve compliance and accuracy. It should be strategic and valuable. For example, they may suggest standardizing envelopes to reduce postage costs. Another recommendation may focus on enhancing the entire workflow through the creation of standard works.
A Successful Transition Involves a Documented Implementation Plan
If you’re looking at outsourcing partners, and they just have an ad-hoc implementation process, it’s not a good sign. They may be making up as they go along, and that perspective could cause delays and frustrations.
Instead, you want a company to have completed these many times. They’ve learned and refined their implementation steps and can detail them to you. Every migration will be unique, but they should have a cornerstone plan.
The Right Resources Are Critical for In-House to Outsourcing
In addition to the implementation strategy, it should also detail who will be working on the project. You should expect that you’ll have access to the right resources throughout the journey. Those would include implementation specialists, customer service representatives, IT and security experts, and compliance officers.
If providers don’t have these roles, or it’s a revolving door, you’ll be left with lots of questions and no one to ask.
Transitioning Should Elevate Accuracy
While no process can be 100% accurate every time, your partner needs to be close to this. If the accuracy element isn’t there, the transition could result in more mis-mailings. To achieve high levels of accuracy, your outsourcing provider must make this a priority, evolving to meet needs and challenges.
The key to accuracy is combining intelligent inserting technology, barcode scanning of each document so it deposits into the correct envelope, and operational consistency. Without a carefully constructed accuracy culture, you’ll have trouble trusting their processes. Ensure they can explain this easily and demonstrate it for you. We’re obsessed about it, earning an industry-leading 99.9999% accuracy rating.
Testing and Auditing Are Integral to an Effective Transition
As you onboard and ramp up to go live, testing is part of the process. Any printer will do this, but not all do it in a transparent way. You should be able to be there almost physically to evaluate the tests. One way to connect to your jobs in real-time is to have access to a secure document management system that delivers reporting, metrics, tracking, and monitoring for all your jobs.
Any printer that can’t offer this visibility may be hiding something, which could quickly derail the transition from in-house printing.
Transition to In-House Printing with a Steady, Experienced Hand
Transition means change, which is never easy. However, you can do your best to avoid problems with the right partner. We’ve helped hundreds of companies move from costly, inefficient in-plants with a streamlined process. Our proven strategies enable our customers to worry less and reap the benefits of outsourcing.
Learn more about our outsourcing solutions for transactional communications by requesting a meeting.
