Mail to your customers falls into two main categories—regular and transactional. There are key differences in these types of letter mailing services. With transactional communications, you must meet security and compliance requirements or risk financial and reputational harm.
As these two segments vary so greatly, it’s important to understand why and what that means for outsourcing.
What Are Regular Letter Mailing Services?
Regular letter mailings to your customers describe anything promotional or for awareness that doesn’t include any protected information. Some examples include:
- Information about services, products, or programs
- General awareness letters regarding the business
- Marketing content
What Are Transactional Mailing Services?
This subset of communications refers to letters that businesses send to customers that have PII (personally identifiable information), PHI (protected health information), or both.
Because they contain PII and/or PHI, regulations are in place to safeguard the data. Companies must adhere to these by protecting information at all times, ensuring there are few errors, and meeting any time period requirements.
Regular vs. Transactional Letter Mailing Services
These are the primary differences between these types of letters.
- Data security: In transactional communications, companies or their vendors must apply strict rules and processes to ensure data remains secure. Typically, this includes secure file transmission protocols and encryption.
- Compliance measures: Various rules and laws govern the use of PII and PHI. Failure to follow them can result in data breaches or other violations. It’s critical in transactional mailings to have dedicated compliance experts and workflows that support adherence.
- Accuracy provisions: Transactional mailings must have frameworks and protocols to ensure accuracy, which means every document lands in the correct envelope. The goal is to prevent mis-mailings, which is unique to these communications.
- Secure production environments: In any transactional facility, the entire building must have initiatives that keep areas secure. Only those who need access should have it, and there are layers of physical security.
- Specialized expertise: Transactional documents have many nuances that drive policies and procedures. Without this knowledge, there can be many blind spots, increasing risk.
With all these additional requirements, a transactional print and mail company must prioritize security, compliance, and accuracy. For regular mailings, these things mostly do not apply.
The Impact on Outsourcing
Some printers operate in both transactional and regular mailings channels. There can be a downside to this, as only certain areas of their facility are compliance-focused. It may also mean they lack consistency across operations and don’t really have separation between the two.
Additionally, you shouldn’t go to your marketing promo printer and ask them to support these mailings. They’ll be ill-equipped to do so, even if you have an existing relationship. They can’t become a compliant entity overnight. Too many checks and balances must be woven into production, which takes time, knowledge, and experience to deploy effectively.
Ideally, you should work with a company that solely works on the transactional side. Providers like this often employ things like Lean Manufacturing, using its framework to monitor and improve workflows constantly.
Letter Mailing Services with a Dedicated Transactional Printer
At PCI Group, transactional mailings are all we do. As a result, we produce billions of letters every year compliantly, securely, and accurately. With a 99.9999% accuracy rating, we are the leader.
Connect with our team today for a no-cost consultation.
