Any company that routinely sends communications to customers is somewhat in the print and mail industry. It’s not your core competency, but a requirement. When those letters contain sensitive information, it’s a unique category called transactional. Managing this is cumbersome and challenging, which is why many many businesses are turning to print-to-mail solutions.
What Are Print-to-Mail Solutions?
In the context of transactional, this refers to outsourcing the printing and mailing of regulated communications. You work with a partner, specializing in this type of print-to-mail service that prints your letters and submits them to the mail stream.
Many tasks go into every job run to support compliance, data security, and accuracy. These providers leverage technology, equipment, automation, and strategies like Lean Manufacturing to deliver this in a way that also reduces your costs.
4 Benefits You Can Realize with Print-to-Mail Services
What can you expect by transitioning to outsourcing? These top benefits make the case for why you should consider it.
Reduce Your Communications Budget
Costs associated with print and mail continue to rise. Paper, ink, and postage have all increased in the last year and may continue to do so. Even if you have more customers choosing digital-only communications, you won’t see savings. That’s because you don’t have the volume that would provide discounts on materials and postage.
There are other expenses related to print and mail in-house operations. You have payroll, equipment, technology, maintenance, overhead, and more. It becomes more expensive each year to produce the same or fewer pieces.
When you outsource, many of these costs no longer appear on your budget. You’ll pay your provider each month and benefit from their ability to get the most discounted postage rates. They also have volume pricing on materials.
Be More Confident About Accuracy
Has your company experienced a mis-mailing? This occurs when a customer receives documents not intended for them. It can create a noncompliance complaint and cause reputational harm.
The reality is that accuracy is complicated at high volume. It’s automated, but with the right technology, it’s near perfect. It’s called intelligent insertion. It works by printing 2D barcodes on each piece of paper. A camera scans these and pushes information to the inserter on which pages go into each envelope. Another camera then records this for verification.
Using this framework, PCI Group has achieved a 99.9999% accuracy rating.
Enhance Security and Compliance
Security and compliance are two sides of the same coin. They are joined. The failure of one is the failure of the other. With compliance, there’s the foundation of following every regulatory rule about sensitive data, such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and FISMA.
Processes must be in place to ensure that PHI (protected health information) and PII (personally identifiable information) remain secure. That involves stringent workflows, continuous auditing, and a host of cybersecurity measures.
As regulations change, you must also be able to respond quickly, which means you need a partner who’s an expert in this. Print-to-mail solution providers in the transactional category typically have full-time staff for this, including a Compliance Officer.
The security framework you should be seeking begins with secure file processing via SFTP (Secure File Transmission Protocol) to safely transfer files using encryption. The encryption should also remain with the data, whether at rest or in motion.
Look for other compliance and security must-haves like multi-factor authentication, network segmentation, firewalls, IPS (Intrusion Prevention Systems), vulnerability scanning, and penetration testing.
Engage Customers More
Accuracy, compliance, and security are essential, but print-to-mail solutions can also deliver ROI. The ability to customize messaging directly on the statement or invoice means customers are more likely to read it. Inserts don’t work. They get tossed and add costs.
However, with the White Paper Factory process, each document can contain any tailored message. It combines fully digitally composed files with in-line print production. It provides an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell to those who don’t use all your products or services. The content could also be informative, like programs for utilities.
Engagement is one more reason that print-to-mail services are so effective!
Explore PCI Group Print-to-Mail Solutions
We’re completely dedicated to transactional print and mail. We’ve perfected our workflows to strengthen accuracy, security, and compliance. We’ll also save you money and remove the costs of in-house production.
Let’s talk about it. Contact our experts today.
