For businesses currently outsourcing transactional communications, have you evaluated their deliverables lately? How confident are you that they are meeting the mark in terms of compliance, accuracy, quality, and security? If you’re unsure, it may be time to change your print and mail provider.
6 Signs It’s Time to Change Your Print and Mail Provider
Whether you’ve been with your vendor for one year or 10, you should continually evaluate how well they are working for you. These are the top signs that it’s time for a change.
1. Their Accuracy Rating Is Declining
Accuracy is non-negotiable in transactional print and mail. Mis-mailings can lead to charges of non-compliance and reputational harm.
Accuracy rate is a metric you should be monitoring. While 100% accuracy isn’t possible, it should be close. Many vendors tout that they have a 99.6% accuracy rate. It sounds good, but in a mailing of 100,000, that’s still 40 mis-mailings.
Because of our dedication to accuracy, our rating is 99.9999%. So, how do we have this industry-leading rate?
First, we use Lean Manufacturing principles to audit processes constantly and make adjustments.
Second, we use intelligent mail insertion. This process prints a 2D barcode on every piece of paper. A camera scans that barcode, transferring information to the inserters about which pages go into each envelope. A second camera captures this for verification.
By leveraging technology and machinery, accuracy becomes greater. If you don’t have these kinds of rates with your current vendor, start evaluating other options.
2. They’re Weak on Compliance
All transactional mail has a compliance component because it includes sensitive and protected information. Regulations dictate the rules, and your provider must follow them precisely. Simply having certifications and compliance checks isn’t enough to keep you in good standing.
Beyond the standard certifications like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and FISMA, check to see if they have certificates for SOC I & II. These frameworks are much more rigid in terms of security protocols and demonstrate a higher commitment to compliance.
When there are regulatory changes, does your vendor seem on top of them? Are they communicating what they’re doing to remain compliant? If you’re not receiving any information about that, it could be a red flag.
Ideally, print and mail companies will have dedicated compliance personnel who are experts in transactional communications. Those that do not may be unable to keep you updated and safe from non-compliance claims.
3. They’ve Had Security Issues
You’re sending over protected data to your vendor to run jobs. Even if they only keep it for a short period of time, there’s still a chance it could be breached. Data breaches create exposure for all parties, so you need to know about their security history.
They may not have suffered a breach, but they could have other less impactful issues relating to security. They may have improperly shared it internally or not know all the places it could exist in their network.
Vetting their security protocols should be ongoing. The risk of cyber-attacks keeps growing, and hackers are becoming more sophisticated every day. Do a “security check” with your vendor, inquiring about any concerns and new defenses they are putting in place. If they can’t provide this, you have every right to be wary.
4. Changes Take Too Long
Changing your letters and documents with your vendor shouldn’t require tremendous effort. It’s something you’ll need to do regularly. Does your vendor currently have a process? Are you able to submit this online?
It should be a simple request process to make changes that you can track in real-time. While not as important as accuracy, security, and compliance, these inconveniences waste your time.
5. Your Undeliverable Mail Rates Are Going Up
Does your current vendor help with address hygiene? Address hygiene involves:
- Standardization of address formats to align with postal regulations
- Validation that addresses exist and can receive mail
- Data cleansing to correct errors
- Duplicate addresses removal
- Comparing current addresses to electronic address changes submitted to USPS and updating as needed
Without this step, you could be paying a lot of postage fees on undeliverable mail. You can reduce this by working with a company that supports address hygiene.
6. You’re Paying Extra Fees for Pre-Printing Templates
Some vendors don’t have the ability to execute dynamic printing, which enables unique content for every addressee. They may need to pre-print templates to satisfy your needs for personalized letters. That costs you time and money.
Legacy printers still struggle with this, but modern ones use a manufacturing process called the White Paper Factory. In this approach, large rolls of white paper feed into commercial inkjet printers. Every page from the job prints at the same time. Every letter can be customized, which also eliminates the need for inserts, reducing your overall costs.
Ready to Change Your Print and Mail Provider?
Do these signs sound familiar? Is your overall satisfaction falling? If so, we invite you to learn more about why we’re one of the most trusted transactional communications companies in the world. Get started by contacting our team today.
