Trends in Print and Mail

I was in New York City last week, having coffee with my good friends, Ray and Marv. After getting caught up on personal matters, we started to talk about what we’ve been seeing lately in the industry. We shared stories about misfortunate mailings that seemed to become more commonplace. Departments with address lists so bad, they needed manual coding. Improperly formatted letters that were returned to sender, because the bottom lines of the address didn’t show in the window. A marketing mailing that included a Business Reply Mail envelope, with the Courtesy Reply Mail post office box.

Ray observed, “Everyone is so focused on digital, it seems that no one can do physical mail correctly anymore.”

Interestingly, we shared almost 100 years of industry experience between the three of us. Ray and Marv have run successful projects for physical billing and e-billing for their company. Some of the other companies in the stories had certified mail center managers. However, in each case, the professionals weren’t consulted. The experts were ignored. And the results included thousands of dollars in misspent print and postage.

In the world of digital natives and Customer Communications Management (“CCM”), physical mail doesn’t get the respect it deserves. However, most customers still prefer to receive their bills in their mailbox. Marketing campaigns are more successful when they include a postcard or a letter. Many industries are required to use mail to prove compliance with government regulations.

So, why the disconnect? Probably because people are more attracted to what is new. The latest software or mobile device. Hosted solutions that bring together multiple platforms. The buzz words and acronyms used by consultants and pundits (anyone else remember when “CRM” was the mantra of the day?).

Besides, physical mail is “just mail”. There isn’t anything magical or exciting about printing a piece of paper, inserting it into an envelope and putting a stamp on it. Anyone can do that. The mailroom is down in the basement. Surely, no one important works down there.

The preceding paragraph may slightly exaggerate how the rest of the business world views print and mail operations. But it’s closer to the truth than many of us care to admit. We must work to be recognized as experts in order to prevent bad decisions before they’re made.

Steps to take to create the change in perception include:

Training is something that I’m very passionate about. And you should be too. Unlike many management initiatives, the benefits of training are easy to explain for everyone involved:

With the rapid changes in the print and mail industry, it’s important to build a sound technology investment strategy. That strategy should consider:

When I started working in the mailing industry over 30 years ago, postage amounts were set by turning small dials on a meter. The latest model copiers included two paper trays, instead of the standard single tray. Word processors produced output using a daisy-wheel printer. Fax machines, cell phones and personal computers were unknown to the general public.

Back then, it was easy to make technology purchasing decisions. There were few choices, and many of the products were so expensive, few companies could afford to make the change. It was difficult to make a business case for changing. Why would an attorney ever want to edit something with a keyboard and a screen, when they could mark up paper copies with a pen, and then have their secretary retype the document?

It may feel good to have a laugh at our attitudes in the early1980’s, but none of us know what awaits us in 2046. In fact, few of us know what new technologies will hit the market in 2017. With so many unknowns, it’s important to build a sound technology investment strategy. That strategy should consider:

Recently, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) filed a request with the Postal Regulatory Commission to establish the 2017 Promotional Program. The first of the 2017 promotions will begin Jan. 1, 2017. There are six (6) proposed promotions:

I was talking with the president of a company that provides statement processing for the healthcare industry. He’s put production controls in place, including barcodes, scanners and internal audits, to ensure the integrity of every mailpiece. Taking it a step further, he’s hired external consultants to review his entire process.

The process he’s established means a higher cost-per-piece than some of his competitors. The external review will be expensive. But, in his words, “very necessary to ensure patient confidentiality.”

Substitute the word “patient” with “customer”, and his words can be applied to everyone who processes mail. It doesn’t matter if you work for an insurance company, bank, school, the government, or any type of firm; you should be installing controls to make sure your system provides the highest level of integrity. The correct piece, with the correct address, goes into the correct envelope, with the correct postage, at the correct time.

The products to improve the integrity of the mailing process have been available for several years. Used with barcodes, scanners can track every piece as they move through the process. Cameras can be added to equipment to check for print quality, logos and keylines. Software products allow you to monitor what is happening on the shop floor in real time.

Audit controls add expenses to your bottom line. Scanners, cameras and software mean spending more money to run your operation. In an industry where people focus on “cost-per-piece”, is it worth it?

I toured a laboratory that produces eyeglasses. The senior vice president of manufacturing walked me through the entire process – from receiving the order through the shipping department. The process included:

“Perfection is in the details” – Leonardo daVinci

Perfection may be unattainable, yet perfection must be the goal we all strive for in our operations. Not 99% accuracy, or even 99.99966% accuracy (Six Sigma’s goal), but 100% accuracy.

Setting unreachable goals isn’t an exercise in futility. It’s a proven method for raising performance to a new level of excellence. Becoming a fanatic about details will help you achieve more.

To effectively use a detail-oriented approach in management, a manager must take on the role of a leader who:

“We’re not selling a product, but a process.” These words say a lot about the changes impacting the print/mail industry.

I first heard this comment in 2001 – 15 years ago – at an Xplor Northeast Region meeting in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The speaker was Roger Gimbel. At the time, Roger was the president of Xerographic Reproduction Center Inc. (XRC), one of six divisions that comprise the 500-employee parent company, Global Document Solutions. XRC was the largest on-demand printer in Manhattan. But as Roger explained, output isn’t the most important part of his business; process is. His company’s expertise extended beyond print to systems integration.

After hearing Roger’s talk I published this paragraph in a newsletter the following month:

In the mid-1990s, I was working at a financial services company. One of my internal customers was a department responsible for producing fund pricing reports. The company’s system would receive information from the stock exchange mainframe computer at the end of the trading day. Using the stock prices, the company could calculate the values of all the managed funds.

During most of our customer engagements, we usually hear variants of the same question: