Most businesses have outsourced part or all of their IT services. This may be limited to website hosting or include everything from email account support to IT security. What many don’t know is that you can also outsource your physical mail room in part or in its entirety.
What are the benefits of managed mail services?
Managed mail services eliminate your need to maintain mail sorting equipment. They also remove the need for the hardware and software necessary to track packages and label items, though you can have your own bar code reader to track receipt or shipment of items.
Mail management services can use postage systems to apply the exact amount of postage to each letter or package, and they can use address correction software as required, So you don’t waste money on undeliverable letters and packages. They may also be much more familiar with international shipping rules. This can dramatically reduce international shipping costs and shift the work to people who won’t make mistakes.
Managed mail services can take advantage of shipping discounts. They can do this both by bundling your mail by class and taking advantage of volume discounts with shipping companies when sending your mail along with others in the same load.
Managed mail services can free up valuable office space in your facility. You eliminate the flow of couriers and dramatically reduce the number of package deliveries to your business, as well. This reduces both vehicle traffic and foot traffic.
Managed mail services can improve your company’s image with the public. For example, professionally printed, personalized letters provide a polished, professional image. This is true whether you’re sending invoices or marketing materials. You can provide the list of addresses from your customer relationship management system along with the printed materials to be sent, and the managed mail company can often print and mail everything for you as part of a bundled service. A side benefit of managed mail services is that their services are all outlined in a single bill sent to you each month. You’ll typically pay less for services than hiring your own mail room staff, because the managed mail company is dividing their labor costs across many customers, reducing how much you pay for your services.
Managed mail services can also handle large volumes of outgoing and incoming mail for you. This helps make sure your cash flow isn’t affected. You can also ask the managed mail company to keep track of metrics for you such as the number of advertising mailers sent and the number of returned letters. This may allow you to keep up with customer address changes or at least know that someone didn’t get their legal notice.
You can even have the mail tracked by mail class, operator and business department. This will give you the hard data required to make strategic decisions to lower these costs, whether it is switching from printed flyers to post cards when announcing store openings or altering your printed labels to reduce the bounce rate. Or you could combine marketing materials with bills to reduce how much you mail out to your customers.
