Avoid mail center challenges

The main facade of the majestic old New York City Post Office building features these words: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

It’s a quotation from the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, not the official motto of the USPS. But it does speak to a fundamental reality. Mail remains a vital communication channel for the American people and American businesses. And although adverse circumstances and disruptive events may be inevitable, the mail must go out on schedule, no matter what.

How to avoid mail disruptions during unexpected events?

Businesses with no back up plan for mail operations face a multitude of risks.

The ancient Greeks didn’t have to worry that a power failure or a cyberattack might delay their critical communications. But today’s businesses have many more potential vulnerabilities to be concerned about—any one of which has the potential to put your mail center out of commission. Natural disasters are just the beginning. Equipment failures, service outages, supply chain issues, strikes and even states of emergency can disrupt your ability to send critical communications. Even positive events, such as peak seasonal demand, corporate acquisitions or relocation to a new site may have unexpected disruptive impacts.

Mail Disruptions can leave long lasting negative impacts on your operations

To make matters worse, the negative consequences of a disruption in your mail center operations can be significant and long lasting. When bills arrive late, so do payments and your cash flow slows to a trickle. If employees are left waiting for their pay checks or customers wonder where their refund might be, your company’s reputation will be tarnished. Insurers who fail to pay claims promptly are likely to lose customers. If regulatory communications aren’t delivered on time, you could be assessed with fines or penalties.

Are there gaps in your business continuity plan?

Your company may already have a business continuity plan in place to support essential business functions in the event of a disruption to normal operations. But to what extent does it cover your mailstream operations? Have you conducted a risk assessment to identify potential disruptions, and how they might impact the mail center, your organization and your customers? For example, what would you do if a storm damaged the equipment in your mail center? Or if a pandemic put most of your staff in quarantine? Do you have a plan in place for dealing with supply chain problems, such as paper and envelope shortages? How can you prevent financial and reputational damage to your business?

Using an online print and mail outsourcing partner

Setting up an additional mail center as a backup is out of the question for most companies: the expense would be prohibitive. Instead, the tried-and-true answer for most companies is to find an outsourced mailing partner that can take up the slack when mail center operations are disrupted, either by planned or unplanned events. Ideally, the outsourced partner should either be located at some distance away, or have several locations across the country in order to minimize the chance of being impacted by the same conditions. Other things to look for in an outsourced partner include:

Flexibility to meet your needs, whether you require business disruption coverage or a full-service outsourcing solution
Robust capabilities from simple letters to complex transactional communications and full color marketing mail and digital documents
Secure, compliant processes powered by state-of-the-art technology
Complete visibility from printing and inserting to mailing and delivery tracking
Proven expertise in printing, postal regulations and technology

Pitney Bowes is here to help.

If your company could benefit from a relationship with an outsourced print and mail provider, you should talk to Pitney Bowes. With Mailstream On Demand, our flexible online print-to-mail solution, you can experience all the benefits of an additional in-house print and mail operation without the capital expense. Our customers benefit from;

Massive scale

We print and mail (NUMBER) first-class mail pieces for our customers each year, including invoices, statements, notices and more at our (NUMBER) square foot production facility.

Leading-edge equipment

Our white paper factory features production inkjet printers that produce full color, duplex documents for maximum impact. High speed folders and inserters ensure fast, accurate assembly of your mail.

Exceptional buying power

Because we purchase very large quantities of paper stock and envelopes, we have leverage with suppliers and can negotiate for lower prices than most in-house operations can obtain.

File based processing

Proprietary software manages complex printing jobs from start to finish, including transition to digital documents.

Trackability

An intuitive client dashboard provides full visibility right down to the individual recipient level, providing proof that your mail was printed and assembled correctly and mailed on time.

Commingling and presorting

We combine multiple mailings and sort them by Zip Code to qualify for the deepest possible postage discounts.

Here’s how our Mailstream On Demand disruption solution works. Your company continues to handle most of your mailings in house, but divert a small percentage of the work to Pitney Bowes each month. That way, you have an existing account all set up in case of an emergency situation. Or, if you are looking for a full outsourcing solution, we can provide that too. Minimum volumes apply.

Once the onboarding process is complete, simply upload your files via our secure portal, and our experts will take care of every step from mail production sorting and delivery to the USPS. You’ll not only gain peace of mind, knowing that your critical communications are produced on schedule. You’ll also enjoy the benefits of reduced postage costs, end-to-end tracking and convenient payment terms.