The traditionally straightforward process of statement printing and mailing has become increasingly complicated, costly and less effective.
That’s because billers that rely on paper and mail are facing stiff headwinds including rising mailing costs, slower USPS deliveries, increasing payment delinquencies due to tight household budgets and print/mail competition from a growing host of digital customer communications and payment alternatives.
Avoid these statement printing and mailing mistakes
Fortunately, there are practical, proven steps that companies can take with statement printing and mailing to improve costs, operating efficiencies and customer experience. It starts with eliminating 7 strategic and tactical mistakes, which then enables companies to rev up performance and customer engagement.
1. Lack of coordinated omnichannel communications strategy.
For maximum effectiveness, efficiency and engagement, statement printing and mailing must be incorporated into a cohesive strategy that addresses the entire customer financial journey.
Companies can fall short in creating this critical foundation by:
- Only offering print/mail statements despite indisputable evidence that many consumers want the choice, convenience and ease of use of digital and mobile options.
- Keeping each communication channel separate, with different employees, departments, technologies and vendors handling print/mail, email, and text messaging. This segregated approach makes it hard to manage when consumers want a seamless experience from a variety of communications, such as mailed statements, emailed payment alerts and Text-to-Pay messages.
- Fragmenting development and distribution of customer communications among multiple business units, locations and departments. In vacation ownership, one group could be responsible for Resort HOA materials, another for marketing, a third for mortgage, maintenance fee and other financial communications and each resort property might handle its own vacation stay-related communications. A communications audit found one vacation ownership company was sending more than 200 mailings to its owners each year.
What’s needed are programs with a shared composition and delivery platform to ensure consistent branding and messaging and a rationalized, coordinated cadence of communications covering all business areas. Without this customer-focused approach, consumers can become confused, overwhelmed or even angry over the volume and mixed messaging of competing communications. This situation increases the likelihood they will tune out instead of taking the desired actions, such as pay a bill or schedule a doctor’s appointment. An omnichannel communication platform can help you deliver communications based on different customer preferences, all in one place.
2. Not offering digital options.
It may be hard for long-time print and mail loyalists to accept, but the majority of customers want to receive electronic communications and to pay online. When it comes to billing statements, the latest ACI Speedpay Pulse survey for 2H 2023 found:
- 56% want digital
- 17% want paper
- 27% want both digital and paper
To offer digital/mobile choices, some companies may first need to ensure they have an adequate online payment solution. Others are dealing with siloed systems from multiple mergers and acquisitions, which undercuts efforts to offer a consistent experience.
Companies can remove those roadblocks and acquire state-of-the-art capabilities by shifting to cloud platforms for customer communications management (CCM) and electronic bill presentment and payments (EBPP). These technologies digitally transform, centralize, automate and simplify many consumer communications and payments processes. Easy API and other integrations enable secure data exchange with CRM and other company systems.
Through their statement printing and mailing, companies can actively promote digital adoption. They can prominently display electronic billing and payment options and add QR codes for easy digital opt-in on all paper communications.
3. Missing out on printing advances.
For statement printing and mailing, companies still sticking to black-and-white and mostly generic content are passing up key opportunities to improve CX. State-of-the-art high-speed, continuous-feed inkjet equipment can produce materials with dynamic variable color for the same cost as black and white. These tech-forward printers make it simple and cost-effective to incorporate color in logos, images and body copy and to create personalized content, boosting customer engagement and cutting costs from eliminating pre-printed shells.
Other advances include automated, camera vision-based quality control and variable data verification audit for every piece produced, so the right communication goes to the right customer.
4. Failing to optimize postal costs.
Companies are caught in the middle: USPS requires billing statements and other financial documents be mailed first class when they contain recipient-specific information. But first-class prices have risen by roughly one-third since 2020, from 55 cents to 73 cents per ounce.
Fortunately, billers can take advantage of commingling for statement printing and mailing. With commingling, print and mail outsourcing providers combine mail from multiple companies into larger mailings to meet the USPS’ postage discount minimums for quantity. Commingling helps mail arrive at their destination faster, too.
For confidential and sensitive documents, automated Certified Mail saves $1 per mailing over traditional hard copy mailing receipts, or “green cards”.
To minimize costly return mail which delays payments and leads to poor CX, companies should work with print/mail partners that offer mail processing services. Running data files through USPS databases such as National Change of Address (NCOA), CASS™ Certification and Delivery Point Validation (DPV) identify and fix address problems before communications enter the mail stream. ACS™, a premium USPS service, catches undeliverable addresses not yet in the NCOA database and updates the address on mail already in route.
5. Depending on a single print facility.
With critical transactional communications including billing statements and adverse action letters, companies need to avoid any disruptions or delays. Print/mail providers with geographically dispersed, redundant facilities can give companies essential backup and peace of mind for their statement printing and mailing.
6. Inadequate or outdated security.
Highly regulated industries, including insurance, financial services and healthcare, need to make sure their print/mail partners are keeping up with the latest and most stringent data security, regulatory and compliance standards. Not only should they be HIPAA compliant and hold SOC 2 Type II and SSAE 18 certifications, but they should also pass annual audits.
7. Giving too much control to CCM partners.
For some companies, every time they want to update disclosure language, add a new paragraph to a privacy notice or change a return address on a statement, they must wait for their print/mail partner to make the modifications and then review and approve them, adding time and cost to the statement printing and mailing process.
It doesn’t have to be that way. CCM platforms give companies control, agility and speed over their own communications changes, compliance updates and onboarding new clients or programs. Some CCM systems also integrate with digital and print/mail production and distribution for a complete solution.
Companies develop communication templates for bills, letters and other documents with fields to be populated and a shared content library with logos, content blocks, images and more for all communication programs. Any change the company makes in a content block will automatically be updated in all pertinent documents.
Modernizing statement printing and mailing
The billing experience has a major impact on customer engagement, payments and repeat business, and statement printing and mailing remains a cornerstone of the strategic customer communications program for any company.
So, the biggest mistake companies can make with statement printing and mailing is putting it on autopilot.
Today’s customers expect personalized business interactions through the channels of their choice, including those who still prefer print and mail. To meet customers’ needs and deliver excellent business results, companies need to stay up-to-date on everything from statement design to the latest CCM, printing and mailing options and capabilities.
Contact us today for more information.
