Transactional Print and Mail Services: What to Look for in a Partner

Choosing a company to provide transactional print and mail services seems pretty straightforward at first glance. After all, there are thousands of U.S. printers to choose from, including some just down the block or across town.

In reality, it’s not that simple for mission-critical customer communications. The vast majority of printers has just 1 to 9 employees, and they concentrate on producing banners, books, educational materials, clothing, labels, stationery and other products, according to U.S. Census data.

The skills and equipment of those print companies don’t easily translate to transactional customer communications. Nor are they able to handle the high volumes of consumer bills, adverse action letters, explanation of benefits, payment reminders and other transactional communications that many companies distribute each month.

The first step in finding the right transactional print and mail services partner, then, is focusing on U.S. companies that specialize in printing and mailing customer communications. Beyond that baseline, companies should evaluate possible partners against a set of 8 criteria before entrusting any transactional communications that contain sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI) to a print and mail provider.

Many companies have recognized the power of transforming their transactional communications programs into strategic engagement with interactions that enhance customer experience and loyalty. Success with this approach depends on moving beyond transactional relationships with key customer communications partners as well.

Not all transactional print and mail services companies want to or can deliver a more strategic and collaborative model for advancing their clients’ customer communications strategies and operations. It takes 8 essentials:

This capability really separates exceptional transactional print and mail services providers from all others. An omnichannel customer communications management platform is the control center for strategic communications programs. It enables companies to easily develop and distribute both print and digital customer communications, in any combination of paper, email and text messaging that each consumer wants.

Consumer choice drives better customer experience, along with the ability to personalize communications that is only possible with an omnichannel CCM platform integrated with outstanding digital and print production and delivery services. With built-in tracking, archiving and reporting features to support decision making, managing omnichannel communications on a single system gives companies unmatched control and flexibility to make changes based on business needs, from new logos to new disclosures.

Another important operational benefit: A cloud platform drives automation and digital transformation of customer communication processes to increase productivity and efficiency.

Companies should seek out providers with a proven track record for delivering high-quality and timely transactional print and mail services, especially for regulated industries. For compliance, legal, reputation and cashflow reasons, companies cannot afford to have bills or other customer communications with PII or PHI arriving late or sent to the wrong recipient.

Print and mail providers should demonstrate staying power and commitment to transactional communications through long-term growth and long-standing clients willing to serve as references. It’s mostly larger, innovative print and mail outsourcers that can meet this standard, which requires substantial ongoing investments to stay current with the latest capabilities and best practices for transactional communications.

It takes specialized printing and mailing systems, technology and software, operated by people with the right skills and ongoing training, to ensure each communication with its unique content gets to the correct customer on time. Leading providers have highly automated processes enabling no-touch workflows that increase safety, productivity and output, with production management software that delivers job-level and piece-level tracking at any point in the process until turning mail over to USPS.

For the most efficient, versatile and fast print and mail solutions, providers should be using the latest high-speed, roll-fed printers that enable dynamic variable color and personalization to support their clients’ strategies for improving CX. This print equipment enables roll-to-roll printing.

For further effectiveness, continuous-feed inkjet printers should be paired with high-speed inserters that accept rolls straight from the print equipment as well as cut sheets. The inserting equipment can insert up to 10,000 pieces an hour from cut sheets and cut and insert 22,000 pieces an hour from rolls, depending on the type of inserting equipment being used.

Top print and mail providers have the capacity and capability in equipment, people, and processes to grow with their clients. Scalability allows them to adapt to a customer’s increasing needs and changing demands without compromising performance. Similarly, scalability gives clients the flexibility to adjust print and mail volume up or down as needed.

To assess scalability, evaluations of transactional print and mail services providers should include their:

With frequent postal increases and USPS operational changes slowing delivery, companies need a transactional print and mail services partner that provides a menu of options for controlling costs and tracking time-sensitive mail. In addition to negotiating the best USPS rates, large providers should be able to:

There is a lengthy list of security measures that companies should investigate. Printing companies should hire certified experts to conduct annual third-party audits to validate their HIPAA compliance and SOC 2 Type 2 standards, which attest to not just the design of the controls (which is the SOC 2 Type 1 standard) but their operating effectiveness directly related to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy at the organization.

At the print and mail facility itself, they should follow a range of stringent physical security and data encryption protocols, plus limit access to areas handling sensitive consumer data. Print and mail providers also must adhere to strict procedures for handling return mail and destroying any discarded documents due to paper jams, misprints and other misfires. 

Certain financial and compliance communications need to reach their intended recipients in a timely manner. But natural disasters and other disruptive events can impede print production and mail delivery, so companies cannot leave their transactional communications vulnerable to a partner with a single print and mail facility. Providers of transactional print and mail services need multiple operations with similar numbers and types of equipment for true redundancy.

When the pool of possible partners is narrowed to those that meet the other key criteria, companies can identify their best partner by zeroing in on the print and mail provider with a similar culture and values. Compatibility is a crucial aspect of a good business partnership.

Business fit also depends in part on liking and wanting to work with each other. It’s the foundation for building rapport and trust, which will in turn improve communication and collaboration to drive success.

Please contact us to learn more about partnering on transactional print and mail and omnichannel communications.