Smart printing: a crucial step to super-efficient digital customer communications

Almost every organisation would agree that using digital channels to communicate with customers is good for business budgets, the environment and customer experience.

After all, relying on print and post to share large volumes of documents, letters and notifications comes with many disadvantages. 

These include the prohibitive costs and security challenges associated with postal systems. Then there’s the manual effort required – the form folding, envelope stuffing and other essential tasks required to get mail out of the office and into the postal system. 

Print equipment can also be difficult to operate and maintain. Even buying and handling paper, ink and envelopes is a time-consuming and expensive business. Then, of course, there’s the  environmental impact.

Outsourcing a print operation mitigates some of these disadvantages, but certainly not all. The expense of printing and posting are still passed on, and the environmental impact remains roughly the same.  

When you compare the inefficiencies of print and post with the digital alternatives, switching seems the only sensible option. Unfortunately, the decision isn’t that simple.

The enduring importance of print and post

Significant numbers of customers (especially those from older generations) are still more comfortable with receiving communications through the post than with digital alternatives. So even though print and mail volumes are likely to fall over time, many organisations must persevere with post for the foreseeable future. 

For such organisations, the focus should shift to optimising their print and post operations, by automating as much of them as possible, and integrating them with their entire digital communications. This ensures they can manage all their outreach from one solution, using one source of customer data.

So where does an organisation that wants to transition in this way start?

The move to multi-channel delivery 

For the past several years, Payreq has been changing the way organisations interact and transact with customers. By providing secure-by-design, private spaces where both parties can ‘meet’, share important information (and even make payments), we’ve made relationships far simpler to conduct. 

Now Payreq has launched a new digital mailroom solution that also makes it easy to correspond with customers via the channels that suit them.

The solution lets organisations coordinate their print operation as part of a wider digital communications strategy. For organisations that manage their printing in-house, switching to Payreq means no more folding documents, no more stuffing envelopes, and no more managing and maintaining print equipment. For those that already outsource their print, switching means no more siloed work streams with external mailhouses. 

Payreq X Quadient Impress

Payreq’s digital mailroom solution is powered by Quadient’s industry-leading Impress document workflow software. 

Your team uploads documents (such as  invoices, letters or statements) via a user-friendly interface on the Payreq platform. They can then  adapt documents and define key values – working from saved templates if they choose. 

Then the communication can be allocated for sharing via either post, email or in the Payreq secure sharing space (which is accessible by customers via an app). Postal comms can be printed (in colour or mono) then delivered by a Payreq mailhouse partner.

How communications are directed (post, email, or platform) can be shaped according to customer preference and/or business priorities.

Payreq’s digital mailroom solution offers visibility at every stage of the send – from print to dispatch. For digital communications, it’s possible to see when documents are both delivered and viewed. 

Print: going … but not yet gone

It might be time for organisations everywhere to close down their in-house print centres.

But the move should be about far more than outsourcing print to a mailhouse. To optimise your operations while ensuring you connect with customers on the channels that suit them, a multi-channel outreach operation is essential.

Payreq’s digital mailroom solution is the perfect solution. It will help you transition to digital communications in order to enjoy the economic, productivity and customer-service advantages. In the meantime, you will be supercharging your print and post capability for the years ahead.