ESSENTIALS FOR A FIRST-CLASS MAIL CENTER, THE

Office Solutions, Apr 2008 by Maguire, Michael

The mail center is a dynamic point of communication for your organization. Keep it running at peak efficiency with the latest furnishings and technology.

As you look to improve your mailing effectiveness, reviewing why the mail center is critical to the operation of your organization is essential. However, if you're reading this, you recognize the need to outfit an integral communication point in your organization with the best technology available. The first challenge is to understand what your mail center means to you and your organization.

Your organization has three pipelines for information:

* your computer network, including the Internet and e-mail

* your telephone system and voice mail

* your mail center.

What attention do you give the technology and operation of the first two compared to the mail center? Think about what would happen if your computer network or telephone service went down. Does the term "sheer pandemonium" cover it? Your mail center bears equal weight when it comes to information exchange. As well as being an information hub, your mail center may play an integral part in mailing out your company's products. No mail center might mean a stop in shipments to customers.

First-class solution: Understand the importance of the mail center in your operation.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Every mailing system vendor has a compendium of information on how his system makes the most sense, is easiest to use, and is the most efficient. You might be surprised to learn, all of them are valid, given a certain application. What vendors can't address (by no fault of their own) is how you operate pur particular mail center. If your mail center is a scary place to go and if it's in an unpleasant part of the building, no machine will ever reach the production values quoted to you by the vendor.

To make the mail center productive, it has to be in a location people like to go. It doesn't have to be an amusement park, but it also shouldn't be a cement bunker in the basement. It has to be well-lit (the more natural light the better) and have plants, pictures, windows, and everything that makes it an easy place to do business. Your mail center is important to your organization, and the department should be treated as such.

First-class solution: Make sure you have a nice room with windows, plants, and pictures before you begin your mail center overhaul.

MODULARITY RULES

Some organizations feel that card tables and cardboard boxes are adequate furniture for a mail center. Do tin cans and string cover the needs of the phone center? Lets invoke the theory of 2M: modular and movable.

A mail center requires certain functions to be performed at the same place every day so a semblance of order and production can be maintained. To the average corporate customer, the actual fixture is inconsequential. What is important is going to the same place for the same thing. That doesn't mean that there can't be some modifications for seasonal influxes and volume changes. This is precisely why mail fixtures must be modular and movable. The appliance doesn't have to be the same. Only the "area of function" has to be consistent.

For example, the mail drop-off area should be constant. Fixtures should be movable and adaptable, but not areas.

First-class solution: Purchase movable and modular fixtures.

WATCH YOUR WASTE: WHO PAID FOR WHAT AND WHY

"Fed Ex it" is a very common directive to mailing and shipping centers today. Did you know that if you're in San Diego and you want to ship to Los Angeles, you can usually get the same service for pennies or one or two dollars, rather than tens of dollars, using traditional First Class mail via the U.S. Postal Service (USPS)? This isn't to diminish the value of overnight services. Those services do an impeccable job, and you should continue to use them if that's what you need.

Perhaps just asking yourself whether overnight is overkill will reduce some of these excess overnight costs. Using a postal accounting system will not only watch your expenditures by person or department, it might suggest ways that you can ship smarter. It might show that 82.75 percent of the overnight packages you sent could have been delivered by Priority Mail in two days or less for half the price. Is the performance standard of two days acceptable?

Obviously, there has to be some degree of accountability when using overnight services, and using a postal accounting system will help. The practice of sending virtually all oneoff documents via an overnight service (often referred to as "wild overnighting") can consume a postal budget quickly, when solid and stable First Class mail could deliver the same documents in two or three days for pennies.

First-class solution A: Purchase a postal accounting system and use it.

First-class solution B: Set performance standards. Two days for half the price might be just as good.

ADDRESS CORRECTION

Address standardization and correction may be the most important postal initiative today. When was the last time you dialed the wrong number and reached the right person? The same holds true for postal addresses.