One of the biggest drivers for outsourcing a mailroom function is to reduce costs. Actual cost savings vary by implementation, but as a general rule of thumb organizations can save between 20% and 30% of their investment in a physical mailroom by outsourcing their mailroom to a third party digital mailroom provider.
These operational cost savings are just the start. In our experience, organizations can also improve the productivity and efficiency of relevant processes by as much as 60% by outsourcing their mailrooms.
In turn, this helps to improve access to information that was previously hidden away in filing cabinets and desks. Documents can be accessed and shared, worked on collaboratively and made available even when buildings are closed down to employees.
As many organizations found when their buildings and employees were locked down to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, disaster recovery and business continuity plans included measures to move processes to alternative sites – but these did not work when every site was closed. By having mail delivered and managed online, organizations can be more resilient in the face of similar conditions in future.
Integrated digital mail
On top of that, digital mail can be incorporated into other processes in a way that physical documents never can be. This is because they can be coded and have their data captured as they are scanned, triggering further processes such as sending an outbound reply letter.
Outsourced digital mailrooms can be further extended into an organization using application programming interfaces (APIs), so that digital documents can flow into relevant systems such as finance and HR.
Furthermore, instead of incoming communications from partners, customers and suppliers arriving in one single ‘bucket’, it can then be automatically streamed to the right team or the right person with the right skills, based on availability.
Another benefit is that incoming mail can be combined with other communication channels such as email or phone calls to ensure everything is placed into the relevant workstream. This enables customer-facing teams to access all the relevant information they need to action processes or resolve queries.
So the answer to the question ‘how much can I save by implementing a digital mailroom’ is that another question needs to be asked, which is ‘how much value can I add to my organization?’. Digital mailrooms can help improve productivity, customer service, regulatory compliance, and operational resilience.
And as the power of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation continues to grow, mailroom automation will move far beyond providing mere replacements for the physical mailrooms of the past. Instead digital mailrooms will act as the information hubs of all organizations, speeding up and improving every process that relies on document sharing.
Ready to revolutionize your mailroom operations? Reach out to our digital transformation experts now to discuss your needs.
