Virtual postrooms

The ability to communicate successfully is one of the most fundamental features of running a business. Communication methods become even more important when they involve the delivery of an important document such as an invoice. The presentation quality of the document, and its prompt arrival when due, provide an image of a company to their client and customer base. Therefore a company's mailroom management should be of great importance to them. The concept of a virtual mailroom uses technology and the internet to ensure quality, speed and security, in the mailing of transactional documents.

The concept of a Virtual Mailroom

The term virtual mailroom, or post room, refers to the outsourcing of a business's mailing needs to an outside specialist service provider. This outside company are responsible for the delivery of transactional documents such as client invoices or statements. Where possible, this delivery is carried out electronically, using e-mail or a fax machine.

How a Virtual Mailroom works

Assuming mailing tasks are outsourced, the initial step is for the client to email data, customer statements for example, to a specialist company whose job it is to mail this. The data is encrypted, so the company are able to authenticate it. They will then process the data, and format it for presentability to customers. At this stage, the client will have pre-agreed the way in which data should be formatted; for example, a customer invoice should have a clear, concise layout, and inform the customer of the goods for which they are being invoiced.

Once it has been formatted the data will be sent, either electronically or by traditional postal methods. This option is an important feature of the virtual mailroom, called a virtual postroom. Moving communication with customers to email saves time and money for a company; however it is important not to then neglect customers who do not have internet access, or prefer still to receive paper statements. Therefore invoices or statements will be sent to customers via their preferred method of contact.

Now that all the mail has been dispatched the final step is to inform the client (the sender of the statements) of any mail which has not arrived successfully. With electronic mail in the virtual mailroom, e-mail delivery failures will arrive almost instantly, should a statement fail to send.

A virtual postroom will take longer to discover if a statement has been sent to an incorrect address. It relies on the party living at that address to return the post to the postroom - or for the Royal Mail to send notice of a home owner having left that property.

Details of returned post and e-mails will be passed on to the client, who will attempt to find a means of contacting those customers.

Advantages of a Virtual Mailroom

By incorporating technology into traditional posting methods, the virtual mail room is able to speed up communication between businesses and their clients. This in turn speeds up business and allows a company to grow at a faster rate. Equally, the use of a virtual mail room halves the traditional cost of posting letters to customers.

A virtual mail room is flexible for a client as it allows them to denote the format in which content is provided. These may include PDF, HTML or excel spreadsheets for example, and are used to ensure data is conveyed to a customer in a comprehensive manner.

When sending mail a virtual mailroom receives instant progress reports to its own e-mail inbox, which allow it to quickly flag any e-mails which have not successfully sent. This means contact issues with customers can be addressed (and hopefully solved) promptly. Compared with traditional postage methods, this is also advantageous because a letter sent to the wrong address may well be disposed of instead of returned to the sender.