In the game of business, time is money. And when it comes to posting mail, whether we’re talking about packages or letters, every second counts. With the instantaneous access we have to digital documents, it is not surprising that the physical mailing of letters seems to be decreasing. However, with the rise in online shopping and home deliveries due to Covid-19, the Royal Mail is said to be tracking around 2.5 million parcels on a busy day.
Direct mail is definitely not dead
There is no doubt mail is still processed on an enormous scale, and that letters are an essential form of communication. Even if your business is tending to clients primarily through email, there is nothing more professional than receiving loyalty gifts in the mail. In any case, the mail is necessary for the sending of documents, applications, and important certifications to and from entities in the UK. In fact, some companies will post tonnes of mail each year, making the need for mail processing ever-relevant in this digital age.
When it comes to mailing, the process can become extremely tedious. It is a labor-intensive task that can take employees hours to get through each day. But, are there more efficient ways to handle your mail? Here are some tips to help you and your team to speed up.
Upskill your team
Not every staff member will be comfortable, or even good at processing your company’s mail. But, it is important that each member of your team knows how to handle incoming mail: how to sort it properly, date stamp it accurately, file in the correct places, as well as who to notify about urgent mail and then follow up to ensure it has been tended to. Outgoing mail can be even more complex, as there are various labeling and registration tasks that go alongside it.
Upskilling each member of your team means that even if the admin staff are responsible for it overall, anyone can stand in if they are ever sick or on leave. If you are a smaller company, equipping your entire team to process mail means shared responsibility and ultimately, faster response time. It also reduces the likelihood of unnecessary and potentially costly mistakes.
Create an organized system
One of the hardest things about organizing an office space is how to file paperwork and neatly store it for immediate access. If you want to improve your mailing efficiency, it’s important that your office be neat, but critically, that your filing system is in order.
Set out filing trays that are well-labeled, easy to read, and even easier to access. But, if you really want to make mailing more efficient in your office, there is also a valuable piece of technology whose only job is to process mail! Have you heard of it? It’s the franking machine.
Try this effective machine
Though this mailroom equipment was developed in the 1880s, it is now totally automated. Handling the bulk of the mailing job for you, this machine has several main functions. There is an integrated scale of postal franking machines enabling accurate weighing, sparing you from making mistakes in your stamping calculations. Plus, the indicia stamping allows you to automatically add your professional branding, logo, and personalized copy to each parcel. What do you say about increasing the operability of your company mail and enjoying some free advertising at the same time?
Even if your company only has 20 employees, this machine is bound to revolutionize your mailing procedure. This is because, on top of the scale and stamping capabilities, these powerful machines can be re-credited with stamps 24/7, online. This means you will no longer have to head to the post office every time you need to buy stamps or weigh your mail.
And, you’d be happy to know that once it is being processed for posting, franked mail is given higher priority when it reaches the post office as compared to standard posting! It helps that the machine processes much of the job for the postal service before it’s even arrived. Overall, this means faster internal processing and convenient, quicker delivery to its sender. Freeing up time for your staff also means more time to tend to more important jobs.
Saving time is key!
Keep finding new ways to optimize your administrative process at work. But one thing is for sure, you understand that time is really of the essence. Mailing faster – whether or not you’re using a franking machine – can help save hundreds of hours each year. And this, of course, means more money for you to reinvest into the business. Gone are the days that you needed to get so frustrated with mailing. Find a system that works for you and improve your efficiency today!
