FUtUrE OF MAiL ViEwPOiNtS
Who’s Driving? Customers Are at the Wheel In order to look forward in the industry, you really need to think about the definition of mail. Twenty-five years ago, mail was a communication delivered physically. Today, the delivery method is becoming agnostic. Whether received in the mailbox, on a laptop, or on a phone, it is still mail. Boxes, envelopes, and emails are all mail. So, what now? Actually, the future of our industry is not that difficult to figure out if you take time to connect a few dots. My forecast is based on three sources of information: the knowledge gained from past experience, information and reports we are getting from market studies, and, most importantly, the specific details that come from our customers.
A Rich History
Neopost enjoys a rich business background. During our history, this company has delivered a trove of innovative mailing solutions and has grown by making strategic and carefully planned acquisitions. History, however, only tells us where we’ve been. Our focus must be modernized and the sooner it changes, the better.
In the Driver’s Seat
Customer needs will drive the future of mail. And it’s not only our customers at the wheel. Our customers’ customers will steer our industry’s future. Many of our customers are planning or are implementing a digitization strategy. These are companies which, for years, used our solutions to accomplish a single task: process mail. If you ask end-users what they want to achieve, most of them will say that they need to reduce their mailing costs. They believe moving to a digital environment will be much more efficient and less expensive.
Costs and Responsibilities
This might be true in some instances. However, investigate a little bit further and one will learn about the additional costs that can be incurred when going digital. How much will it cost to accommodate an end-user whose customers don’t want to receive electronically generated mail? There will certainly be an administrative cost if your customers’ customers delay payment or forget to pay their invoices because they were sent
electronically. What is the price of managing all of the contact information you have on a customer? Data quality is already a huge challenge. Now add another set of essential information that must be clean to efficiently connect with your customers. And that’s just a few of the surface-level issues mailers must consider in the future mail world.
The Biggest Question of All
Solutions and potential revenue sources can be found in the answers to two simple questions: 1) How do people want to receive their correspondence, information, and commercial communications? and 2) How do people best respond to communications? The answers to these questions will reveal a useful truth that you can take to the bank. The future of mail is about customer preference, not its physical or digital form. The essences of all communication are sending and receiving information. Mailers who limit their future strategy to one side of the equation — sending — are in trouble right from the start. Recipients must be offered the options that best fit their preferences and reactions. Our customers must understand the importance of the receiving piece of the communication equation and accommodate it.
How to Succeed in Mail
At Neopost, we spend a lot of time talking to customers. Those conversations reveal three things. 1) The future of the mail industry will distill down to preparation, data cleansing, and multiple distribution options. 2) The act of sending will cede primacy. That presumes that the mail industry will embrace digital options. It clearly has and will continue to do so, based on customers’ desires. That’s not the hard part. 3) Success will require those of us in this industry to understand and accommodate our customers’ needs and the needs of our customers’ customers. And, we have to be willing to change. Everyone in this industry knows that the business, administration, perception, and use of mail are changing but not everyone of our customers knows that mail is alive and well. It’s up to those of us who work in this industry to make sure mail maintains its position as a vitally important part of American commerce.
Dennis P. LeStrange President and Chief Executive Officer Neopost USA www.neopostinc.com