From Physical Mailroom to Digital Mail Hub

Corporate and higher education mail centers now face the challenge of supporting a changing workforce with fewer employees, while still maintaining high efficiency, accuracy, and security. They are looking for ways to move from traditional paper handling to a fully digital mailroom that captures, sorts, and routes incoming mail electronically. Here are some best practices for making that transition.

Corporate and University Mail Center Challenges

While many mail center workflows have not changed for decades, how mail and packages are accepted, accounted for, and delivered has and will continue to evolve. Employee resistance, lack of clarity for the benefits of change, and inadequate resources to implement the proposed improvements are common challenges for mailroom managers.

Typically, when mail arrives, employees sort it by hand via the pigeonhole method and deliver the material manually throughout the workplace. On the delivery route, the same employees pick up the outbound mail from the departments. The mail center creates, seals, and posts other mail as well, finally taking all outbound mail to the post office.

This traditional workflow is changing as technology improves accountability, security, and how organizations disperse mail.

Mail Center Digital Transformation: How it Works

Sorting incoming mail is very different now compared to ten years ago. Remote work was already becoming more common before COVID-19, but the pandemic sped up this change and made it permanent for many roles. While field salespeople have worked remotely for years, COVID led to more employees working from home.

Mail recipients are now geographically scattered, and a manual distribution method no longer works, but institutions still need to manage the mail. The answer is digital mail, with solutions adapted to each organization’s needs, so the right people get the right mail while maintaining security.

Here’s how the process works:

1. Mailroom equipment scans inbound envelopes front and back, as envelope markings and postmarks often contain relevant information.
   
   
2. A clerk opens the envelope to remove and scan the contents. The system connects the document scans to the envelope scan.
   
   
3. The platform, occasionally with operator assistance, emails content images to the addressees, whether they are remote or local.

Scanned and archived digital mail ensures that mail recipients can digitally retrieve postal letters, should they be misplaced.

Digital Mail Security

Department heads establish rules to identify sealed envelopes, the disposition of original hard copy mail pieces, and how to process local and remote employee mail.

For example:

• The mail center is unlikely to open and scan Certified Mail unless dictated by the business rules.
• Management and key employees may specify that any First Class mail addressed to them is not to be opened by the mail center.
• Mail marked as “personal and confidential” is typically not opened by the mail center.
• Marketing Mail could be earmarked for recycling or delivery. Many department managers rely on Marketing Mail for items like parts and materials catalogs. It is important to them and should not be automatically discarded.

Business rules manage this process.

Getting Started

Success and security for an inbound digital mail delivery system are predicated on established (or newly created) business rules, deconstructing each step in the inbound mail process, and documenting the procedures for employee training and ongoing workflow. Break down each step in the inbound mail process, no matter how trivial they might seem at the outset.

Identifying a discrete inbound mail process that most likely has not been reviewed in years is the first step to translating a manual system to a digital workflow. Not every step will translate to the digital realm.

Business rules for mail disposition are essential for digital mail conversion. Someone must decide what happens to each type of mail. This occurs in consultation with the mail center manager—the resident authority on mail types, volume, and importance to the organization.

Best Practices

• Thorough employee training is essential for a successful digital mail system. Train staff more than once to ensure everyone understands the process.
• The mail center should manage business rule storage and execution.
• Audit the organization’s digital workflow practices frequently and on a set schedule. Personnel and incoming mail characteristics change often and may require new or modified procedures to address them.

Tritek’s digital mail experts routinely provide expertise and recommendations for successful inbound mail system installations. Call on us to help you design the ideal solution to meet your needs.

Big Benefits

The overriding benefit of a digital mail delivery system is that everyone receives their company or university mail quickly, no matter where they are located. A digital mail system is secure, as it scans and then shreds physical mail, preventing the hard copy from falling into the wrong hands. Additionally, the organization scans and password-protects each business-critical document. It is always retrievable should a mail recipient misplace their emailed copy. The mail center can redeploy valuable staff members as remote work arrangements shorten delivery routes, reducing the need to find and train new people constantly.

Digital Solutions from Tritek

Tritek’s digital mailroom automation solutions provide an efficient way to process inbound mail and facilitate timely digital mail delivery. Our failsafe digital archiving platform makes the conversion to digital mail a snap.

Tritek has developed and patented mail automation solutions since 1988, helping mail service providers and in-house mail centers work more efficiently. Our team designs inbound digital mail systems to fit each client’s needs, and our industry professionals install and set up every system. Tritek’s clients include mail service providers, print shops, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, schools, financial services, healthcare, insurance, and fulfillment companies.