4 Things To Look for in a Print and Mail Solutions Provider

Talking about print and mail solutions may seem outdated, but did you know a whopping 42% of consumers still prefer to receive paper bills? While the trend of late has been to focus on converting customers to paperless billing, you must remember – some of them aren’t there yet, and some may never be. With that in mind, one of your goals should be to focus on providing all your customers with the same billing experience, regardless of whether they receive a paper or electronic bill. You can go it alone, but if you’re planning to call in the experts, we’ve got some tips for choosing your print and mail solutions provider.

What Is a Print and Mail Solution? 

A reliable print and mail solution makes getting accurate, business-critical documents out the door easy. These solutions leverage web-based tools to help you create and design documents such as bills, statements, and notifications. When you’re satisfied with the result, they mail the documents directly to your customers. 

You may think it will be more cost-effective to do it yourself, but that’s not necessarily true. High-volume printing equipment is expensive to buy and maintain. When the machines go down, you have to deal with the unexpected costs of repairs and downtime. There’s also the time spent managing inventory and the security risks that come with printing confidential documents in-house. These are just some of the reasons why organizations outsource printing and mailing.

If you’re considering outsourcing or moving to a new print and mail service provider, make sure they check off these four boxes.

Enhanced Data Security

You shouldn’t underestimate the importance of data management. Yet, its intangible nature can make it difficult to remember that data plays a big role in every stage of a print project. The increased frequency of cyber and ransomware attacks and data leaks has turned up the heat on businesses that handle customer data. Customer expectations are at an all-time high when it comes to the privacy and security of their personal information, reinforcing the importance of choosing a print and mail provider that prioritizes data security. Reputable print and mail providers can handle and store data safely by staying up to date on current technologies and best practices, keeping customer data secure at every step of the print and mail process. 

You can save time, money, and stress when you select a vendor that is already compliant with the latest regulations, such as the General Data Regulation Protection (GDPR), and will continue to make the necessary infrastructure upgrades to remain compliant. 

How Does KUBRA Measure Up When It Comes to Data Security?

KUBRA processes 1.5 billion transactions yearly, from printed invoices to bank statements and text messages. The sheer amount of personally identifiable information collected by KUBRA on behalf of our clients requires our systems to have state-of-the-art security – and they do. KUBRA iMail™ captures your billing files using secure, redundant, and encrypted communication processes, allowing us to provide sophisticated document production and distribution capabilities in highly secure and controlled environments. 

Disaster Recovery

You can’t control natural disasters, unplanned outages, and unexpected staffing shortages. You can control how you deal with them by having a disaster recovery plan to maintain business-critical communications and operations. A delay in sending mission-critical communications, especially in times of crisis, will negatively impact customer experience and can cause cash flow delays. 

Print-to-mail operations often get ignored in business disaster plans, but a reputable print and mail services provider will never overlook this key detail. While we’d like to think it’s a given, not all providers out there have taken the time to put an effective plan together. Case in point, a print and mail solutions provider was recently the victim of a cyberattack that left over 800 people without paychecks for weeks. An effective disaster recovery plan would have contingencies in place to ensure those employees got their checks despite the disruptions to their systems. 

KUBRA Loves It When a Plan Comes Together!

At KUBRA, we’ve built strong disaster recovery plans for the KUBRA iMail solution and our network of print facilities. Our Disaster Recovery Plan aims to ensure the continued production and distribution of printed documents at KUBRA’s production facility when an extraordinary event prevents billers’ systems from producing them at their sites, or one of our sites goes down. The focus is on business continuity, improving reliability and resiliency, reducing service interruptions, and providing a quick and reliable failover in case of an outage due to a natural disaster.

Financial Stability

Choose a new vendor or supplier wisely because replacing one will consume a lot of time and money. Here are five steps for evaluating the financial stability of any prospective vendors.

1. Find or request their financial statements.
2. Use subject matter experts, like a CPA, to review the financials.
3. Ask smart questions like, is the vendor generating enough income, what’s the vendor’s debt-to-worth ratio and net worth, and will the vendor be able to continue operations with its current cash flow?
4. Prepare an assessment that includes the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow, key ratios, and supporting commentary/conclusion.
5. Create a financial stability rating. A financial health rating can be categorized into four simple categories: adequate, moderate, need, and intense.

Source: Ramin, Zacharia, 5 Steps to Evaluating Your Vendor's Financial Stability, Venminder, May 3, 2022.

KUBRA Has Been Around the Block!

When we opened our doors in 1992, KUBRA provided outsourced printing and mailing services. Today we operate four state-of-the-art print facilities across North America. Our facilities and technical development teams use advanced digital printing technology, quality control, and multiple print platforms to deliver unsurpassed document output solutions. A lot has changed in 30 years, but what hasn’t is our ability to streamline the document and postal process.

Digital Focus 

It may seem counterintuitive to talk about a digital focus when it comes to traditional print and mail, but it’s actually not. Even though the front end of this delivery channel may not be digital, it doesn’t mean the back-end tools can’t be digitized or cutting-edge. The right solution provider will continue to innovate and digitize processes wherever it makes sense.

Our Print and Mail Solution

KUBRA iMail offers a secure web-based portal to compose documents and monitor every step of document production from composition to delivery. Once you’ve created documents that maximize customer engagement, we turn those document templates, bills, statements, and invoices into personalized paper documents and mail them to your customers. When you outsource your printing and mailing services, you benefit from a team of highly trained professionals with expert industry knowledge allowing you to focus on your core business responsibilities.  

Here are some additional resources to check out if you want to learn more about how KUBRA iMail can meet your print and mail needs.

6 Ways KUBRA iMail Stands Out From Your Typical Print and Mail Solution (Blog)

4 Items Your Customers Value Most on Your Bill (Blog)