Saving time and money without sacrificing quality is a factor that many businesses aim to achieve. But cutting costs doesn’t necessarily mean quality standards have to decrease as well, in fact the opposite is true. Indeed, cost cutting and quality control are considerations relevant to all departments, from production and operations to business administration.
When it comes to the administration side of things, one of the most practical ways to save money is by assessing how your mail is packaged and posted.
As such, if you already use a franking machine then it is good to know that there are further ways in which you can cut the cost of your postage, whilst improving customer communication at the same time. Cost cutting doesn’t mean you should stop using mail altogether – this is actually one of the best means of communicating with customers and is crucial in achieving repeat business. What’s more, it is also an extremely effective means of attracting and sustaining a new customer base.
You may or may not be familiar with the different sizes of envelopes that you can post your letters in. But the smallest size used for business post is usually DL; C5 is the next size up, whilst the larger C4 holds an unfolded A4 sheet.
It is important to understand that Royal Mail charge postage depending on the weight of items, as well as the size of the envelope used; smaller envelopes benefit from lower postage costs. An easy cost cutting tip is to simply fold your letters, enabling them to fit into smaller envelopes and thus reducing overall costs. Folding down from large letter format mail can result in Royal Mail charging 15p less per item of postage – if you consider the quantity of mail you may send, this may mean large savings.
Of course, this is all very well if you don’t send large volumes of letters and have enough time to fold what you do send, but any more than a few letters every day and you could find the task time consuming and tedious. For this very reason you can use products such as folder inserters to improve the efficiency of your mail preparation.
Common documents such as bills, invoices or statements can be easily handled. In addition, you can use advanced options for customised communications which in turn boosts customer loyalty and improves overall communication.
There are several different models of folding inserting systems that you can choose from depending on your requirements. There are models compact enough to fit in a home or small office, and machines large enough to cope with large mailings every day. Smaller machines can generally cope with around 4,000 pieces of mail per month, whilst larger machines are capable of handling much larger quantities.
When you have diverse products such as folder inserters [http://www.pitneybowes.co.uk/Mail-Management/Outgoing-Mail-Management/Inserting-Systems/inserting-systems.htm] available for your business needs, there really is no reason for communication not to be improved, whilst freeing up your finances at the same time.