This is especially true in working with customers who need to ensure that critical documents and communications continue to be distributed to their customers, partners, and constituents. In response, customers are accelerating projects focused on digitizing cumbersome, complicated workflows to avoid unnecessary physical contact, errors and expense associated with manual workflows.
For customers focused on mailing, packages and parcels, the first step is to consider a hybrid mail solution - something that combines the ability to digitize workflows and communications for customers who are set up to receiving them through digital channels, and optimize the production and delivery of physical communications for customers who prefer to receive a physical mail piece.
The distribution of these communications may even be outsourced, making it easy for customers who have not invested in an internal mail center to focus on their core business and consider the blend of traditional mail, hybrid mail or digital mail to reach their audience and adjust to their changing preferences and requirements.
Recently, we have seen customers adopting hybrid solutions in two segments that have not been compelled to find alternatives to reach their stakeholders - education and vote by mail applications. K-12 educators are challenged with producing and delivering informational and distant learning plans to students and parents, as over 9 million school aged children across the United States are currently lacking access to enabled devices or internet at home to enable online learning.
School boards are mandated and committed to serving all students, and they are faced with challenge of how to accommodate students who lack the necessary technology. Quadient has helped several schoolboards make an informed decision to implement hybrid communications - separating students into groups - those who have the ability to interact through online platforms, those who are able to able to receive digital communications via email, and those who need to receive physical copies of their learning plans.
As many school boards lack the infrastructure to effectively manage large scale mailing projects, new technology that enables them to outsource the printing and mailing processes in one step have made it possible for them to use mail to communicate with students, while optimizing mail production and deliver costs. For students who have access to high speed internet, communications can be defaulted to digital channels in order to reduce overall costs.
With over 76% of American voters being eligible to cast ballots by mail this Fall, it is no surprise that Vote by Mail applications are an important consideration for many states and districts as they get ready to manage the coming elections. With uncertainty surrounding how an election will be impacted by current world events, and voters looking for options on how they might cast a ballot, adding a hybrid options, including the ease of outsourcing production and mailing, has become an important channel for the delivery and the critical validation of ballot information contained in vote by mail packages.
The biggest challenges facing customers today are:
- The complexity of managing mail successfully while focusing on their core business, stakeholders and environmental challenges
- Understanding the options that are available to help innovate, solve their challenges and improve customers, partners and stakeholder communications
Recently, we introduced the Quadient Impress platform, which has opened up new doors for customers to bring together digital and physical channels in a more powerful way. Over the next few blog posts, will look at how customers are applying the power of this new platform to deal with the complexities behind their mailing operations, including the digitization of outbound communications.
