London Scottish Mortgages Case Study

Introduction

London Scottish Mortgages has a client base in excess of 5,000 and possesses a significant postal requirement, primarily for transactional mailings such as mortgage statements, as well as for its general customer communications advising of key changes and important updates. Previously, the business had been relying on a large print production facility in Salford to implement its various bulk mailings of finance documents.

However this was presenting its fair share of problems. At a cost of 50p per letter the system was proving to be uneconomical and inefficient, not to mention unreliable with frequent backlogs triggering prolonged delivery delays. To make a bad situation worse, a lack of data with which to reconcile the throughput of print jobs meant the business had limited control over its letter templates, rendering the application of changes to document design both complex and time-consuming.

The Solution

A secure solution was needed to streamline costs and speed up the mailing process and London Scottish Mortgages hit on imail as the answer. A first-timer to hybrid mail, the company instantly recognised the various benefits of such a solution and specifically imail’s superior benefits over other like products in the marketplace - namely its edge in terms of technology, cost and innovation. As imail is compliant with all Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards London Scottish Mortgages concerns regarding data security were allayed.

A simple Application Programming Interface (API) was installed on London Scottish Mortgages’ document composition server enabling its back office systems to be effectively integrated with imail to transfer data without any manual user intervention.  As each document is produced it is sent via https to the imail server with a copy being retained on the in-house server to maintain the company’s document archive.

The imail solution was tested in tandem with the existing system for a one week period, using large volumes of letters, with reliability and performance forming the key deciding criteria. No problems were encountered throughout the trial and installation and testing was completed within two weeks. The service went live at the beginning of January 2010 and has been operating successfully ever since.

Advantages

As a result of opting for the imail solution London Scottish Mortgages has enjoyed significant economy and efficiency improvements. In just five months the company has cut mailing costs by 36% using imail’s mono-printing option with the added advantage of dramatically reducing delivery delays. The new system ensures that all documents are printed and posted reliably and speedily on an ongoing basis. London Scottish Mortgages has also been delighted to receive regular reports via email providing status updates on their mail items with imail allowing detailed reconciliation back to the clients’ database. Wasteful and superfluous spending has also been slashed via imail’s slick postcode checking software which identifies and alerts users to defective postcodes thus reducing volumes of returned mail.

Crucially, the business is now able to implement document design changes with ease, efficiency and speed which is particularly helpful when it comes to satisfying new stipulations from the Office of Fair Trading. Booklets and information sheets are now automatically added to the required documents via a few simple clicks of the mouse whilst month end and annual statement runs are easily reconciled prior to the documents’ release for printing and postage.
“imail has delivered on its promise of providing a simple, fast and affordable online solution for the design and delivery of our bulk mailings. 

Not only have we experienced substantial costs savings as a result of our switch over to imail, we’re also benefiting from significantly higher service levels with mailings now going out in a timely and efficient manner.  Furthermore, we’re pleased to be doing our bit to safeguard the planet and reduce our print media’s carbon footprint by cutting the delivery mileage, and thus environmental impact, of sending a letter.”

Head of Technical Services, London Scottish Mortgages

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