Sending out member documents costs way too much money.
But what if it didn’t have to?
What if you could cut down a significant portion of your monthly bill?
What if saving money wasn’t the only benefit?
There’s an easy way to save money on the member documents that your credit union sends out every month. In this blog, we’ll look at how you can cut down on costs while improving your member communication strategy.
Notice This Bold Statement
The simplest way to save money on your credit union member documents is to outsource them to a third-party vendor.
Why, you ask?
Well, it may sound counterintuitive. After all, bringing on a third-party vendor to handle member documents is an additional cost.
No matter what shady marketers will have you believe, you can’t usually save money by buying something.
Unless that something is credit union member statements.
Unfortunately, you can’t just decide not to send mail—it’s the law. And you can’t force people to sign up for eStatements and eNotices, because not everyone has reliable access to a computer.
That’s why credit unions have to find more creative ways to save money on member documents: they must be sent. There’s no escaping them.
How Vendors Save Your Credit Union Money on Member Documents
There are several ways that a vendor can help your credit union cut costs.
First of all, when we talk about member documents, we’re talking about mailers that members need in order to see and understand their finances.
These member documents include things like:
- Notices
- Statements
- Letters
- Tax forms
- Loan coupons
- And more
Most of those documents must be sent—there’s a regulatory precedent. Plus, your members need them.
But how can hiring a third-party vendor actually save you money?
Let Me Count the Ways…
1. Postage
It’s not a secret that postage is one of the most expensive parts about mailing member documents.
Document and statement vendors get the lowest bulk rates available. They pass those bulk savings onto credit unions.
Why?
It keeps them competitive!
2. Hard Materials
Credit unions also spend a lot of money on paper, toner, and envelopes.
Although document vendors don’t necessarily have a secret method of paying less for these materials, they find other ways of reducing costs.
For example, through savvy document redesign, vendors are able to merge multiple notices into a single comprehensive document. They can also create more efficient statement layouts that save on paper—some statements can also do double duty as marketing materials!
3. eNotice and eStatement Adoption
Electronic documents are the best way to save money on sending member documents.
However, it can take considerable effort to encourage eNotice and eStatement adoption. Vendors do their best to convert credit union members over to electronic documents.
4. Better Stuffing
No, not like Thanksgiving—although some third parties (like XDI) can certainly cook up a mean chili. No, we’re talking about document stuffing.
Vendors are good about packing multiple documents into one envelope.
Smarter document stuffing cuts down on the volume of envelopes needed.
And, because vendors typically design their documents to more efficiently utilize space—which cuts down on the number of pages needed for various documents—vendors can fit more documents into envelopes without worrying about postage increases.
5. Staffing
Normally, document design and delivery is handled internally. This requires a lot of staff hours dedicated to mailing statements, notices, and so on.
Third parties save money by streamlining the process. They have all the tools, equipment, know-how, and experience to do it quickly. It usually takes them only a portion of the time that it would take for an internal document team.
6. Increased Efficiency
This one is more of a hodge-podge for the other benefits.
Here are a few examples of what vendors can bring to the table in terms of efficiency:
• Automatically resolve data input overflow conditions
• Proactively recognize and halt duplicate files
• Selectively suppress documents based on client rules
• Protect critical member information
• Fully integrate print mail and eDocument member services
• Send customized document production event alerts
Of course, that’s not an exhaustive list.
However, we’re exhausted!
Additional Resources for Credit Unions
Most people don’t particularly care for putting together statements or optimizing the design of financial notices. However, there are a few dedicated people who live and breathe in that arena. These companies can help with more than just statements. Sometimes, bundling services from these vendors can help a credit union save money in more than one area.
After all, statements aren’t the only area where credit unions can cut costs or increase efficiency. Follow the links below to see what other services credit unions can outsource—and why they might want to.