The shift to a remote model of work has transformed a variety of traditionally manual processes. While COVID-19 was the driving force behind this new concept, it’s one that apparently isn’t going away. It has become clear that many employees prefer a remote or hybrid model, or at least some flexibility compared to the office-centric design of years past.
While some companies embrace this new model, others are having a harder time adapting. This could be due to a stingy supervisor, but more often is due to the fact that existing processes are disrupted by empty office buildings.
Take a mailroom for example. For a large company, it’s inevitable that traditional mail distribution will experience bottlenecks as a result of a remote model. There’s no two ways around it—if employees aren’t in the office, it’s going to take longer to route mail to them.
To make matters worse, if the remote model is a result of a pandemic like COVID-19, there are additional factors to consider such as risking exposure to a dangerous virus. If employees can’t come into the office–like we saw in 2020–routing mail becomes even more difficult and time consuming.
It was the economist and statistician Milton Friedman who reminded us that “only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change.” While many have entertained the idea of implementing a digital mailroom in the past, a crisis such as COVID-19 has shifted the focus and made efficient mail distribution a real priority.
Here’s a few reasons why a digital mailroom can improve your current processes, while future-proofing your mail distribution in the event of another unforeseen event.
Email Routing
Everyone loves vacation–nobody loves coming back to hundreds of unread emails. It’s a cause and effect relationship that doesn’t have to cause anxiety every time you submit a request.
Imagine having the ability to automatically sort and prioritize emails based on importance, while also routing documents to the proper personnel while you are aw ay. While you enjoy a Pina Colada on the beach, AI can route important emails to a cloud-based folder, so it’s not stuck in limbo until you return.
Efficiency & Speed
In a traditional mailroom, a clerk needs to be present to sort, process and route mail to the proper recipients. With a digital mailroom, incoming mail is scanned, organized and automatically routed to its destination.
This is done using a combination of OCR (optical character recognition) and ICR (intelligent character recognition) so that both machine print and handwritten correspondence can be processed. With employees working remotely more and more, digital mailrooms are becoming more of a necessity than a luxury.
Affordability & ROI
Digital mailrooms can integrate with virtually any input source, so there is no need for expensive new hardware. Additionally, an organization can increase workforce capacity without adding personnel.
How much could you save by automating your mailroom practices? Organizations can now have mail delivered instantaneously, where the same mail had to go through a two or three-day process in years past. It also allows staff to easily locate information that expedites routing, as data is indexed for simple search and retrieval.
Ready to make the switch? Contact Western Integrated Systems and our team will walk you through a variety of options and find a solution that best suits your mailroom needs.
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