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Tip of the week (May 11, 2011)

Posted by Elizabeth Lombard on May 11, 2011 in Mail

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TIP #3: Use your Pitney Bowes Mailing System or Shipping Solution to Gain Delivery Information and Help You Save Money!

Hello again!

Customers in my Mail Management Seminars tell me that their biggest mail/shipping center objective or initiative is to mitigate mailing and shipping costs while maintaining efficiency, including the ability to track and/or know that their packages have been delivered. To that end, many are changing the way in which they use USPS Extra Services and also are moving some packages from other expedited and ground carrier services to the USPS.

To accomplish this, the USPS® offers many services that can confirm delivery of letters/flats and packages and so Pitney Bowes customers are using a number of our solutions to process their mailpieces with Delivery Confirmation™, Signature Confirmation™, and e-Return Receipt ~ at the reduced “electronic” prices.

For example, you might consider some of these mailer best practices to gain delivery information of your packages while minimizing costs.

If you simply need proof of delivery, instead of using Certified Mail™ (the fee alone is $2.85), you could use electronic Delivery Confirmation™ and save up to 27%. The “math” works like this… Postage for a 1 oz. letter is 44¢. Add the Certified Mail fee and your total is $3.29. Whereas, if you were to put those documents into a “parcel” type container, you’d be able to use electronic Delivery Confirmation and reduce your postage spend. On most PB meters, the current postage for a First-Class Mail® parcel is $1.56 (that’s the 1-3 oz. Commercial Base single-piece price). Add the electronic Delivery Confirmation fee of only 19¢, and take on a few extra cents for the cost of a “parcel” type container (as that may be a bit more than the cost of a #10 envelope), and you’ve got a savings of almost a dollar per piece.

Or, if you needed proof of delivery with a signature, instead of Certified Mail with a Return Receipt, you may want to choose Signature Confirmation™ and save up to 24%. Postage for a one-ounce letter plus the Certified Mail fee and the “green card” return receipt fee ($2.30) is $5.59. But if you were to put those documents in a parcel-type container and use electronic Signature Confirmation ($2.05), you could save more than $1.00 again per piece!

Some of my customers say that in using Delivery and Signature Confirmation on parcel-type containers, there is a bit more visibility of that piece, i.e, the package jumps out from that pile of mail! They also say that using First-Class Mail parcels and Priority Mail® with Delivery and Signature Confirmation instead of some next-day or second day/ground services of other carriers, their carrier expenditures have been greatly reduced, as the USPS doesn’t add on all those assessorial charges.

If requirements within your business or organization do require the use of Certified Mail and Return Receipt, you might consider using the electronic option of Return Receipt. The fee is only $1.15 as compared to the “green card” fee of $2.30, and in addition to hard dollar savings, you gain efficiency in not having to fill out the forms, and also in the ability to manage the signature files electronically rather than manually!

As always, I welcome your comments on this topic, such as your success stories in leveraging USPS classes of mail and Extra Services to manage costs.

If you have questions or concerns regarding your equipment, please go to www.pb.com/ratechange to find out more or to contact us.

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21 Responses to “Tip of the week (May 11, 2011)”

  1. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Hi Connie,
    I apologie for the delay in my responses. I was required to travel this weekend and have been in meetings since then… Please see my responses to the individual questions as applicable.
    Thank you.

  2. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Hi Linda… that’s a great question!

    For Priority Mail, the packaging can be of any type or shape, as Delivery and Signature Confirmation are available for any Priority Mail pacakge. Whereas, for FIRST-CLASS MAIL, the mailpiece MUST be a parcel-type container. What I mean by that is that the piece cannot qualify as a letter, nor as a flat.

    A “letter” is a mailpiece no greater than 6 1/8 x 11 1/2 x 1/4″ and generally weigh no more than 3.5 oz.
    A “flat” is a mailpiece no greater than 12 x 15 x 3/4″ AND the piece must be flexible, uniform in thickness and rectangular. For First-Class, the “flat” cannot weigh more than 13 oz.

    So, if you had a First-Class Mail mailpiece that was 5 x 10 x 1/2″, you’d think it would be a “flat” because it is too thick to be a “letter”. However, if that mailpiece was rigid, then it would be considered a parcel, and you’d be able to use DelCon SigCon!

    Thank for your question. Are you considering the use of Delivery or Signature Confirmation for your Priority Mail or First-Class Mail?

    Kind regards,
    Elizabeth

  3. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Peter,
    Thanks for your question!
    Because the fees and functionalities programmed into our meters vary, you can get a direct response to your customer support questions or issues, by please clicking to our Customer Forum at http://forums.pb.com/ptnb/

    Are you considering the use of Delivery and/or Signature Confirmation? IF so, for what type(s) of mailing applications? Small/lightweight merchandise? Correspondance (to reduce carrier fees)? Thanks so much (in advance!) for sharing!

    Elizabeth

  4. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Hi Kristie,

    Thanks so much for the question regarding “walking you through the process”. I think you perhaps mean that of using electronically-filed Certified Mail and electronic Return Receipt.

    I local rep could explain with illustrations a bit more effectively, but let me give this a shot, and if you’re interested, and want to meet with a PB rep to further discuss, let me know.

    There a many way and solutions to process electronically-filed Certified Mail and electronic Return Receipt.~ matching the solution/process depends on your unique applications and business needs. BUT…. through a PB meter, it might go like this:

    When your metering solution is enabled with the functionality to do electronically-filed Certified Mail and electronic Return Receipt, you are provided a set of Certified Mail labels. They are unique and different than that of the Post Office Certified Mail labels.

    When processing a First-Class Mail letter, you’d select Certified Mail within the control panel of your meter. You’ll be prompted to enter the tracking number of that label (or, you can use a scanner to scan that barcode) and also the ZIP Code of the mailpiece’s destination. (You’d apply that Certified Mail label then to your envelope.)
    You’ll also select electronic Return Receipt from the control panel. (There is NO green card to fill out!)

    The fees are added to the postage and you meter your mailpiece or print a tape strip.

    At the end of the day, or when you’ve done a bunch of transactions on your meter, you’ll be prompted to upload data from your meter to the USPS. It’s a seamless and simple process…. not real different than doing a postage refill!

    Unless you need to get a round-stamp to prove delivery, you can simply mail that mailpiece along with your other mail.

    When the letter carrier delivers your mailpiece, he/she will capture the recipient’s signature on a peach form and then the delivery information, along with the signature is scanned and placed on a document ~ which is then available to you in PDF>

    To gain delivery information and that signature file, you can either go to usps.com, or to MyAccount on pb.com. By using our site, you don’t need to enter the barcode numbers. You can scan by date… or if you also use a reference number (an option you can add to the meter), you can search using a reference number, such as a patient or customer number that makes sense to you!

    The signature files are sent from the USPS to My Account on a weekly basis… and you simply need to download and save what you need.

    What you gain, in addition to the reduced eRR fee, is efficiency in not filling out green cards, nor having to manage all those files manually.

    I hope this helps a little! If you would like to speak to a rep and don’t know his/her phone number, you can call 800-322-8000.
    If you have more general questions, please let me know. (I am in training all this week, so I apologize, but my responses won’t come until later each evening this week…).

    Kind regards,
    Elizabeth

  5. Gregg@PB

    16. May, 2011

    I would like to suggest to those who don’t feel like they had all of their specific questions answered, especially those who might have detailed equipment questions, to please go to our Customer Forums page and you will be able to better resolve your questions/issues there… http://forums.pb.com/ptnb/

  6. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Hi Becky!

    Thanks so very much for the question… and I apologize for the delay in my response. I have been traveling and in meetings (on business) over the weekend.

    I think that when you say “proof of delivery”, you’re referring to Delivery Confirmation, rather than Certified Mail and Return Receipt which i have described in another response just moments ago.

    So…. for Delivery or Signature Confirmation, IF the mailpiece is First-Class, please keep in mind, it must be a parcel (also described in a previous response). If Priority Mail, then it can be any shape.

    Assuming you’d like to process these piece through your meter (you can do this through our shipping solutions as well)…. when your metering solution is enabled with the functionality to do electronic DelCon or SigCon, you are provided a set of labels. They are unique and different than that of the Post Office labels.

    When processing a First-Class Mail “parcel”, you’d select electronic Delivery or Signature Confirmation within the control panel of your meter. You’ll be prompted to enter the tracking number of that label (or, you can use a scanner to scan that barcode) and also the ZIP Code of the mailpiece’s destination. (You’d apply that label then to your mailpiece.)

    The fees are added to the postage and you meter your mailpiece or probably, because it’s a parcel, print a tape strip.

    At the end of the day, or when you’ve done a bunch of transactions on your meter, you’ll be prompted to upload data from your meter to the USPS. It’s a seamless and simple process…. not real different than doing a postage refill!

    You can mail that mailpiece along with your other mail.

    When the letter carrier delivers your mailpiece, he/she will capture the recipient’s signature on a peach form and then the delivery information, along with the signature is scanned and placed on a document ~ which is then available to you in PDF. OR, if it is Delivery Confirmation, he/she will just capture delivery data (time/date) but no signature.

    To gain delivery information (and that signature file if using Signature Confirmation), you can either go to usps.com, or to MyAccount on pb.com. By using our site, you don’t need to enter the barcode numbers. You can see all transactions or select by a date range.

    You can access the signature file for SigCon on usps.com or My Account on pb.com.

    If you’re interested, you may want to talk in-person with your local PB rep.

    Thanks so much!
    Elizabeth

  7. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Hi Tom!

    Great questions! Thank you!

    Q: “Are the parcel type container that’s mentioned the Priority Envelopes?”
    A: Actually, I was referring to containers such as that that certain carton manufacturers create specifically for mailing documents as FIRST-CLASS MAIL “parcels”. There are many manufactures… you might want to google “confirmailer” or something like that. Your local rep can provide you more detail but i am not permitted to promote a specific manufacturer here.

    For PRIORITY MAIL, you certainly can use ANY of the free packaging that the USPS provides and then add Delivery or Signature Confirmation.

    Q: “How do I access the Delivery Confirmation service?”
    A: You can process Delivery Confirmation packages through your meter (if enabled with the functionality, such as our Connect+) or through a shipping solution (such as our SendSuite) or online postage solution (such as our pbSmartPostage).
    To gain delivery information, you’d either go to usps.com or depending on the PB solution, you’d go to My Account on pb.com.

    I’ve detailed out the process in a previous response, but if you have additional questions, let me know. (I am in training all this week, so my responses this week won’t come until the evening. I apolgize for that!)

    Kind regards,
    Elizabeth

  8. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Hi Brenda and Rose!
    Thanks so very much for the questions.

    I think I have hopefully responded to all of them now (I am so sorry about the delay. I was traveling on business over the weekend and am in now in training! No rest for the wicked as the saying goes!)

    Since this topic has generated a lot of interest, i would enjoy hearing what types of mailings/applications you’re considering perhaps shifting to Delivery and Signature Confirmation or electronic Certified/electronic RR.

    I look forward to hearing your thoughts! And if you have additional questions, i will be responding later each night.

    Thank you!
    Elizabeth

  9. Elizabeth

    16. May, 2011

    Hi Wendy!

    Yes, you’re correct, Certified Mail with Return Receipt can be very costly!

    In my previous responses, i’ve tried to outline what you need, e.g., if you want to use Delivery or Signature Confirmation on First-Class, then the piece must be a PARCEL.

    I have also mentioned that most of our PB mailing/meter solutions can be enabled to process electronic services as described. So upon review of this information, IF you have additional questions, or want more detailed information, please consider reaching out to your local PB rep.

    Thanks so much for posting on the blog and for sharing your application!

    Kind regards,
    Elizabeth

  10. ron

    17. May, 2011

    Regarding – May 11 tip of the week – silly question – what is a “parcel-type” container

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