Case Study: Chevin Housing Group
Summary:
Automating the mailing process has put an end to superfluous spending at this housing group and eliminated labour-intensive tasks such as printing, envelope stuffing, franking and posting.
Introduction:
The Chevin Housing Group provides affordable housing for rent and sale throughout Yorkshire and Humberside. It manages around 6,000 homes in addition to 1,650 leasehold homes, including 750 private sector flats. The group's vision is to create better lives for individuals and communities. Besides managing, maintaining and developing homes, it also provides regeneration services. This entails working in partnership with local people to enable them to play a proactive role in the future of their neighbourhood.
The housing group carries out frequent bulk mailings to its tenants and employees, issuing anything from rent arrears notices to staff newsletters and invitations. These mailings used to be conducted in-house, but temporary labour was often needed to help with time-consuming manual mail merges.
As a public sector organisation, Chevin is required to minimise outgoings. Physical mail communications with tenants and staff is essential, so email campaigns were out of the question. The dilemma was to find an economical solution to deliver mailings to the doorstep. And imail provided the answer.
The solution:
As an electronic-to-physical mail solution, imail is accessed online via a simple browser and allows Chevin to issue direct mail pieces to tenants and staff throughout the Yorkshire and Humber region. The group can also upload its own logos and artwork, producing improved communications via increased engagement and branding exposure.
imail offers a wide range of mail media, from letters to mailshots. The Chevin Housing Group opted for imail's Postcards service to send out event invites to staff and resident panel members. Chevin can create, customise and send full-colour A5 postcards in-house from a computer in a matter of seconds. It uploads its own artwork via the web browser and the postcards are produced using quality 300gsm paper, for vibrant colours and a high gloss finish. Chevin Housing Group now also uses imail's Letters service for its communications.
Benefits:
The switchover from a manual mail merge system has resulted in improved efficiency and significant cost savings amounting to 55%. The automation of the mailing process has eliminated the need for temporary staff to carry out labour-intensive tasks such as printing, envelope stuffing, franking, posting and purchasing stationery. Cost and time savings are the combined result.
Furthermore, Chevin has been reaping the benefits of imail's flexibility. The system is not only fast and simple to use; it is also instantly accessible online from anywhere, enabling even mobile employees to implement bulk mailings for next-day delivery from home.
In a wider context, by helping housing associations like Chevin and the public sector as a whole, imail also supports the objectives of the Spending Review to realise the requisite cost savings of over 20%.
About imail:
imail was launched in 2008 by UK Mail as the only alternative to the first class postal service. It enables users to send letters and postcards with just a click of the mouse from as late as 3pm for next-day delivery, or 6pm for two-day delivery. The mail documents are sent electronically to the UK Mail sorting centre closest to the destination, where they are printed, enveloped and sorted for onward delivery.
imail is ideal for all sizes of business, from SMEs to large corporations, offering a dynamic desktop-to-delivery service at a keystroke that provides a host of cost, time and environmental benefits.
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