For consumers, managing and properly storing important documents is a real challenge. Don’t make it worse by sending unnecessary envelopes to the same household or forcing customers to access documents via multiple interfaces.
 
Two solutions to consider for efficient document consolidation and management are householding and providing a unified online customer interface for e-presentment.
 
Householding
Companies know that mailed messages are highly effective engagement vehicles. But if you’re bombarding customers with unnecessary mail, the benefits of printed communications can evaporate.
 
Householding refers to the practice of combining several accounts into one consolidated statement or mailing separate documents for the same customer in a single envelope. Documents containing sensitive data such as health information can’t always be householded, and some communications need to be delivered as standalone pieces. But many ordinary business documents are prime candidates for a householding strategy.
 
The most obvious benefit to householding is the savings you’ll realize from printing and mailing fewer pieces. But other advantages should be considered.
 
In the case of financial information, for example, householding may deliver significant value. Individuals and married couples often hold several financial accounts administered by decentralized departments within a single financial institution. Pooling all their financial transactions and reports into a consolidated statement might suggest solutions that make more financial sense, such as target allocation, capital gains strategies, taxation, or estate planning. This holistic approach to household problem solving makes customer relations stickier and encourages clients to expand their business relationships.
 
Effective householding requires your databases be appropriately scrubbed and standardized. Statements and other documents can’t be combined or merged unless you can match name and address data. Once your company invokes householding, you will begin acquiring more data. You’ll be able to see household buying patterns or engagement histories with your brand. And don’t forget some demographic data, such as income, is usually collected by household. Your customer profiles and your ability to make judgements about offers can be refined by using household level data.
 
E-presentment
E-presentment is a well-designed system for making documents easily searchable and accessible on a customer portal, available online in HTML or PDF format. Few things annoy customers more than logging into a portal to access a document and giving up in frustration because the interface is confusing and the information is difficult to retrieve. Consolidating documents in a single interface erases this customer pain point.
 
An e-presentment platform extends your customer communications management program and gives customers instant and easy access to their documents, often going back several years. Access can extend to a consolidated view of their information and choosing whether they want HTML, PDF, or wish to order paper copies sent to them through the mail.
 
A sophisticated solution goes beyond the document repository function. It includes a variety or marketing opportunities, payment processing, email notification, and other services.
 
E-presentment provides seamless integration that ensures brand integrity and a common experience on a 24/7 basis. Customers can log in at their leisure and easily sort through the data and files they need. It also decreases the number of calls to customer service departments and reduces paper and postage costs.
 
Together, householding and e-presentment strategies help streamline communication and add value to the customer experience. Not every organization can implement these methods on its own. A great way of leveraging these solutions is to partner with a print service provider that takes an integrated and comprehensive approach to your entire customer communications environment. Talk to the Lanvera experts. We can help you consolidate your customer documents and enrich the customer experience.

In an effort to meet the demands of digital-first customers, reduce expenses and improve efficiencies, Bank of America has recently opened three completely automated branches in Colorado and Minnesota. These branches include ATMs, as well as video conferences with employees from other branches, according to Bank of America Spokeswoman, Anne Pace.
 
“We are literally automating every single thing,” said Dean Athanasia, co-head of consumer banking. “Paper handling in the middle office, we want to take out. We want to streamline the transactions from front to back office – make it completely seamless – and that goes to auto loans, mortgage, credit cards, deposits.”
 
The banking conglomerate’s move toward a more automated, self-service model is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creating a more streamlined, cost-effective and digital-first customer experience; and it is the exact path most other financial institutions are following. This will provide most financial institutions with a more cost-effective way of serving customers.

What does this mean for your business?
​1.Personalization is Key
62% of millennials report that brand engagement is more likely to make them a loyal customer, according to USC Dornsife. Because the actual in-person element is being eliminated, it is important to consider that each of your customers wants to feel special- which means that blanket messaging will no longer cut it if you want your business to be successful. Instead, customers want an experience that is unique to their individual preferences. The transition to more hi-tech, less touch strategies will force financial institutions to personalize all communications, including electronic and print customer documents. If your documents are consistently formatted and optimized for readability, easily accessible through any platform or channel and personalized to individuals instead of your customer base as a collective group, you will create the memorable and engaging experience customers crave.
 
2.Your Vendor Relationships Matter
According to Biztech, when you choose the right document services vendor, your organization can save up to 30% annually. When it comes to user-friendly digital applications, the best defense is a great offense. Be sure to align yourself with a document services vendor that has a digital roadmap and is heavily invested in technology that can help you address your customers’ digital demands.

Interested in learning how Lanvera can help guide your customer communications in today’s digitally driven world? Contact us today.

We all know marketing communications are going digital. In the rush to embrace new technology, marketers have ignored other, more traditional means of reaching audiences. Transactional documents are one of those channels marketers often overlook. These are important touch points and not leveraging their potential is a missed opportunity.
 
Thankfully, that’s changing. In recent years transactional documents have revived as effective marketing tools. Driven by new data analysis technology, marketers are leveraging communications via transactional documents to create meaningful customer interactions. Often referred to as transpromo – a combination of transaction and promotional content – documents such as financial statements, invoices, health or insurance statements, and others, are excellent vehicles to upsell, cross sell, and engage.
 
First, a few basics.

• Transactional documents can be deployed in print, electronically, or both.
• You can include a marketing message directly on the statement, such as a special offer or other promotion.
• You can incorporate action triggers that direct audiences to your website, a personalized URL, or other digital touch points.
• You can integrate other technologies into printed pieces, such as augmented reality and QR codes. If your document is in digital format, you can add active links and even videos.
• You can use transactional documents as a standalone delivery strategy or incorporate them into cross media campaigns that include several touch points.
• Transpromo isn’t just for marketing messages. Organizations are using the same techniques to deliver targeted informational and educational content to their customers via their regular monthly transactional documents.

 
The Benefits of Transpromo
During a time of email backlash, and messages on other platforms that often miss more than hit, transactional documents offer several advantages that make them standout marketing tools. Let’s look at some of them.

• Transactional documents get seen almost 100% of the time. Social media posts can be sporadic, and emails have a pallid open rate of about 20% or less. But transactional documents are opened nearly always because they contain information your audiences need to see. This is true of both online and printed documents.
• Consumers also keep transactional documents for longer periods so your message will receive extended viewing or repeat viewings.
• These documents feature a built-in trust factor that others lack. People may not enjoy receiving bills, but they trust banks, insurers, or other entities with whom they have business relationships with their private information. That trust extends to the promotional messages you include on the statements. No other platform delivers in this way.
• A transactional document delivers a double punch: the actual account information for the client and your message. That makes it an extremely cost-effective delivery mechanism. You’ll incur no extra print charges, no added mailing expenses, no inventory, and no extra paper to add transpromo content to your existing documents.
• With today’s production inkjet presses, you also get high-quality print that elevates your message with great color reproduction and total variability in one pass. You can print exactly what you need with no overruns and no need to stock pre-printed forms or inserts.
• With transpromo, you control targeting and personalization. You can make offers, or craft messages, based on any number of criteria, from shopping habits, to complaints received, to geographic location, age, and so on. The more data you collect, the more you can create messages that resonate with your audiences. This degree of personalization isn’t possible with pre-printed inserts stuffed into transactional document envelopes.
• Marketers sometimes criticize print because it doesn’t have the trackability of digital platforms. But when you integrate other technologies, such as links, QR codes, or PURLs, you can turn your printed document into a very trackable piece and use that information accordingly.

 
A key to triggering the benefits of transactional documents is the ability to mine and manipulate data. Today’s document outsource providers offer data assistance in addition to printing. Ask our experts how you can leverage the power of transactional documents by adding data-driven messaging to material you’re already sending to your customers.