Small business resources are designed to provide small business owners and solopreneurs new ways to drive down costs and improve productivity. Here’s a great article from Sarah Carr, President of Earth Class Mail. It’s that easy to outsource your mail room? Who knew.
By Sarah G. Carr, president and CEO of Earth Class Mail
Sarah Carr, President Earth Class Mail
Small and medium sized-businesses often struggle with managing profitability and growth. It is not easy to manage one’s operations. Every small business owner needs to balance ongoing recurring activities associated with running the business and delivering quality products and services. That drives customer loyalty and revenues long term.
Most small business owners or solopreneurs have to take time out of their busy day to:
- Check the postal mail
- Go to the bank to deposit checks or
- Route legal documents to coworkers
These can seem like distractions to the entrepreneur, yet managing inbound postal mail is essential to running the successful business.
There is an easy way to manage one’s inbound postal mail. With Earth Class Mail, the small business has the ability to leverage the power of a fully supported virtual mail room.
This is a huge benefit to a wide range of companies from service-based businesses, such as law firms, or import-export firms. Rental agencies which often collect payments in the form of monthly checks by postal mail also greatly benefit. Let me explain.
Online mail management services, from Earth Class Mail, provide business owners with a “digital solution” to inbound mail delivered from the United States Postal Service. Here’s how it works:
- A business picks out a new mailing address (or addresses) and notifies its senders of its new address.
- As mail comes in to its secure processing facility, Earth Class Mail scans it and sends you an image of each new envelop or parcel – keeping the hard copy sealed and secure.
- You (or one of your managers or business associates) logs in from anywhere in the world. Next they can quickly issue commands to direct the handling of each piece of mail. This includes “open and view mail”, “deposit check”,” scan document”, “send to John Doe”, “shred and recycle the mail”, or “send me the original document”. You sit back and let Earth Class Mail do the work.
It is just that easy. You can handle large volumes of mail with a Web-based service that offers a simple and intuitive user interface. With just one click of a mouse it is possible to accomplish numerous activities.
Earth Class Mail services are especially useful for businesses who may be operating from several locations or who need to divert some of their mail to a third party. Tenant rent checks that need to be deposited or client invoices that need to be forwarded to a bookkeeper are examples of two business situations that benefit greatly from our service.
Earth Class Mail is committed to helping businesses save and money, and take the hassle of out of organizing mail. We have found a majority of mail sent to businesses is recycled, very similar to how you discard items directly from your mailbox into a recycle bin. Remaining mail is then shipped to the business or Earth Class Mail will store it for businesses – eliminating the need for the business to allocate additional space for mail storage.
Earth Class Mail helps these businesses streamline mailroom operations, cut costs, and at the same time reduce the risk of fraud or embezzlement.
As an example consider Mission Property Group. They are a real estate investment and management firm that serves high-asset investors. As part of its service, the company documents every single transaction, whether it’s a phone call, an e-mail, a check or an invoice.
This kind of security could quickly grow cumbersome and paper-intensive. But Mission Property Group runs a lean, efficient operation. The services delivered by Earth Class Mail are a crucial part of the picture.
In this Internet-powered postal-mail management system, all of Mission Property Group’s postal mail goes to an Earth Class Mail address. At that location, Earth Class Mail scans and tracks the incoming mail, including checks and check envelopes.
Access to these images is provided online. Mission Property Group’s staff can deal with the mail anytime they want since it is available 24/7. By utilizing reporting features that allow them to see what has been received and what checks have been deposited, they enjoy ultimate convenience.
The reports Earth Class Mail provides also enable them to manage cost, as well as experience an improved level of efficiency, control and security.
Businesses with staff members who travel frequently or who are based in remote offices can also benefit greatly from Earth Class Mail’s services. For staff on the go, physical mail can be particularly troublesome.
Timeliness is so important, but mail may languish at a specific address until it can be forwarded. For small, nimble companies it may not be possible to have the right person in the right place to deal with inbound mail in a timely manner.
Instead, companies can designate one of the many P.O. Boxes or street addresses Earth Class Mail provides for their inbound postal mail. Once the mail is scanned, a company staffer can deal with it from anywhere in the world.
Multiple staffers can log in daily to decide how to handle different kinds of mail. Items can be shredded, while others forwarded. The service functions as a virtual mailroom, document repository and centralized electronic filing system, providing a company with control worldwide.
As more small businesses operate virtually with staff who telecommute or who are dispatched to various corners of the world—or for any business requiring simplicity and efficiency—the virtual mail room is not only practical, but necessary.
This model provides easy access to, and control of, your company’s inbound postal mail. As with your online business presence, it is available 24/7 no matter where you are. And that’s smart business.
To learn more about Earth Class Mail, visit http://www.earthclassmail.com/
Sarah Carr is the president and CEO of Earth Class Mail. Her 20-plus years of leadership experience with top-ranked national and international financial and business services firms include Bowne Global Solutions, The Thomson Corporation, Citibank, Shearson Lehman Hutton, Simon & Schuster and Deloitte.
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