High-volume mailers have long relied on a range of software tools to lower postage costs, to speed delivery of customer messages and to improve the efficiency of print/mail finishing operations.

But one of the most versatile and widely used of these software tools is also one of the most underutilized. And scores of high-volume mailers are overlooking "an easy opportunity to improve a wide range of customer communications activities," says Steve Biancaniello, Vice President of Professional Services for Prinova Technologies, one of the world's leading document engineering and application development firms.

The software in question is called StreamWeaver and it is provided by Pitney Bowes. It is also widely regarded as the industry's premier print stream engineering tool, used extensively in Fortune 1000 companies throughout North America.

As a result, "these companies avoid the cost or delay involved in rewriting or reprogramming business applications at the mainframe or midrange platforms and can modify the output from third party composition software products," says Biancaniello, whose firm serves organizations in both the U.S. and Canada.

In fact, hundreds of companies already use StreamWeaver to:

• Enable intelligent inserting by adding or changing finishing control barcodes.
• Maximize the effectiveness of software used for address cleansing and presorting.
• Consolidate into one envelope multiple documents that are intended for the same recipient.
• Customize documents and mailings for highly personalized messaging and 1-to-1-target marketing.

"These fundamental capabilities are impressive," he continues. "But too many managers limit their use of StreamWeaver to the outgoing messaging process, such as monthly statements or bills and direct marketing appeals. And they ignore what StreamWeaver can do for key internal business processes and the entire customer messaging effort."

By way of example, Biancaniello points to how just one of his clients – a major U.S. financial institution that processes more almost 50 million credit card statements and over five million customer letters a month – employs StreamWeaver to automate five key aspects of its consumer lending and related customer messaging activities.

Processing Credit Card Applications
"This company receives more than 15,000 credit card applications each day," he explains. "Previously, clerks manually scanned each application to create a digital TIFF image, which they then forwarded to various departments for processing and approval."

The problem? The clerks were hard pressed to keep up with the volume of work and often routed the digital TIFF images to the wrong department. Retrieving and forwarding the applications to the proper department was cumbersome and caused needless delays in processing and approval.

The solution? Prinova used StreamWeaver to imbed the digital TIFF images into an AFP print file, which was then sorted, grouped by department and routed automatically to the proper destination.

Additionally, Prinova used the tool to add barcodes and indexing controls, so the documents in the print stream could be easily accessed using an archiving tool. This enabled call center representatives to respond quickly and fully to inquiries from customers concerning the status of the application.

The tool also enabled the client to create audit reports, which allowed accurate tracking of the application data from inception through printing, and reprint indices, which enabled the firm to generate exact duplicates of the documents if necessary from a short-term archive.

Gathering Additional Data from Customers
But approximately 30 percent of those credit card applications, or about 5,000 applications a day, are incomplete and need additional data for approval. "They needed to get the missing information as quickly as possible," he continues, "so we decided to send a personalized letter to each of the affected applicants, along with a copy of a new form that was custom-designed to solicit just the precise data needed for credit approval."

To facilitate the messaging processing, Prinova used StreamWeaver to commingle the personalized letters with the newly created forms and then enclosed both in a single envelope. They also used the tool to minimize postage costs by accessing Finalist for address cleansing and correction and Mailer's Choice for postal presorting and assured prompt delivery. Both software packages are provided by Pitney Bowes.

Collecting Past Due Accounts
Once credit is approved and extended, collecting any money owed becomes the primary activity. And with more than 20 percent of the firm's credit card accounts falling past due each month, the key strategy is to maintain contact with the credit card holders, both as a way to encourage prompt payment and to identify any potential non-payment problems as early as possible in the collection cycle.

"Usually, these payments are just late," explains Biancaniello. "But occasionally they lapse into seriously overdue situations."

Accounts with missed payments automatically trigger a series of collection messages, ranging from gentle reminders that are included on the monthly statement, to stand-alone letters that are increasingly more serious in tone and appearance.

Occasionally, the collection process calls for the use of both statements and letters. Prinova stepped in again with StreamWeaver and provided the firm with the ability to combine the related messages -- as well as collection notices from other accounts held by the consumer -- to reduce postage costs and heighten the impact of the combined collection message.

"StreamWeaver enabled the consolidation of the various collection messages into a single envelope, and also provided access to software for address cleansing and correction as well as postal presorting to help assure prompt and accurate delivery," he says.

The solution also included full integrity controls, so the collection messages could be integrated and merged with messages generated at any time by any other unit or division within the firm.

Sending Customized Messages to Multiple Recipients
Bankruptcy claims provided another opportunity for StreamWeaver to improve the performance of a business process. "The firm regularly purchases bankruptcy claims at a deep discount from creditors who want money now rather than the cost, delay and uncertainty of lengthy court proceedings," explains Biancaniello.

But before the firm can begin its automated debt collection effort, it must first alert all involved -- i.e., the original creditor, the debtor and the bankruptcy court -- that it acquired the debt and intends to collect it. This alert was accomplished via a special notification document sent to all three parties.

To simplify the process, the client utilized a document composition software tool to create a single legal size copy of the notification form, and then Prinova employed StreamWeaver to automatically create and dispatch the additional copies needed by the other recipients.

Since bankruptcy notification requirements also vary by state, another key to the solution was the tool's unique capability to look-up an external table file -- one that contained a listing of the varying notification requirements by state -- and assure that the proper correspondence was automatically prepared according to the requirements of each jurisdiction.

"We also used StreamWeaver to apply integrity marks to assure accurate processing and full tracking of the forms from original creation through printing and inserting," he points out.

Finally, the tool sorted the forms into groups, passed the data through software for address cleansing and postal presorting, and prepared detailed audit reports. Plus, the automated solution also included a reprint capability in the event the documents were damaged in processing.

Responding to Customer Requests
"Credit card holders also occasionally need a copy of an earlier statement for tax or other purposes," adds Biancaniello, "but handling these requests manually is cumbersome, costly and time consuming for any organization."

To accelerate and simplify the process, Prinova employed StreamWeaver in combination with archiving software. As a result, call center representatives can now access the archived account statements easily and respond to the customer requests quickly.

"Once the statements are located, StreamWeaver deletes any existing integrity marks, applies new ones, merges the statements with a customized cover letter, and passes the data through address cleansing and postal presorting software," he explains.

Finally, the tool assures that the data from the new print stream is archived back into the original customer data repository by adding indices for both short-term and long-term archiving.

As for results, Biancaniello says the savings from the five automated applications exceed $500,000 a year in postage and labor costs. Plus, the firm has achieved dramatic improvements in both cycle time and quality.

For example, the bankruptcy notification procedure previously used by the firm required five to ten temporary employees -- each working up to ten hours a day for three days a week -- to process a daily work load of approximately 1,500 specialized documents.

Adding to the burden was an annual turnover rate among the temporary workers of nearly 100 percent. This necessitated a substantial and ongoing investment of time and money in training new personnel and made it extremely difficult to eliminate human errors.

"This same application is now fully automated and a week's worth of manual processing is completed in just about an hour," reports Biancaniello.

"The entire application -- from initial document composition to drop-off with the postal service -- is now completed in just one day."