MAILROOM PROCESSING
When looking at efficiency, most modern organizations have already solved the issues surrounding their structured operational data, by implementing CRM, ERP, Accounts, and other lines of business systems. However according to Gartner, up to 80% of business data, transactions and records are in an unstructured format – paper, fax, e-mail, office documents, etc – and nowhere is this more prominent than within your mailroom.
If a business wants to significantly reduce costs and in the same stroke become highly efficient, then the Mailroom process is the place to start.
Challenge
SALIX had been working with a law firm to provide recommendations for improving their current mailroom operations. Following an initial assessment of their processes, SALIX had identified that the client had legal assistants scanning their documents, making for an expensive, time-consuming process that was highly prone to critical deadlines not being met.
In addition, this process made it difficult for the client to act on urgent items that came from the daily mail in a timely manner. Furthermore, the current process did not allow for the Legal Assistant to be able to prioritize their time on the most time-sensitive items, as they were stuck having to scan at copiers for hours a day.
Due to the manual nature of the client’s processes, management did not have the ability to see how many items are being processed by each resource within the organization. With no process benchmarks or expectations, reporting on timeliness, quality, or costs associated with the mailroom function was unfeasible, making the entire process opaque.
Solution
SALIX’s workflow team spent an afternoon with the firm’s management to learn their processes, identify bottlenecks, and discuss inefficiencies with the individuals that were processing the daily volumes. Based on their feedback, SALIX developed a prototype workflow solution that would allow for the removal of redundant data entry, transparency of where each item existed in the workflow, notifications if the service levels were at risk of not being met, and a dashboard for leadership to be able to review real-time results.
The demo showcased how SALIX would use capture software to scan and digitize large stacks of mail and utilize automation by leveraging OCR and Document Classification to automatically identify then route mail to the appropriate person within the firm.
Furthermore, any mail that required special handling by a legal assistant within the client’s firm would automatically be routed to the person due to the logic integrated in the mailroom workflow solution that determines where each piece of mail should be routed to. Urgent mail that required timely processing would have reminders attached to it that would increase in frequency or in some cases, be escalated if critical mail was not processed quickly.