Opus Energy Case Study: Postal Saving Solution

LEICESTER, U.K. - Nov. 4, 2014 - PRLog -- Background

Opus Energy have been supplying energy to businesses since 2002, delivering outstanding levels of service to over 200,000 customers, while embracing renewable energy sources and providing competitive energy prices.

Opus Energy had been experiencing challenges with their mail being placed on a non-machineable tariff and a significant amount of their post was being reverted resulting in additional costs from Royal Mail. Opus Energy manages the composition of their mail but they were having issues controlling their address position and managing their long address lines.

Machineable letters are those mail pieces that meet the dimensional requirements of the Royal Mail machinable mail user guide. Machinable letters can easily be processed by Royal Mail equipment but a non-machineable letter requires additional processing within the delivery office. This extra processing incurred up to 30% more in postage costs for Opus Energy and had a significant knock on effect to the company’s bottom line.

Solution

Opus Trust Marketing offers client specific solutions which integrate seamlessly across multiple channels including print, post and electronic services. Recognising the challenges that our customers face managing postal costs we developed a web based solution to help Opus Energy to save both time and money. The development of a Data Services solution will help to secure the maximum discount from Royal Mail and mitigate the risk of postal surcharges. This solution has been developed so that it can be adapted to work for multiple customers.

Opus Trust Marketing produces mail that fits the strict Royal Mail user guidelines and translates the complexities into savings. We ensure that Opus Energy’s mail meet the machine-readable requirements to gain discounts for efficient processing.

In delivering these savings and efficiencies we perform a virtual “tap-test” to check the address position to confirm there are no issues. The “tap-test” is the method used to see if mail meets the regulation. The window has 1/8” clearance at all times safeguarding the address position.

Those mail pieces that do not meet the Royal Mail user guidelines are split out of any Mailsort file so that they are not reverted; allowing Opus Energy to make improvements to any mail pieces that had failed the test.

We provide Opus Energy with a secure portal for them to check detailed reports that highlight when records were received and why certain pieces did not attract the machineable mail discounts.

Our Account Management team work closely with Opus Energy ensuring they are supported with guidance through the process from start to finish.

Result

• Our Data Services solution has helped Opus Energy generate a saving of £54,000 for the period of July 2013 to August 2014.

• We have helped Opus Energy to fix their data and improve processes.

• Opus Energy have seen a reduction in call centre activity from customers chasing their latest bills and statements.

• Resources and funds could be used elsewhere because of the efficiencies made.

Additional Benefits

• We regularly review our clients’ documents to ensure they are being delivered through the most cost effective service

• One single point of contact ensures reduced administration costs for our customer.

• We work closely with the industry and provide access to latest postal information and changes in the market that will impact on standards and changes in the market that will impact on standards and costs.