What is mailroom management?

Mailroom management is the process of handling all incoming and outgoing mail, parcels and deliveries within an organisation. The disadvantage of traditional mailroom management is that it requires a lot of manual effort. By comparison, modern mailroom management offers more comfort for front desk and mailroom workers. It also offers additional advantages such as real-time visibility over incoming packages and shipments, automatic signing and storing, and contactless delivery and collection.

What is a mailroom management system?

There are three ways for companies to handle deliveries and receipts.

Manually

In its most basic form, everything is done manually, with tasks completed by front desk workers or back office workers.

Software-driven and cloud-based

A more modern system is software-driven and cloud-based (SaaS, software as a service). However, this still requires the assistance of front desk or mailroom workers.

Combination of software and hardware

In its most advanced form, mailroom management is a clever combination of software and hardware. The aim is for it to take over all the tasks of human receptionists and mailroom employees and to deliver all mailroom services automatically.

1. Staff

Companies that have not yet started implementing their digital transformation may still have employees working at the front desk or mailroom to receive and sign off for mail and parcels. These employees have to take care of incoming post and parcels, store these items and send a message to the recipients to communicate that they have been delivered. It is a time-consuming task.

2. SaaS solutions to support the reception staff

Incoming and outgoing mail and parcels can be tracked more efficiently by using cloud-based mailroom management software (SaaS, software as a service). This replaces time-consuming paperwork with electronic signatures but still requires an employee to deal with couriers and suppliers manually. The front desk or mailroom employee has to scan the incoming mail and parcels, store them securely and hand them over whenever the recipient picks up his delivery.

3. HaaS all-in-one solutions, staffed or unstaffed

Hardware As A Service solutions (HaaS) offer a clever combination of hardware and software to offer a modern and fully automated approach to business mailroom management. HaaS solutions integrate a smart parcel drop box to manage deliveries in companies. The smart parcel box scans deliveries, provides digital proof of delivery to the courier and notifies the recipient. The latter picks up his/her delivery with a personal QR code.

These stand-alone solutions allow companies to keep better track of inbound and outbound parcels. Furthermore, they do not require support from staff, they are compliant with privacy/data protection legislation and they give the company’s front desk an innovative look. Companies often choose them to cut costs, to improve efficiency and communication, and to reduce the risk of human error.