Direct mail can evoke memorable, emotional connections with its recipients, and enhance the customer experience. Adding personalization can build trust with customers who will in turn drive an increase in response rates. A recent study shows that consumers both appreciate and expect personalization, with 67% of consumers preferring personalized offers

See our infographic on mailing trends.

To make personalization work at scale, companies need to leverage automation. Over the next decade it is the central card issuers and banks that put the cardholders first that will succeed, providing the personal touch and experience that will deliver what the cardholders expect. Flexibility and automation allow issuers to deliver on production goals and help exceed customer expectations. Card issuers must embrace agility and pivot to adopt automation to reduce risk, improve consistency of performance, and increase responsiveness to consumer expectations such as personalized mailings.

Card mailing packages are one of the most effect ways card issuers have to communicate personalized messages and offers to their cardholders. Embracing personalization can leave card issuance operations challenged by the complicated process required to create a fully personalized card package. To lessen these challenges and to meet the needs of the market, there are a number of Inline and Standalone card delivery products available to help increase efficiency and automation for the card-to-envelope process.

Exceeding cardholder expectations through flexibility and automation

Flexibility is key to modern card issuance operations being able to handle multiple card designs, personalized mailings, and various job sizes and assembly. Requirements often include sophisticated card delivery systems that are as robust as the issuance portfolio. High-volume mail production demands reliability, flexibility, and minimal down time. Issuers need fast job setups and built-in digital job changeovers to help reduce manual intervention and system downtime. They also need automated products that can support precision, accuracy, and efficiency, even through the most complex jobs.

Leveraging automation to create personalized mail packages often leads card issuance operations to choose stand-alone inserting, allowing the envelope insertion step to be segmented from card attaching and carrier folding. This separated step supports production flexibility to run envelope insertion at higher speeds than the card attaching and card personalization steps. Powerful modular options available with a stand-alone system enable customers to pick from a wide range of options including multiple insert sizes, mail package verification, automated envelope divert options, envelope printing, envelope ink marking, and jogging. Stand-alone envelope inserting supports more flexibility and automation for the mailings, allowing for personal and specialized messages to be delivered to target customers, building trust and cardholder engagement. Learn more about how to effortlessly deliver a customized, verified mail package.