Pitney Bowes’ Global DMT Customer Summit Sends a Clear Message: It’s All About Total Customer Communications
By Brian Baxendale
OutputLinks
Pitney Bowes is now focused on helping other companies grow their business through advanced customer communications management, and this was very evident at the company’s tenth annual Global Document Messaging Technologies Customer Summit, which I just attended.
The Summit was held June 6 – 8, 2011, in Danbury, Conn., and it brought together top industry leaders for sessions and tours, to help mailers and marketers transform their customer communications and grow their businesses. For the event, Pitney Bowes gathered more than 240 high volume transaction output (HVTO) professionals from around the world. The company put on vibrant and interactive displays of more than 25 of its latest innovations, and it showcased a number of ancillary suppliers/partners, who presented their offerings as well.
The Summit was of special interest to me as I retired a few years ago as the president of the Document Messaging technologies (DMT) division that conducted the Summit. So my report is as an outsider who was once an insider.
Some of the key solutions and strategies at the event included: Pitney Bowes’ mail finishing platform; it’s White Paper Factory; the Volly Digital Mail Delivery Service for U.S. mailers; techniques to leverage QR codes; and innovations in mail sorting throughput and strategies for optimizing postage cost.
Flourishing in the midst of change
Change. We know it’s constant. It’s happening all around us – fast. And, our industry and how we communicate is certainly changing, too. But this is good. We need change – all of us in the HVTO arena – to improve, grow and succeed…especially in this challenging economy.
Pitney Bowes is an organization that’s embracing change and flourishing amid that change. The company has been around for more than 90 years, providing software, hardware and services for high-volume print and mail production. We all know that Pitney Bowes has had a heavy focus on mail, but they’ve really moved beyond that; they’re much more focused on customer communication management and how you string everything together.
Customer communication management
While mail has been the heart of Pitney Bowes’ business, customer communications management is its focus today…and it’s our industry’s future. I believe that the entire industry needs to follow Pitney Bowes’ lead and focus their efforts on total customer communications. Pitney Bowes definitely “gets it” as they’re adapting…rather, innovating…in our fast-changing communications landscape that includes print, digital and mobile.
Indeed, as I witnessed first-hand at the Customer Summit, Pitney Bowes is now all about linking print and mail, operations and marketing and the digital with the physical, and how a company should streamline all of that together for better communications. And without a doubt, if your company is not focused on this area right now, it runs the risk of not growing, losing business or worse.
The key to all of this?
At the Pitney Bowes Summit, it was clear that one key element to a cohesive customer communication strategy is building a relationship with marketing. HVTO professionals really need to connect with and educate the marketing department. Marketing needs to completely understand the full value of high-volume print and mail operations – with all its innovative technologies and resources – and what it can do for business. People in our industry are talking about it, but it’s not really happening across the board. We need to link disparate departments across the organization, especially marketing, to focus on the customer and total customer communications. Of course, Pitney Bowes is doing just that.
The man behind Pitney Bowes DMT
At the event, I spoke with a number of Pitney Bowes’ customers. I also had a chance to see many old friends and colleagues who I had worked with during my tenure at the company.
Ramesh Ratan, president of Pitney Bowes DMT, holds the position that I held when I was at Pitney Bowes. I have met with him a few times prior and he’s very much an innovator and a dynamic force with a heavy focus on customer communication management. At the Summit, he exhibited the upbeat and highly customer centric style that is now evident throughout his organization. And I think that is one of the reasons so many companies are choosing Pitney Bowes DMT as a partner.
Overall, the company’s new focus and innovative technology, which was highlighted at the Summit, makes them the ideal fit for a business that wants to focus its HVTO around the total customer communication experience.
Brilliant Communications Awards for innovative solutions
In line with its emphasis on customer communications, Pitney Bowes’ Brilliant Communications Awards recognized some of the companies in the industry that are embracing and excelling with this new mindset. The awards recognize leading high-volume print and mail organizations that are finding new ways to streamline workflow, ensure accuracy, and market precisely to get the greatest value from their customer communications.
The winners included:
- “Powerful Communication Award” – Tri-Win Digital Print and Direct Mail, Dallas, TX, USA
- “Colorful Communication Award” – Emdeon, Toledo, OH, USA
- “Profitable Communication Award” – Logistic Mail Factory GmbH, Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany
- “Innovators Choice Award” – PSC Info Group, Oaks, PA, USA
Learn more about these Brilliant Communications Award winners. Click here >>>.
The Questions…
The Pitney Bowes Customer Summit left visitors with these questions to consider as they move forward into our fast-changing communication landscape:
- Are you simply focused on quality, accuracy and productivity when it comes to your high volume transaction output?
- Shouldn’t your operations deliver that consistently, but also be focused on total customer communications, to improve business and elevate your customer relationships?
It’s something to think about now and to act upon quickly.
I trust my observations of the Customer Summit provided you some new insights on Pitney Bowe, its technology and the changing world of customer communications.
Feel free to share your comments about this event or the world of customer communications in the Comments Section below.
Happy Communications,
Brian Baxendale
Board Member,
OutputLinks Communications Group