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Ambar Singh Roy

Kolkata, Feb. 27 The Department of Posts (DoP) has firmed up a strategy to garner a larger share of the growing B2C (business-to-customer) bulk mail business.

Besides process re-engineering aimed at reducing handling time, the strategy includes electronic intimation of delivery (EIOD) and other value-added services.

According to Mr Harpreet Singh, Director of Mail Business, DoP, since the advent of the Internet and e-mail, the volume of personal mail has gone down by 5-6 per cent globally. Greeting card mail business, which had gone down earlier, has picked up lately. The business of B2C mail, which includes bulk mails, bills, brochures, etc from businesses — such as banks, telecom service providers, financial institutions, etc — to individuals has been growing by more than 15 per cent per annum.

“We wish to garner a sizeable chunk of this growing bulk mail business by leveraging our wide service network and the intricate domain knowledge of our beat postmen”, Mr Singh said. He added that value additions have been made to existing processes with a view to reducing the handling time by more than half. These include, for example, beat-coding of all bulk mails in addition to pin-coding. “We need to understand the time sensitivity in the bulk mail business and have cut down on processes to reduce handling time”, he said.

Further, for those bulk mailers such as credit card companies who wish to have proof of delivery of mails sent to their customers, the DoP has put in place an EIOD by default. That is, for all such mails that have not been delivered due to whatever reason, the DoP will send to the customer an e-mail alert.

For bulk mailers sending mail from other cities, the DoP has introduced a new product called the National Bill Mail Service. Bulk mailing customers of the DoP now have the option of sending individual bills in one single packet to the postal administration in the destination city. The latter will then open the packet and distribute the mails at the cost of local mail. This will result in huge cost savings for the bulk mailer.

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