With the rising costs of conventional postage rising year on year, how long will the industry continue to use the postal service in favour for email?
The industry is quickly migrating to the online world and has been doing over the last couple of years. There has been a concerted effort by some companies to rid themselves of their reliance on paper and to do things electronically wherever possible. More and more companies are joining this group and more will join it in the next few months.
So how long until we ditch post altogether? The real question should actually be what can be done by email and what can’t? Things like order confirmations and delivery times can be done electronically. But things which require signatures etc will still need to be paper based. A lot of manufacturers still produce papers which need signing. For the industry to get past this companies are going to need to mass invest in items like tablet computers and overhaul their internet systems to something which integrates all paperwork electronically. That way, signatures can be made on screens and paperwork emailed back to head office to be kept on file and copies be sent to wherever necessary.
This I think is a little way off yet, probably 3-5 years, maybe a little bit longer. Of course there are those that are still a few years behind right now. The industry has boomed somewhat on Twitter, with the double glazing community growing every day. It now seems silly not to have a Facebook or Twitter account (Twitter is better!) for your company.
One of the only things I can think where post can still be useful is mass communications to previous customer databases. Customer information from years ago is highly unlikely to contain email addresses, so getting any promotional material to customers will still require paper and a postman. This may change in the future, but it might be a couple of decades until we see the end of mass mail shots.
Posting paper work, and paper in general, seems rather archaic when we rely on the internet for so much else with our daily lives.
Think about it. Email is free, instant and far more personal. Think of all the money that could be saved!
something the youger generation seem to forget the world can still happily operate without computers. amazingly jets used to fly quite happily without a computer cars used to run reliably without the little ecu ,s yup everything is just faster and more efficient not always a good thing just look at the rise in pulmonary embolism in young people unheard of years ago get off your big fat backsides you sad litte lazy addicted dimwits. how is email far more personal i d prefer a real peice of paper anyday electronic anniversary card tells me the wife couldnt be assed… Read more »
Splinters from sitting on the fence are hurting. And as an actual grumpy old man (66) I feel I have earned the right. We use e mail for everything including invoices. In fact the only post we send are FENSA and DGCOS certificates. We even have an online quote system. Our clients don’t need to talk to us (if they don’t want to) to get a quotation. It seems to work. I don’t agree that twitter is best, although we have an account. We feel our facebook page is an extension of our website. We can add news and gallery… Read more »