Parthenon Publishing: Getting it Right

Business type
Magazine and newsletter publishing, direct mail

Key need
Reducing costly errors and delays in the production and delivery of customized direct mail packages

Situation
Parthenon Publishing was experiencing serious production problems in printing and mailing 65 different, customized versions of a healthcare newsletter for a client. Mistakes were frequent. Customers were receiving the wrong newsletters. Mailings often went out late or arrived late. The errors left the company not only with upset customers but also added time and cost of correcting the many mistakes.

To improve accuracy, Parthenon attempted to set up strong quality control standards. It provided vendors with Excel spreadsheets that carefully detailed who was to receive shipments, mailers and overs. Still the errors persisted, with an increasingly negative impact on customer and client satisfaction.

As a result, Parthenon sought a partner that could deliver much more rigorous quality control. Parthenon had also been concerned about costs per piece but concluded that slightly higher costs were acceptable if a partner could eliminate the mistakes that could prove to be much more costly in the long run.

Solutions

• Direct Connect Solutions (DCS) first consulted with Parthenon to learn more about how their quality control processes worked, the objectives they were designed to meet and how the client would like to see the system work. Next, DCS began working to tailor a solution that would meet these objectives as well as Parthenon’s delivery and cost requirements.
• DCS created a sophisticated program that could receive e-mails from Parthenon to initiate jobs and then directly generate a job ticket with a single spreadsheet that detailed all 65 versions of the healthcare newsletter. Besides streamlining the process, the program also included new quality control measures. For example, DCS sent e-mail blasts to each recipient to confirm shipping and tracking information.

Results

• Fewer errors. The Direct Connect solution reduced errors significantly and increased accuracy.
• Increased customer satisfaction. Minimizing the number of mistakes contributed to higher customer satisfaction for Parthenon.
• Lower costs. With fewer mistakes, Parthenon’s overall costs decreased even though the price per piece was higher than with the vendor the company had utilized previously.
• Streamlined work flow. By creating smoother processes and fewer mistakes to address, the DCS solution made everyone’s job easier.
• New partnerships. After seeing the results of DCS’ automation capabilities for highly personalized, confidential communications, Parthenon began working with DCS to develop solutions for other applications.