Walz Outsourcing Takes Paper Burden Out of Certified Mail.(Walz Group)

Temecula, CA -- Walz Group here made a name for itself as a provider of certified mailing services, but now the company is offering to clients the option of outsourcing related functions as well.

The impetus for an outsourcing division began a couple of years ago when one of Walz Postal Solutions' large clients said that despite outsourcing the printing and mailing of certified mail, it still faced substantial manual labor. Walz essentially became the company's certified mail department, handling the storage, tracking delivery status, and managing the storage and retrieval of certified mail receipts.

Company officials said managing those "green cards" which are certified mail receipts is an important job, even though a lender rarely needs to retrieve those cards.

Jim Hutchinson, president of Walz, said the outsourcing business allows Walz to take a data file every night from clients that is treated like a mail merge. Not only does Walz print the mail, it follows the progress of certified letters. In the case of certified mail, Walz always gets the letter back or a receipt signed by the recipient. If a recipient refuses a piece of certified mail, Walz keeps track of this information as well.

Walz images the letters and the receipts so that clients with an in-house imaging system can import and store the certified mail material. The imaged materials are available to clients via the Internet. Clients can also outsource the storage of receipts to Walz.

"We organize all that data so that it's not just a bag full of green cards," Mr. Hutchinson said.

Jim Jereczek, vice president for business development, said that while lenders rarely have to retrieve the green receipts, the penalty for failing to do so can be severe.