Datamail to produce colourful accounts

It may not dull the financial pain of paying the household accounts, but New Zealand Post subsidiary Datamail is promising to at least make reading monthly bills more interesting from next year.

As the country's largest "transactional printer" - with contracts to process invoices dispatched by major organisations - Datamail sends out millions of bills and statements for phone, power, banking and other services to consumers each month.

The company is spending several million dollars on new digital printing technology - both hardware and software - which will give it the ability to produce full-colour statements personalised for individual customers.

Datamail's general manager for product management, David Allen, says the two new HP Indigo W7200 digital presses - the first to be installed in the South Pacific - will effectively provide the company's corporate clients with a new way to market their products and services.

"It's about turning that transactional moment [when customers read their bill or statement] into an opportunity to promote services, to promote the brand and to shift what businesses have seen as a cost of sale into a business opportunity."

Datamail currently prints statement data on top of pre-printed "shell" paper branded with its clients' company imagery. The new presses will allow it to print entire statements, including personalised colour images, on to blank paper.

Allen says while the technology behind this form of commercial printing has been available for about a decade, it has only been in the past year that HP and other printer manufacturers have been able to deliver equipment offering the necessary print quality at an affordable price.

"The view is now that the technology has caught up with the desire of businesses to change the nature of their communications. Essentially we've been waiting for technology to catch up with thinking."

As an example of how the technology could be used by bill-senders, Allen says a telecommunications company might want to use its monthly invoice to remind a customer that their existing mobile phone is now a year old, and include pictures on the bill of new handsets it currently has on special.

Datamail's two 25m-long HP presses are due to arrive in the country next month and will be commissioned at the company's new purpose-built processing facility in Auckland's Highbrook Business Park in February.

Allen says Datamail's large customers were excited by the potential the technology offered. The company has set up a new design and "trans-promotional" marketing consultancy service to educate customers about the technology.

He called it a milestone for printing, and one that was equivalent to the change from black and white to colour television, or the introduction of colour printing to newspapers.

"We'll start creating documents in printed form that start looking, and start performing, like the web."

The company was also considering installing similar presses at its facilities in Wellington and Christchurch to print statements in the city closest to customers' mailing addresses.

Datamail has revenue of more than $200 million a year and employs 1800 people.

NZ POST INITIATIVE SHARES BURDEN OF CHRISTMAS CARD-SENDING

While its Datamail subsidiary attempts to wow large corporates with IT it says will revolutionise the humble monthly accounts they send to customers, another branch of NZ Post is mixing old and new technology to offer a Christmas card-sending service for overworked small businesses.

The SOE yesterday launched a new "Send a Card" online service allowing businesses to design and dispatch Christmas cards to contacts without having to leave the office or scribble a single message of festive good will.

By visiting the NZ Post website companies can design their own cards with customised images and messages, and supply up to 50 names and address for the cards to be mailed to.

The service is also available to individuals. Payment is made online by credit card at a cost of $2.99 for a postcard sent within New Zealand or $3.99 for a greeting card.