New Printing and Mailing Updates

Wow, can you believe we’re officially in Q4 of 2023?! I’m sure you’re like us where each year you think, “Where has the time gone?” but this year feels like it’s going especially fast…wouldn’t you agree? With that being said, we’ve made a lot of new updates to our website, along with printing and mailing updates and processes over the last few months (well years even but that’s a blog post for another day) and we wanted to share some of them with you.

What LetterStream’s Been Up to With Printing and Mailing Services

Let’s get into it, shall we? Let’s fill you in on what the mailing experts have been up to over here at LetterStream over the last few months.

Our production team is always busy serving up fast, perfect mail. Our customer support team is rocking it by giving nothing short of mad customer love. Our IT department just keeps making magic happen. Our marketing department has been revamping and reorganizing our online presence and our accounting team just keeps being awesome at what they do best.

Now, let’s get into the specifics of what we’ve been up to behind the scenes for you, our awesome clients, new and old to LetterStream. Keep in mind, we try to keep our updates subtle, so they don’t disrupt your normal processes when creating jobs to send your letters.

Quick Updates to Help You Send Mail Online Include:

Re-named #9 envelope overprint
Added the correct artwork/thumbnail for our flat-sized envelope
Turned on user-created endorsements for our flat-size envelopes
Improved access to our BAA (Business Associates Agreement) for HIPAA clients. We now use DocuSign to get our BAA to you and back in record time.

More In-Depth Updates

Let’s get into a bit more detail for some of the bigger updates we’ve been working on and have finally launched.

New Chatbot on LetterStream

We added a new chatbot to our website. This one we are super excited for and it’s going to help with quick answers to just about any question you may have.

Our new Chatbot is not like the others. It is an extremely fast, highly intelligent AI that can actually get you help faster than if you were talking to a human. Now, of course, our customer support is still available to provide mad customer love to our clients, but the Chatbot will help to answer most questions instantly.

Read all about our new Chatbot here.

FedEx 2Day

We did it, finally! We turned on FedEx 2Day letters for users that have been active for 6 months or more.

Currently, we offer the standard FedEx 2Day letter option. This will get your FedEx envelope delivered by 5 P.M. on the second business day from when it was mailed.

To learn more about the new FedEx 2Day or to see the step-by-step process on how to mail your documents via FedEx through our online portal, click here.

Improved Help Articles

Our customer support team has not only been busy providing customers with the best support possible, but they’ve also been busy improving some Help articles to make it easier to find questions to answers you might be looking for.

We have a plethora of articles that have recently been updated but here are a few to reference below:

Welcome to the Team!

We are beyond excited to announce that we recently added a new member to our customer support team who has been such an incredible asset to us. If you happen to reach out to support and get a reply from her, be sure to say hi! Welcome to the team, Morgan!

Well, that’s the not-so-quick update we have for you in regard to what’s been going on here at LetterStream lately. Keep in mind that we’re currently in the holiday season, so be sure to prepare accordingly for closures coming up. Here is an overview of the 2023 USPS (United States Postal Service) and LetterStream’s Holiday Schedule.

PROPOSED 2018 USPS Rate Increases

On October 6th, 2017, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced a price increase to take affect January 21st 2018.

The new price schedule increases the retail price of first class postage for letters and postcards by 1 cent each. Certified Mail with Electronic Return Receipt will see a 15-cent increase.

Keep in mind, the USPS “proposes” their new pricing, but the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) must approve the pricing before it can become official.

Historically the PRC has denied or adjusted price increases if the USPS attempts to raise prices too high compared with the current consumer price index (CPI). In this case the USPS is only raising rates by 1.9% which is believed to be accepted by the PRC.

Below is the primary list of rates that may impact LetterStream customers. Also keep in mind that LetterStream historically does not raise prices on any item beyond the actual USPS price changes. If you are working on a First-Class Mail project for the new year, we’d encourage you to schedule it before the new rates are implemented.

2018 UNOFFICIAL Postage Rates:

– First Class Stamps up from $.49 to $.50
– First Class Postcard Rate up from $.34 to $.35
– Extra Ounces staying at $.21
– International Rates staying at $1.15
– Certified Mail up from $3.35 to $3.45
– Return Receipt staying at $2.75
– Electronic Return Receipt up from $1.45 to $1.50
– Registered Mail up from $11.70 to $11.90
– Flats (.0001 – .999 oz) postage up from $.98 to $1.00
– Flats extra ounces staying at $.21

For more information review the USPS press release:

View the Press Release Here

For all the gory details, see the USPS NOTICE OF MARKET DOMINANT PRICE ADJUSTMENT that was filed by the USPS with the PRC

What Is Needed To Send USPS Certified Mail Online?

Certified Mail Letters and Envelopes

Well, it’s pretty simple actually. You need an address and a document, oh, and a company that offers the ability to create certified mail on their website.

If you want to use LetterStream.com or our sister site OnlineCertifiedMail.com to send your certified letter, you simply need the address you want to send the letter to and your document saved as a PDF file. Yes, it seems like it should be more complicated than that, but most of our clients can create and send their Certified Mail in two minutes or less.

There’s nothing more you need to do. However, if you want to track your letter through the USPS process or retrieve the signature of the person who signed for your certified letter, the process is as simple as logging into the website and clicking on the mailing to see all the details.

Or, consider the alternative: You could write your letter, print it from your laser printer, hunt for an envelope, fold the document (maybe twice to get it to fit in the envelope), hand address the envelope, seal it, drive to the post office, wait in line, fill out the green card while waiting in line, try to figure out how the certified mail barcode wraps over the top of the envelope, pay for the piece, get a receipt with a 20-digit tracking number that you will need to enter any time you want to track the status of the piece, and get the green card back. Then, not knowing where you should keep the green card, you shove it in a desk drawer and ultimately lose it, and just when you want to find out what happened to the letter… the post office tells you they have removed the information from their online system and you’ll have to request that it be emailed to you.

Hmmm… I feel an AT&T commercial coming on. “It’s not complicated. Simple is better.“

Towing Companies Send Certified Mail, Too

tow truck

If you’re not in the towing business, this post might not be for you… unless of course your vehicle has recently been impounded, in which case you might want to know a few things.

Many states require towing companies to notify owners, via USPS Certified Mail with Return Receipt, that their car has been towed within 3 days of towing. Failure to do so may result in the inability to charge the car’s owner for towing fees and/or storage. (Be sure to check your state laws to determine what is required.)

We’ve found that our online certified mail solutions are a tremendous benefit to those in the towing business for two reasons. First, LetterStream helps towing companies send their certified letters on time–each and every time–allowing all fees to be collected. Secondly, we maintain the mailing records online for easy access to comply with document retention rules.

Check out how we help towing companies comply with their specific state statutes:

Colorado

Public Tow Requirements:

“If the responsible law enforcement agency does not use an operator to store the motor vehicle, the responsible law enforcement agency must notify the owner(s) and lienholder(s) by certified mail, return receipt requested” and “Tow Operator- Notice to the owner(s) and lienholder(s) must be sent within 3 calendar days after the receipt of the completed record search from the Department. a) The tow operator shall retain proof of notification on file for 3 years. b) Notices sent by a tow operator must be sent by certified mail, return receipt requested.”

South Carolina

Guidelines for Businesses for Tow/Repair Vehicles Section 56-5-5620-5670:

“Storage charges to begin on the first day if certified return receipt notices to the owners and lien holders are mailed within 5 days of determining their identities. Otherwise no storage charges accrue until the notices are mailed.”

Connecticut

State Law Title 14 Sec. 14-145:

“If vehicle is not claimed within 48 hours, the tower must complete the DMV form “Motor Vehicle Notice of Tow” (form H-114) and shall mail, by certified mail, copies of the completed form to the owner and to all lien holders of record.”

California

Section 14602.6 Vehicle Impoundment:

“The impounding agency, within two working days of impoundment, shall send a notice by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the legal owner of the vehicle, at the address obtained from the department, informing the owner that the vehicle as been impounded. Failure to notify the legal owner within two working days shall prohibit the impounding agency from charging for more than 15 days’ impoundment when the legal owner redeems the impounded vehicle.”

***

We haven’t looked at every state’s statutes on towing and impounding, but the above is the result of a quick google search.

If you want to speed up the time to get your certified mail sent, and want to learn how to keep great records of your mailings for years to come, contact us today.

How Do You Organize Certified Mail Return Receipts?

certified mail green card

These slippery little green cards have a way of getting lost. For you mailroom folks, you probably know them as a PS Form 3811, but the rest of us simply call them green cards. Obviously “Certified Mail Return Receipt” is a more complete term, but it is probably not the term we use when trying to find the one we lost.

So the big question is, how do you keep track of green cards? They are small and get mixed in with empty envelopes that you put in the trash, they fall out of file folders even while in a filing cabinet, they get piled up waiting for a rainy day for someone else to file. Let’s face it, they are hard to file and they are hard to find. There’s nothing like the attorney calling and saying, “We are headed to court, what happened to the green card?”

Here’s a better way to organize your PS Form 3811 receipts… skip the entire paper process altogether and keep your electronic signatures organized online–always available, always filed correctly, always filed instantly, and best of all, never lost.

Wondering how?

The best way to get your certified mail receipt electronically filed is to create your certified mail online. When you use LetterStream or OnlineCertifiedMail.com to create your certified letter, your PS Form 3811 as well as all of the related USPS tracking scans will be available online for you to access when you need then.

The online process of making real Certified Mail is fast and easy, with no forms to fill out, no envelopes to seal, and no trips to the post office. We take care of all that so you can focus on other pressing issues. Oh, and one more benefit… you won’t need to type in that 20-digit certified mail tracking number–you can look up information about your certified letter by searching on the job name or the recipient’s name.

Stop searching for green cards. Use our online tools and let us organize them for you.

Now where did I put that green card?

If you send Certified Mail, you know what sort of pain it is when the attorney asks for the green card (PS Form 3811) and it can’t be found.

green card - certified mail receipt

I know, I know….we all like to put our highest paid employees on the task of filing the green cards so they are always where they need to be. Well, ok…..that’s not exactly true. In reality, they stack up on the receptionist’s desk, then they get moved to the mail room, then they may make it back to the collections department, with each department attempting to file a few whenever they get an idle moment.

Sound familiar?

Wish there was a better way?

Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t need to worry about hanging on to those pesky green cards? Instead, what if the green cards were electronically delivered to us with the name and address of the recipient and the signature of the person who received the certified letter. Then, what if the signature was instantly and accurately filed, just the way we like.

While we are dreaming, let’s make it one better. What if, when the green card is needed — even if it’s years down the road — all we need to do is type in the name or the address of the person who was sent the letter and we’d immediately see the certified letter, the tracking information and the signature, all available to be printed and handed over to the person who needs it. Now that would be ideal!

And it would also be an explanation of how our Certified Mail process works.

Don’t file green cards, use LetterStream.

Cancelling Gym Memberships Via Certified Mail

Don’t you hate it when gyms keep charging your credit card even after you cancel your membership?

One good way to get the charges to stop is to send a cancellation letter via USPS Certified Mail.

Google “gym cancelation letters” and you’ll find numerous articles relating to how to stop gyms from charging your credit card on a monthly basis, and they almost all have one thing in common… they state that your letter should be sent via Certifed Mail.

We’ve mailed scores of cancellation letters via LetterStream.com, as well as our partner site, OnlineCertifiedMail.com. Once you create your letter, send it Certified Mail online without a costly trip to the post office.