Corporate Mailing Services (CMS), based in Baltimore, Maryland, is one of the largest commercial presort providers in the mid-Atlantic region, primarily servicing the financial and insurance industries. Their offerings encompass data processing, mail production (including addressing, laser printing, bindery and manual work) and mail presorting, providing clients with maximum postage discounts while processing mail more quickly and efficiently.

It is also the largest full-service secure mail processing company in the area that handles both First-Class Mail® and Standard Mail® in its mail production and presorting divisions, and is the only company in the region to provide these services from a single location. This allows CMS to maintain control of all document services and provide timely updates and fast turnaround times.

The company’s passion for excellent customer service is evident. With a dedicated staff and satisfied customer base, CMS has grown over the past 14 years to more than 150 employees, and produces more than 250 million mailpieces each year. The company takes pride in its commitment to meeting or exceeding all service-level agreements, and maintaining standards for the highest level of customer care.

Mike DeMos, Executive Vice President and General Manager
Corporate Mailing Services

Business challenges

"Because we provide a commodity service, the difference between presort companies can quickly become blurred," said Mike DeMos, CMS executive vice president and general manager. "To retain our competitive advantage and achieve our vision of becoming the dominant presort company on the East coast, we demand extraordinarily high performance from the vendors who support us — it makes the difference between a good company and a great one."

With the implementation of Move Update and Intelligent Mail® barcode (IMB) requirements, CMS needed a solution to ensure compliance and maximize discounts enabled by Full Service IMB. The solution they implemented would have to work across the company’s multiple sorting platforms. Additionally, the wide variety of applications and multi-site mail operations managed by CMS made it all the more critical to have the ability to track unique piece identifiers within the IMB back to the individual mail originators.

"As the U.S. Postal Service® begins enforcing its new regulations, and with inevitable rising postage costs, our customers need to leverage all of the benefits of the IMB and avoid penalties from non-compliance," explained DeMos. "We evaluated our IMB options – Basic or Full Service – and it was clear that Full Service IMB capabilities offered the greatest benefits."

New solutions

CMS had several BÖWE BELL + HOWELL sorters in its operations and a trusted relationship with the company. As DeMos began investigating postal software for IMB implementation, he immediately selected the new BBH sorting software platform, NetSort™, becoming one of the first BBH customers to purchase the upgrades required for Full Service implementation.

NetSort is a unique client/server platform designed to effectively manage high volumes of data while ensuring data integrity. With an underlying architecture capable of keeping pace with the evolution of USPS® IMB requirements, NetSort enables users to lead the MLOCR industry in the use of the IMB.

NetSort supports Full Service IMB, including enhanced tracking, and provides item-level detail and more visibility into the mailstream. "Taking advantage of the IMB full service option will allow us to achieve the highest discount levels offered by the USPS," added DeMos. CMS also plans to use the NetSort multi-site function to commingle mail from other mail shops.

In addition, NetSort delivers reports in real time without affecting the sorting process. "NetSort provides us with greater transparency into the mailstream, allowing us to quickly verify the accuracy and integrity of the mailpieces," said DeMos. "The software allows us to deliver maximum USPS discounts to the customer and provides us with additional functionality to improve efficiency and accuracy."

Service after the sale

The BBH Services team has a vital role in ensuring customer satisfaction long after the sale is complete. With one of the largest field service organizations in the industry, supported by continuous, live customer care, BBH provides assurance that all customer needs are met.

"Our experience with BBH service has been outstanding, and the service team has done a fabulous job," said DeMos. "We have a true partnership with BBH. We provided input on NetSort’s features and functionality to add even more capability going forward. The BBH team really shares our vision for CMS and keeps our best interests in mind."

"In today’s economy, no one buys based solely on relationship, but on seeing a quick return and on long-term value," DeMos commented. "NetSort shows how BBH delivers on both, and brings additional, value-add capabilities to our operation. The result: even in a down economy we’re growing, and we attribute this to our focus on providing additional and better services for our customers."

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