CUSTOMER STORY • DIRECT MAIL
One operator, the work of three
How Central Mailing brought data hygiene back in-house, turned repeat jobs into templates, and stopped client data leaving the building.
Four months in, one operator was doing the work of three
Central Mailing is a serious operation: 60 staff, three sites, 25 years in direct mail and more than £7 million in turnover, serving education, charity and performing arts clients. Its in-house data bureau runs over 70 jobs a day, everything from deduplication and sortation through to hygiene work that combines industry suppression files with clients’ own returns.
Growth brought a problem. More clients and more urgent turnarounds meant a data team stitching jobs together across several bought-in tools and outside suppression bureaux. Cygnus replaced that patchwork and within four months a single operator was matching what three had produced on the legacy systems.
The story in brief
THE CHALLENGE
Too many tools, too many handoffs
An internal review found two things holding the data team back. The first was the sheer number of moving parts: a job needed a combination of purchased software, outside suppression services and in-house systems. Shuffling data between them and back and forth from third-party providers, ate resource, stretched turnaround times and added risk.
The second was repetition. More than 30% of the work was regular, repeat work following a standard set of steps, and someone had to shepherd each job through those steps by hand, every time.
“Clients trust us with their data and under GDPR they don’t want it to leave our building. Cygnus has helped provide those clients with a one stop shop for data processing and that peace of mind that the chain of custody stops with us.”
Richard Morrow, Sales and Marketing Director, Central Mailing Services
THE SOLUTION
What changed
Three things drove the decision to move to a single, flexible solution.
01
The job canvas
Processes are added to a canvas and linked into a logical, visual flow. That flow doubles as a clear audit trail of every step in the job, which matters when a client asks what happened to their file or when edits are needed.
02
Jobs saved as templates
Complex jobs with multiple files and dozens of steps are slow to set up in any software. Central Mailing builds the sequence once, saves it, then reloads it with new data. Templates dramatically reduced operator time spent re-running jobs.
03
Hygiene inside the sequence
Over 450 million deceased, goneaway and home mover records from the main providers are embedded in Cygnus, so cleansing happens during processing instead of interrupting the job to send the file out.
IN PRACTICE
The jobs that used to eat the week
The clearest proof is in the jobs the team already knew the shape of. A major recurring job from a performing arts client used to absorb two to three days of processors’ time; it now completes the same day. Work that ran to two hours comes out in thirty minutes.
The bigger test came when a university client sent twelve fast-turnaround jobs at once. Previously that would have tied up several members of the data team and pushed everything else back. This time it went through without interrupting the existing workload.
Freeing the team from routine sequences is the point. The hours saved on repeat work go into ad-hoc jobs and new client requirements, which is what a bureau targeting £10 million in turnover needs its people doing.
2–3 days → same day · 2 hours → 30 minutes · 12 urgent jobs absorbed without interruption
“One of our major regular jobs we get in from a performing arts client used to take us 2 to 3 days of processors’ time. With Cygnus it is done the same day.”
Chris Greenaway, Data Processor, Central Mailing Services
Why it matters for other mail producers
If your data team is moving files between tools and waiting on outside suppression bureaux you’re missing out on efficiency, profitability and growth.
Dramatic efficiency gains
Four months in, one operator on Cygnus was doing the work of three on the legacy systems and the team was released onto ad-hoc work rather than routine sequences.
Better job profitability
Faster processing on every job, plus hygiene brought in-house instead of outsourced, which also improves the margin on the work rather than just the speed of it.
Keeping things in-house
Embedded suppression and home mover data means client files are not sent to a third party or an online system, so the chain of custody stays within CMS control.
Room to grow
Repeat work handled by templates and capacity freed for new clients, laying the foundation to achieve the £10 million turnover target.