Table of Contents
Introduction
Smart Mail House sends first-class mail to borrowers. It's one of the important customer communication options that can be an invaluable part of a lender's collections strategy. Smart Mail House can be used to manually send one-off mailers, and also works with LoanPro's trigger and event-based notifications, where rules determine when and to whom mail is sent. This article will cover the use and scope of Smart Mail House , and our Smart Mail House – Sending Mail article shows the actual screens and button clicks needed to use the feature.
In late 2021, we revamped Smart Mail House with some great new features.
Comparison of Old and New Smart Mail House
| Old Mail House | New Mail House |
| No tracking status or history | Tracking status and history for each mail piece that will show when it’s in the queue, printed, sent to USPS, in transit, etc. |
|
Listing for each mail piece that shows:
|
Listing for each mail piece that shows:
|
| No visibility of the mail piece that was sent | A .pdf copy of the mail piece that was sent, which is viewable for 90 days |
| An interface showing mail house pieces in the order they were sent |
A new interface that can filter mail house pieces by:
|
| No ability to cancel queued mail pieces | The ability to cancel a mail piece up to 60 minutes after the piece was queued |
| An interface showing only which mail pieces were sent, their IDs and the name of the template used to generate them | A new interface in customer communication history that shows the same information for each mail piece as the smart mail house communication interface |
| No ability to see what happens with mail once it is sent | The ability to see when mail gets rerouted by USPS because the mailing address has been updated. There is no ability to see the updated address |
| No ability to send to mail to a customer with the type of company | The ability to send mail to customers of any type (i.e. individual, company) |
Highlights
Here are the basic steps for sending mail through Smart Mail House:
- Choose the customer who will be the recipient of the mailer
- Choose or create a template for the mailer
- Use Smart Mail House to specify that the mailer should be sent to the recipient and your part is done
- Now, you can track the status of the mailer to see its movement to the recipient
Templates
Mailer templates can be created or changed in LMS. When a mailer is sent out, you can specify which template to use. Templates contain variables that will be replaced with specific customer or loan data. A completed template is sent to our mail house partner where it is printed, placed in a stamped envelope with the recipients address printed on it. It then gets sent to USPS for delivery.
Mail templates work similar to Dynamic Templates. You can choose not only the information to send, but all of the formatting as well. You can create them using our editing tool (which works like a simple word processor), HTML, or by uploading a Microsoft Word (.docx) file.
For more, see our article Smart Mail House – Address Blocks and Templates.
Tracking
LoanPro's Smart Mail House provides a way to track the mail once you've sent it through the LMS. The tracking statuses keeps you updated on what is happening with each mail piece in the delivery process. This is especially helpful in case there is an issue that halts the delivery, such as an error during processing or mail being returned to the sender.
To see the specific tracking statuses used in the mail house, check out our article Smart Mail House – Tracking Statuses.
Where Does Smart Mail House Fit?
LoanPro has partnered with a third-party mailing platform that saves lending companies the time and money it takes to physically send mail. You can send multiple pieces of mail in a matter of minutes and track of all them throughout the delivery process.
Along with sending mail to customers, you can also send mail to co-borrowers and companies. This not only supports customer communication, but also helps communication overall with other entities involved with a loan.
Sending mail is an effective way of communicating with your customers, but LoanPro also offers other means of communication like SMS, email and phone calls that may suit other needs for collections. Every company is different, so it is important to decide which form of communication will best help your company accomplish its goals.
This Feature is Not
- Mail house templates are not Custom Forms. At first glance, you may think that custom form templates can be sent to the mail house, but this is not the case. While you can generate a Custom Form and then choose to mail it, custom form templates are not the same as mail house templates or email templates; they're saved in separate areas. They do, however, use the same variables, so you can copy and paste the HTML from custom forms or use the same Microsoft Word document to create the same document in the mail house.
- Mail house cannot send custom-sized letters. Mail house templates do not give you the option to select a specific size of page you want to send; each letter will be printed on standard 8.5 x 11 inch paper.
What’s Next?
Now that you know the basics about the tool, you're ready to see how to use it.
- Smart Mail House – Sending Mail explains how to queue and send mail to borrowers.
- Smart Mail House – Tracking & History shows gives a breakdown of the history for mail that's already been sent.
- Smart Mail House – Address Blocks & Templates helps you set up the to and from addresses, and create the template letters you'll send to borrowers.
Written by Andy Morrise
Updated on May 31st, 2024