The evolution of mail

Introducing Volly and the seamless integration of physical and digital mail

Only from Pitney Bowes

Volly offers businesses the power to integrate their customer communications—physical and digital—into one efficient and comprehensive mailstream.

The perfect product for our busy times. Because today's time-taxed consumers have so precious little of it.

Volly is a secure digital online service that not only enables your customers to get their bills, statements, coupons, catalogs and promotions digitally, but also empowers them to pay those bills—using their checking accounts or credit cards—all from one site. With one click, your customers can de-clutter their lives. Gone are those unruly stacks of bills and statements. No more misplaced or forgotten invoices or coupons. It's all neatly organized—by brand—with automatic due-date and expiration-date reminders. For the time-taxed, it's the tax relief they've been looking for.

To appreciate what Volly can do for you, it's essential to look at what Volly can do for your customers first.

At first glance, Volly may seem to be a bit redundant. After all, you're probably already sending PDF files of monthly statements and invoices (e-bills) to customers. Then many of your customers simply go to their online bank and pay the bill. So you may reasonably ask, what's so different about Volly?

Well, just about everything.

Volly, the Bill Payer

First of all, your customers can do all of the above without leaving Volly. That's right. They get your bill, access the financial account they want and pay the bill—all without ever leaving the security of their online Volly account.

That's only the beginning of the new power, control and convenience Volly gives your customers over, really, their own lives.

With Volly, your customers can perform these tasks:

  • Check the balances in their bank accounts
  • Select the payment method:
    • Check or credit card
  • View all bills due, so they can budget their payments
  • Review past bills (which can be archived for up to 12 months)

Volly, the Nudge

Of course, people sometimes forget. So Volly gives them a gentle nudge by automatically sending payment-due notices to the digital device of their choice:

  • Desktop
  • Laptop
  • Smart phone (iPhone, Droid, BlackBerry, etc.)
  • iPad

As a result, Volly can help your customers enjoy these benefits:

  • Avoid late fees.
  • Protect their credit rating.
  • Relax. Volly has everything under control.

Volly, the Frugal Shopper and Saver

Paying bills isn't the only thing customers are having trouble finding the time to do. For your busy customers, shopping can be a real chore. Volly can make it a lot less of one with handy and ever-present access to the coupons, promotions and catalogs that can help make their shopping more efficient and economical.

With Volly, customers can simplify their lives in the following manner:

  • Get their coupons (which are all neatly organized by brand, but more on that later. OK, if you can't wait, go to Clutter Killer.)
  • Receive reminders when coupons are about to expire
  • Browse and purchase from catalogs
  • Access all of this information from their preferred digital device, wherever they are, including, say, your place of business

Volly, the Clutter Killer

Clutter is a reality in most of our lives. Once again, it's safe to say it's an even bigger problem for busy customers who don't have the time to un-clutter their piles of bills, coupons, catalogs, etc. (Notice the busy theme at work here once again.)

Enter Volly, the Clutter Killer.

Volly helps your customers fight clutter and its serious, unintended consequences (including stress, late-payment fees, missed saving opportunities, etc.) in a number of ways:

  • Automatically organizes all communications—bills, coupons, catalogs, etc.—by brand
  • Creates a calendar with due dates for bills and statements (and don't forget Volly's friendly nudges—due-date reminders)
  • Permits customers to upload and store any document in their Volly filing cabinet
  • Archives bills for more than 12 months
  • Provides secure access to important documents from anywhere at any time

Clutter, be gone.

Don't Shred on Me

For many of your customers, Volly can have a frankly unintended benefit. In our research, we found that many prospects immediately saw that getting their bills, statements and other personal information in a highly secure online site, all neatly organized and easy to retrieve, meant that they no longer had to receive printed material that they felt compelled to shred for fear of identity theft.

That's another attractive feature of Volly and a reason you can expect to see a number of used shredders on eBay.

Security and Control

Volly, a secure digital delivery service...with a capital Secure.

Before we even created Volly, Pitney Bowes commissioned extensive qualitative and quantitative research on customer attitudes toward online bill payment, coupon and catalog access and other features planned for the new service.

Your customers are smart when it comes to security. While they expressed considerable interest in the ability to view and pay bills from one secure site, especially when combined with access and organization of coupons for the brands and products they purchased or were familiar with, they stressed that they would use the site only if they were assured of its security.

Security issues, of course, are also of primary importance to the mailers that represent the other half of the online transactions.

Why Volly may well be the most secure online site in the industry—for both consumers and businesses.

A closed, secure end-to-end system powered by Pitney Bowes, Volly possesses security features designed to give both you and your customers the comfort and confidence to use the site for financial transactions and more.

Here are the layers of security we've piled on Volly:
  • All access is secure - SSL
  • User registration/access includes security images, questions and CAPTCHA
  • Documents are encrypted at the point of origin (the Secure Mail Gateway) and remain encrypted until opened by the end user
  • Encryption is AES + RSA public/private key pair based
  • A robust process matches content to mailbox-based address quality technologies
  • Hardware-based security module for storing private key secure store and symmetric keys
  • Role-based access is implemented on SSO (single sign on) standards
  • Direct access point is private cloud only

Pitney Bowes has long been at the intersection of physical and digital communications, with decades of success across secure payments, data quality, information security and digital document delivery. Volly both reflects and extends that legacy for the 21st Century.

Control: Customers are happiest when left to their own devices.

My mail my way. That's what your customers want in their communications with you. And that's exactly what Volly gives them.

With Volly, your customers select who can send them mail by actively inputting the identities of their "senders." If a company is not on their "sender" list, Volly steers that communication piece to the printer for distribution by physical mail.

The power of digital communication has long since gone mobile. Today many people feel entirely comfortable using mobile devices such as smart phones and iPads to perform transactions once reserved for the privacy of the home.

With Volly, your customers can use their preferred digital device of the moment—desktop, laptop, smart phone or iPad—wherever they are. Left to their own devices, your customers can be both more involved with—and more committed to—your messages.

The only mailstream you'll ever need.

Volly is perfectly timed for businesses, too. It's the ideal just-in-time tool to help you deal with your ever-mounting printing and mailing costs. Volly also helps you meet customer demand for more control over their mail, both digital and physical, letting them choose when, where and how they get their information. Most important, with Volly, you can finally integrate your physical and digital mail into one comprehensive and efficient mailstream, enabling you to connect with your customers like never before.

For businesses, mail and e-mail combine to form one mailstream.

Volly gives businesses the most powerful tool yet to develop an integrated communications program that uses both physical and digital mail for maximum impact and effect.

With Volly, you'll have a single mailstream that could achieve these results:

  • Lower customer service calls (by using Volly to establish a dialog with your customers)
  • Penetrating an audience (the online user) that is more engaged in seeking information
  • Reaching a larger audience
  • Offering the potential of present and future cost saving with digital delivery
  • Elimination of screen scraping

Leverage your mailstream infrastructure.

Volly represents a critical stage in the evolution of mail. As your business continuously communicates with customers to increase sales, improve customer service and build brand loyalty, you have a significant investment in your mailstream, specifically the composition, printing and insertion of documents.

Volly lets you leverage that investment into the digital realm. And Volly is from Pitney Bowes—a company with years of innovation in physical and digital communications. Since the 1970s, we've pioneered electronic forms of commerce & communications, and enabled our customers to send multi-channel communications to hundreds of million of their customers.

Your mail your way.

You've already seen how Volly gives your customers the power to get "My mail my way." The combination of digital and physical mail into one mailstream also enables you to select the channel that best suits your business objectives. So you can have your mail your way, too.

Now you have the power to develop a completely integrated campaign that uses physical, digital or both—all within the framework of one mailstream.

Your brand. Our infrastructure. A mutually managed experience.

Whether it's a bill, catalog, coupon or promotion, Volly enables you to present your brand with the same degree of control that you enjoy in all your other media selections—print, digital or broadcast.

Volly is, of course, a Pitney Bowes online site, with the identical level of quality and assurance you've come to expect from all our products and services. However, as far as your customers are concerned, they are dealing directly with your brand, not Pitney Bowes.

Reporting and analytics.

With Volly, you have powerful predictive analytics and reporting tools to help you pinpoint opportunities, identify trends, enhance operations and improve customer communications. Of course, that should be no surprise. If you're a Pitney Bowes customer, you already have access to our library of Business Insight solutions.

The Volly Advantage

For businesses in your industry, the Volly digital delivery service could potentially provide substantial cost savings while building stronger customer relationships. With Volly flexibility, high-volume mailers can now meet the growing demand for low-cost digital delivery without disappointing those consumers who prefer paper-based communications.

A clear advantage for service bureaus.

The ability to deliver documents based on consumer preferences will increase the number of communications sent using low-cost digital delivery. For service bureaus, these capabilities affect a broad range of goals and objectives:

  • Retain clients. High-volume mailers that may have considered building their own e-communication platforms can now enjoy these benefits through their trusted suppliers.
  • Expand offerings. In addition to secure digital delivery, the Volly service provides service bureaus with opportunities to add document archiving, mobile offerings, improved targeting or growth into new transactional and promotional mail markets.
  • Manage risks. Given the decline in First-Class Mail® volumes, the Volly service can help outsourcers capture a greater share of the overall communication mix, regardless of channel.
  • Avoid capital expenditures. Service bureaus can leverage their existing IT infrastructure and generate digital output via their existing paper-based production workflows.
  • Reduce operating expenses. Service bureaus can generate both physical and digital mail using the same print and data streams—streamlining implementation while satisfying mailer demand for true multichannel communications.

Most important, the Volly™ digital delivery service helps service bureaus retain and enhance their reputations as value-added providers by meeting the demands of today's high-volume mailers.

  • Electronic substitution. The Volly service consolidates and organizes mail digitally, making it more convenient for consumers to adopt this low-cost delivery option.
  • Compliance support. Volly intelligence maintains an audit trail that tracks when, how and to whom communications were sent.
  • Branded digital experiences. With Volly's capabilities, service bureau clients will be able to maintain and enhance their digital brand exposure among customers and prospects, and to design the customer experience around their bills and statements:
    • Feature company logos and brand images
    • Drive traffic to Web and social media properties
    • Incorporate branded marketing messages in bills, statements and notifications
    • Target customers for specific cross-sell and up-sell

Companies that outsource document production today may find the move to multichannel communications even easier, as the Pitney Bowes solution will only serve to enhance the value that their service bureau provides.

A clear advantage for businesses in the communications industry.

The ability to deliver documents based on consumer preferences will increase the number of communications sent using low-cost digital delivery. For some companies, this could potentially translate into saving tens of millions of dollars a year.

  • Accelerate paper turn-off strategies. The Volly service consolidates and organizes mail digitally, making it more convenient for customers to choose this low-cost delivery option.
  • Encourage low-cost electronic payment. With one-click payment options, customers are more likely to opt for direct debit payment via ACH (Automated Clearing House)1—eliminating the need to pay more costly credit card interchange fees.
  • Avoid capital expenditures. Organizations can leverage their existing IT infrastructure and generate digital output via their existing paper-based production workflows.
  • Reduce operating expenses. In addition to postage savings, companies can now generate both physical and digital mail using the same print and data streams—streamlining implementation while satisfying consumer demand for true multichannel communications.
  • Support internal compliance efforts. Volly intelligence maintains an audit trail that tracks when, how and to whom communications were sent.
  • Provide branded engagements. With Volly capabilities, communications companies will be able to maintain and enhance their digital brand exposure among customers and prospects, and can design the customer experience around their bills and statements:
    • Feature company logos and brand images
    • Drive traffic to Web and social media properties
    • Incorporate branded marketing messages in bills, statements and notifications
    • Target customers for specific cross-sell and up-sell

1Aite Group, "How Americans Pay Their Bills: Sizing and Forecasting Bill Pay Channels and Methods, 2010-2013," October 2010

A clear advantage for utilities.

The ability to deliver documents based on consumer preferences will increase the number of communications sent using low-cost digital delivery. For some companies, this could potentially translate into saving tens of millions of dollars a year.

  • Accelerate paper turn-off strategies. The Volly service consolidates and organizes mail digitally, making it more convenient for customers to choose this low-cost delivery option.
  • Encourage low-cost electronic payment. With one-click payment options, customers are more likely to opt for direct debit payment via ACH (Automated Clearing House)2—eliminating the need to pay more costly credit card interchange fees.
  • Avoid capital expenditures. Organizations can leverage their existing IT infrastructure and generate digital output via their existing paper-based production workflows.
  • Reduce operating expenses. In addition to postage savings, companies can now generate both physical and digital mail using the same print and data streams—streamlining implementation while satisfying consumer demand for true multichannel communications.
  • Support internal compliance efforts. Volly intelligence maintains an audit trail that tracks when, how and to whom communications were sent.
  • Provide branded engagements. With Volly capabilities, utilities will be able to maintain and enhance their digital brand exposure among customers and prospects, and to design the customer experience around their bills and statements:
    • Feature company logos and brand images
    • Drive traffic to Web and social media properties
    • Incorporate branded marketing messages in bills, statements and notifications
    • Target customers for specific cross-sell and up-sell

2Aite Group, "How Americans Pay Their Bills: Sizing and Forecasting Bill Pay Channels and Methods, 2010-2013," October 2010

A clear advantage for businesses in the financial services industry.

The ability to deliver documents based on consumer preferences will increase the number of communications sent using low-cost digital delivery. For some companies, this could potentially translate into saving tens of millions of dollars a year.

  • Accelerate paper turn-off strategies. The Volly service consolidates and organizes mail digitally, making it more convenient for customers to choose this low-cost delivery option.
  • Facilitate electronic payment. With one-click payment options, customers can easily access a bank's online bill-pay services while reviewing their monthly statement.
  • Enhance mobile communications. Designed for smart phones and other leading-edge technologies, the Volly service enables contact just about anytime, anywhere.
  • Avoid capital expenditures. Organizations can leverage their existing IT infrastructure and generate digital output via their existing paper-based production workflows.
  • Reduce operating expenses. In addition to postage savings, companies can now generate both physical and digital mail using the same print and data streams—streamlining implementation while satisfying consumer demands for true multichannel communications.
  • Support internal compliance efforts. Volly intelligence maintains an audit trail that tracks when, how and to whom communications were sent.
  • Provide branded engagements. With Volly capabilities, financial services companies will be able to maintain and enhance their digital brand exposure among customers and prospects, and can design the customer experience around their bills and statements:
    • Feature company logos and brand images
    • Drive traffic to Web and social media properties
    • Incorporate branded marketing messages in bills, statements and notifications
    • Target customers for specific cross-sell and up-sell

A clear advantage for insurers.

The ability to deliver documents based on consumer preferences will increase the number of communications sent using low-cost digital delivery. For some insurance companies, this could potentially translate into saving tens of millions of dollars a year.

  • Accelerate paper turn-off strategies. The Volly service consolidates and organizes mail digitally, making it more convenient for customers to choose this low-cost delivery option.
  • Support internal compliance efforts. Volly intelligence maintains an audit trail that tracks when, how and to whom communications were sent.
  • Avoid capital expenditures. Organizations can leverage their existing IT infrastructure and generate digital output via their existing paper-based production workflows.
  • Reduce operating expenses. In addition to postage savings, insurers can now generate both physical and digital mail using the same print and data streams—streamlining implementation while satisfying consumer demand for true multichannel communications.
  • Branded engagements. With Volly capabilities, insurance companies will be able to maintain and enhance their digital brand exposure among customers and prospects, and to design the customer experience around their bills and statements:
    • Feature company logos and brand images
    • Drive traffic to Web and social media properties
    • Incorporate branded marketing messages in policies, statements and notifications
    • Target customers for specific cross-sell and up-sell

A clear advantage for companies in the healthcare industry.

The ability to deliver documents based on consumer preferences will increase the number of communications sent using low-cost digital delivery. For some companies, this could potentially translate into saving tens of millions of dollars a year.

These savings are particularly welcome now, when healthcare networks, payers and insurance companies are communicating more than ever with patients and members. Whether educating consumers on the value of preventive screenings, promoting adherence to treatment for chronic conditions or simply providing an explanation of benefits—documents and communications play a central role in helping to manage healthcare costs.

  • Accelerate paper turn-off strategies. For some, efforts to suppress EOB print production have met with only modest success. The Volly service consolidates and organizes mail digitally, making it more convenient for members to choose this low-cost delivery option.
  • Avoid capital expenditures. Organizations can leverage their existing IT infrastructure and generate digital output via their existing paper-based production workflows.
  • Reduce operating expenses. In addition to postage savings, companies can now generate both physical and digital mail using the same print and data streams—streamlining implementation while satisfying consumer demand for true multichannel communications.
  • Support internal compliance efforts. Volly intelligence maintains an audit trail that tracks when, how and to whom communications were sent.
  • Branded engagements. With Volly capabilities, healthcare companies will be able to maintain and enhance their digital brand exposure among members and prospects, and to design the customer experience around their bills and statements:
    • Feature company logos and brand images
    • Drive traffic to Web and social media properties
    • Incorporate branded marketing messages in policies, statements and notifications
    • Target customers for specific cross-sell and up-sell

Industry Quotes

This service will increase our clients’ flexibility, choice and control over how they communicate with their customers and shareholders.

-- Doug DeSchutter
President of Customer Communications for Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.

No matter how fast the adoption curve, it [Volly] is ultimately a game changer and will be doubtless mimicked by other players.

-- Printing Impressions

Volly extends on Pitney Bowes’ forte: ‘It’s exactly what we do today. It’s just taking our physical capabilities and applying it to the digital space.’

-- Investors.com

We believe service bureaus and high-volume production printers need to expand their offerings to include both physical and digital personalized communications.

-- Jeff Hayes
President, InfoTrends

The introduction of Pitney Bowes’ Volly electronic mail delivery portal legitimizes the digital mailbox space.

-- Madison Advisors

Mail technology firm Pitney Bowes is preparing to launch a new service that will provide a 'level playing field' for high-volume mailers to communicate digitally with US consumers.

-- Post & Parcel

Find answers to your questions about the Volly service.

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