This is so mundane and pointless that it might even fall below the requirements, such as they are, for MPSIMS.
I just got done paying a bill and when I put the thing in the envelope I wondered, “Is using window envelopes instead of printing the address really cost-effective?”
The envelope was already covered with advertising and other printing and an address wouldn’t have added any cost. True, the address might change and you would be stuck with unuseable envelopes but that is also true of the statement with the address that shows through the window.
If there are several bill collection centers, it’s easier to print the different addresses on the statements than getting the right statements matched up with the right envelopes.
It also gets your return address in view without a lot of complicated pre-printing of your return envelope, and it simplifies things when the addresses change (otherwise they might end up with a couple gadzillion envelopes with an out-of-date address on them).
If the envelope was covered with advertising, it may have been: a) provided at no charge to the company by the advertiser; b) written off as a tax-deductible advertising expense, rather than categorized as operations expense; c) actually, I really can’t think of a c, and I’m pretty tired of the whole ‘hi Opal’ thing, but I don’t want to go back and edit this (admittedly poorly structured) sentence. So just forget about c, OK? Not that there couldn’t be another alternative, BTW.
Is it Friday yet?
I also want to remind you of the whole economy of scale issue. They may save half a cent on these envelopes, and that works out to $6,000 a year per 100,000 customers.
