Texas A&M AgriLifeTexas A&M AgriLife replaces postage meters with Stamps.com

Enterprise across its network of offices to streamline operations.

Customer

Texas A&M AgriLife administers programs in agriculture,

natural resources, and life sciences to improve the

lives of all Texans. It is an entity that encompasses five

main components of the Texas A&M University System

including the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences,

AgriLife Extension Service, Texas AgriLife Research, Texas

Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, and the Texas

Forest Service. Texas A&M AgriLife has offices in all 254

counties of Texas as well as an additional 12 district

offices, and it is the cornerstone of one of the state’s

premier higher education institutions.

Challenge

For many years, Texas A&M AgriLife relied on postage

meters to send thousands of mail pieces per month.

Although operationally capable of handling this

large volume of mail, the postage meters lacked the

managerial and reporting tools district managers

needed to determine their postage spend and accurately

budget for ongoing mailing needs.

Solution

In 2008, Auxiliary Operations Officer Ralph Piper and the

management team at Texas A&M AgriLife began to look

for a more effective postage solution that would better

suit the organization’s needs. Key search criteria included:

• The ability to generate timely and accurate reports

for all 12 district offices and 254 county offices from

both local and central locations

• Support for all mail classes

• Ease of use

• Rapid deployment that would not disrupt day-to-

day operations

After a thorough evaluation, Texas A&M AgriLife chose

Stamps.com Enterprise as its new postage solution. After

conducting a 90-day pilot project in 25 offices, Texas

A&M AgriLife implemented the Stamps.com solution at

all statewide offices. By using Stamps.com’s signature

White Glove Roll-Out Program, the organization ensured

a seamless, efficient and non-disruptive transition from

postage meters. Today, a group of dedicated Stamps.com

representatives are permanently assigned to the Texas

A&M AgriLife account to provide each location with

relationship management, technical support and any

other needs that may arise over time.

Results

Reporting

Postage meters prevented Texas A&M AgriLife from

producing accurate and timely reporting of each county

office’s postage spend, complicating the budgeting

process. Stamps.com Enterprise allows the management

team to pull various reports that provide a complete

view of the organization’s postage activity. There are also

several reporting tools that can be customized to pull

the information that is most relevant to management.

The comprehensive reporting features included in

Stamps.com Enterprise have resulted in significant

time savings and enabled management to have much

stronger control over billing and budgeting.

Control and Visibility

Due to the large number of county offices throughout

the state, it was nearly impossible for Texas A&M

AgriLife’s central office to assess and view postage spend

in a timely and reliable manner. Stamps.com Enterprise’s

centralized reporting dashboard allows management to

view local activity, assess postage spending and forecast

postage costs into the future. From one central location,

managers now have greater visibility into each county

office’s postage activity. This gives them more control

over local spending, and directly results in both time and

cost savings. More importantly, Stamps.com Enterprise

enables a more efficient business operation because it

ensures accountability at the employee level.

Efficiency

A key criterion for the Texas A&M AgriLife organization

was to have an easy-to-implement and user-friendly

postage system. To meet this important requirement,

Stamps.com Enterprise’s dedicated team of

implementation specialists was quickly assigned to the

rollout of the software application at selected locations,

and subsequently to the rest of the organization’s

network. This ensured a seamless and interruption-free

transition from postage meters to Stamps.com for all of

Texas A&M AgriLife’s locations. Although the majority

of the mail that is sent by Texas A&M AgriLife consists of

standard envelopes, postcards, newsletters and some

flats, management appreciates having the ability to take

advantage of other powerful features of Stamps.com

Enterprise such as Certified Mail™, package insurance

and discounts on Priority Mail® and Express Mail®.

“We noticed over time that using postage meters was

inefficient because our managers were unable to

properly determine their districts’ postage spend,

which led to the inability to accurately budget for

their ongoing mailing needs.”

- Ralph Piper, Auxiliary Operations Officer,

Texas A&M AgriLife