"We were rather hesitant about handing over control of our membership fulfillment to an outside source. There is absolutely no room for mistakes. Darwill eased all our fears and delivered results above and beyond our expectations. We worked through the implementation process together and in the end, they brought us new ideas and recommendations to help us work smarter."

Art Institute of Chicago

Needs

  • Upgrade the quality and impact of membership materials
  • Improve the efficiencies of the current fullfiment process
  • Identify a partner who could quickly and reliably deliver outsourcing

The Membership Department of The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) faced the daunting task of finding a partner to manage their complex membership fulfillment program. AIC was manually processing fulfillment in-house and needed to make absolutely certain that they could outsource and still maintain the same level of customization and quality control. One of the biggest challenges was that the entire conversion had to be implemented in a three month timeframe, while under the objective of reducing costs.

The AIC new member packets were fairly involved with more than 20 different segments delivered to 120,000 members throughout the year. In addition, the AIC membership team wanted to upgrade the impact of the package and improve the durability of the membership cards by converting them from paper to plastic.

AIC needed to partner with a company that had the experience and know-how to efficiently handle the intricacies of a complex membership fulfillment program from start to finish

Ideas

  • Simplify and create more streamlined fulfillment process
  • Ensure quality/accuracy by having an employee double check packets at the end of the process
  • Explore ways to save money with postage

After an extensive search by the AIC team, Darwill rose to the top as the best versed in the entire process from data management to printing, fulfillment and mailing. “Our Darwill account representative had all the answers and explained exactly how the program would work down to the smallest details,” said Missy Shinall, Associate 
Director of Member Experience.  “They had the necessary experience in the cultural arena as well as real examples of other clients with complex fulfillment programs.”

Darwill worked closely with the AIC team to take a complex program, break it down, assess the pieces and set-up a new, more streamlined process. At every step of the way Darwill presented ideas to improve the process.

As a single source print and fulfillment provider, Darwill was able to print, personalize, fulfill and mail all from one location. In addition they structured the process with a human checkpoint at the end of the fulfillment line.  Having an employee assigned to double check packets was extremely important to AIC and went a long way in making them feel more comfortable about “letting go” of in-house fulfillment.

Outcomes

  • AIC saved thousands on postage
  • Time spent by staff on non-core duties was reduced
  • Improved efficiencies

As a result of having Darwill take over the fulfillment process, the AIC staff was free to focus on more strategic membership matters rather than having to manually fulfill thousands of mailings a week.

With Darwill as a partner, AIC has the convenience of a single source provider—with the expertise to continually improve the process and save on program costs and time.  Since initially partnering on fulfillment, AIC has gone on to work with Darwill on other mailing projects.  On one acquisition mailing alone, Darwill was able to save AIC $6,000 in postage costs.

Darwill has helped the Membership Department seamlessly outsource a process, free up valuable staff time, and improve the overall fulfillment task.

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