Mail Procedure Update

Our new mail processing procedures have been in place for about a week now. Formerly, all incoming mail and delivered pieces were opened and checked by our Customer Service Office. The accumulated waiting-to-be-recorded documents were then moved along to the recording counter where they would be recorded in between customers and as time permitted. These days, with our paucity of customers, there was usually plenty of time to record mailed-in documents so there really wasn’t much of a lag between receiving the documents in the mail and getting them recorded. That usually happened within 48 hours, more likely the very next day. Even at our busiest back in 2003 we never fell more than seven or eight days behind in recording mail. But even with a system that we believed was reasonable and efficient given our size and volume, we felt compelled to scrutinize our mail processing procedures after the National Lumber decision which we’ve written about extensively. While our new procedures do not comply absolutely with the dictates of National Lumber – that mailed in documents be recorded immediately upon receipt and before any additional walk-in customers are waited on – we will now have mail recorded much more promptly, usually the same day it is received. Another improvement is that we will now track mailed-in documents that must be returned to sender due to errors or problems with the recording. We will do this by using a database that will allow us to track not only the individual document that is returned, but all documents that are returned. With this information, we will be able to provide more detailed and targeted assistance to customers who choose to send documents by mail. Using this database and the merge-print function of MS Word, we will create an individualized letter to the submitter of a problem document that will explain what was wrong with it and how the problem can be corrected. This tracking system, created in-house, is in the final stages of testing and will be put into use next week.