Fax it to them.

How one association is leading members away from time-consuming staff contact and into the future of information technology.

Are you concerned that your staff may spend more time juggling phones than projects? Is your postage budget bloated because of the increase in critical bulletins and emergency mailings? Is your office bogged down with constant requests from members who want the latest information--the same information that will be old news when the newsletter or journal finally hits their mailboxes?

In short, has member communication become a real bottleneck? Maybe what you need is a faster, more cost-effective way to deliver information.

The Association of Progressive Rental Organizations (APRO), a national trade association based in Austin, Texas, faced this issue in late 1993. New regulatory pressures on our industry and the resulting concern among our members caused our communication function to explode--not only in the 2-person communication department but throughout the 11-person staff. We needed a faster way to get out information. The solution had to be somewhat interactive--because different members need different types of information--but not difficult to master. Ideally, it would ease the phone pressure on our overburdened staff.

Easy-to-use technology

Enter fax-on-demand, which allows members to dial into a voice-mail-style system from their touch-tone telephones and order documents delivered directly to their facsimile machines.

After considering APRO's high postage and duplicating costs and the amount of staff time tied up in direct-mail bulletins, our executive director convinced the board to allocate approximately $12,000 for an in-house system consisting of a fax machine and a dedicated computer.

Before choosing fax-on-demand, we did consider electronic bulletin boards. Only the most computer-literate members would have the modems and the know-how to use them, however. We reasoned that fax machines and touch-tone telephones were not only easier to use but, by now, almost universal.

From the staff perspective, fulfilling most member requests involved finding and faxing a specific memo or article to members. Requests ran the gamut from membership benefits to government relations reports, requiring more than one staff member's time to fulfill. Fax-on-demand was a better solution.

For us, the need to save time was more important than saving money. Nevertheless, fax-on-demand can prove cost-effective when you consider that human resource, phone, postage, and literature costs can amount to $5 per request. According to technology vendors, automated, high-speed fax transmission can reduce fulfillment costs by more than 80 percent compared to mailing.

The fax-on-demand system we chose has a maximum capacity of 5,000 pages of text, equivalent to hundreds of documents. By contrast, service bureaus sometimes limit to 20 pages the image material they will maintain for clients without additional charges. Our hardware consists of a two-line fax machine with built-in scanner, extra memory, and a beefed-up personal computer.

Setting up the system

Our technology vendor helped us set up seven initial catalogs covering major subject areas. Our executive director, department heads, and office manager participated in identifying major subject areas and the kinds of individual documents we would offer. The most sought-after reports, memos, minutes, and articles made the starting list.

Next, we designed our own "APRO Facts Line" logo and incorporated it into catalog templates. We use the logo as an identifier on the fax cover page and on all catalog pages. We also use the logo in ongoing promotions of the fax-on-demand service.

The catalogs provide a table of contents by subject area and are updated directly from our computer network to reflect new or revised documents. Catalogs are scanned into the system like any document.

Each catalog lists the individual documents--identified by number, subject, and date--that we scan into the system through the fax machine. For instance, catalog number one contains eight documents relating to membership and member services. Catalog five is legislative updates, the most frequently accessed catalog on the system. It contains 19 documents; the longest is the text of a 21-page bill currently under consideration in the U.S. Congress. At least once a week, the communication staff updates certain documents to reflect new information.

System setup took about a week, followed by two to three weeks of debugging. With the vendor's help, we recorded our own voice prompts; we wanted the APRO receptionist's familiar voice guiding members through the process. These recording sessions took some trial and error, but the personalized result was worth it.

At APRO, we use the two-call option, which lets our members receive fax documents on a call back from our system. This means APRO pays for the fax transmission. If your association is on a tight budget, you can select the one-call option, which forces users to order documents from the handsets of their fax machines. That way the cost of the calls falls to members who use the system.

But members don't have to dial into the system for it to prove beneficial. At APRO, we take regular phone requests and then call our own Facts Line to order the documents. We punch in the recipient's name for the fax cover sheet, and the documents are sent immediately to the member's fax machine. Associations using service bureaus can do the same thing just as easily.

Daily reports automatically printed from the fax machine tell us who has dialed into the system during the previous 24 hours, their fax numbers, and which documents they ordered. This helps us track usage patterns and determine what type of information is most helpful. Service bureaus can provide the same types of reports.

What are the drawbacks to this relatively new technology? It takes a few weeks to get it up and running smoothly, and there will always be bugs to work out. It requires ongoing promotion for members to learn about the service and its benefits. We began promotion with direct mail announcing the service and continue to run ads and how-to articles in our publications. At our trade show this fall, members can try out fax-on-demand at a kiosk.

The demand on staff

Providing a fax-on-demand service does require regular maintenance. Whether you go with your own in-house system or a service bureau, you'll need to designate a staff person to be responsible for maintaining the system. In most associations, this duty will fall to communication staff. Other candidates are the office manager, education director, and government affairs staff.

At APRO, after the vendor worked with us for a week, our staff took over. An ad-hoc, cross-department team learned how to handle adjusting the voice recordings and adding or changing documents. I now spend about an hour a week on routine maintenance. Remember: Once the system is set up, it takes the same amount of staff time to keep the system updated whether 10 members or 100 members use it.

The fax future

My colleague R. Scott Bruner, director of communications for the National Association for Plastic Container Recovery (NAPCOR), Charlotte, North Carolina, is researching potential uses and costs of fax-on-demand. "The bulk of what we do is communication," he says. "We provide brochures to communities to help them promote their recycling programs; we provide public service announcements and sample news releases. A lot of the material we're sending out is communication-related. But I have considered applications in legislative areas, too. With a system like this, we could set up files for different states. For the person who calls to find out the status of a bill or the current regulatory situation in California, that would be one of the menu options."

Fax-on-demand is already part of the burgeoning information highway. As the technology advances, integrated systems likely will replace stand-alone functions like dedicated fax-on-demand hardware.

Today, many are still slow to try new technology, even relatively simple fax-on-demand. However, APRO's Facts Line gains devotees among members every week. Fans dial in two or three times a week. Our monthly phone bills have yet to exceed $100 for the two dedicated phone lines, including long-distance charges, although we expect that figure to rise as more members learn about the service. And while we're always eager to provide the personal touch, we also expect time-consuming phone requests to decrease in direct proportion to members' use of the fax-on-demand system.

Service Bureaus

A service bureau offers basically the same fax-on-demand service to your members that an in-house operation can. It's just a phone number to members, but other considerations may matter to you.

Many service bureaus offer sophisticated options, such as converting association newsletters to fax-ready templates. They receive copy and mailing lists electronically, then format and broadcast fax the new edition to association members. That saves on postage.

Security may be a concern. At the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations, Austin, Texas, we decided to bring the fax-on-demand function in-house. We restrict certain catalogs that contain sensitive documents and mail access codes to members' home offices. Outsiders dialing into the system can access only relatively benign information.

Costs are another issue. Fax-on-demand service bureaus charge in the range of 50 cents a minute for fulfillment requests. If most return-call faxes take less than four minutes to complete, each request will average $2.

To fulfill a traditional phone request--counting staff time, phone, postage, and printing--costs up to $5 or more. That makes the service bureau per-request cost look attractive. But that does not include the initial set-up and programming fees, which can range from $750 to more than $2,000. Plus, document updates and wholesale revisions to your system can mean extra charges on your monthly bill.

Compare that to taking the in-house route and a capital outlay of $10,000 or more for hardware and adding one or more dedicated phone lines. Clearly, setting up your own fax-on-demand system costs more up front, but do consider it if security and control are primary concerns.

Controlling Costs

If you favor the security and control of an in-house fax-on-demand system but also want to keep costs down as much as possible, consider these tips for controlling long-distance charges:

* Set up your system so that all document requests must be made from the handset of the caller's fax machine, meaning you don't incur any long-distance charges. As an alternative, ask your members to dial in from the handset for their first call, which tends to be the longest.

* To save members' time when they dial in, educate them through direct mail and regular publications about how the system works. An informational kiosk at your annual convention can demonstrate the system's benefits and help members learn how to use it.

* Encourage members to order first the list of available catalogs and then individual subject catalogs. These provide document descriptions that help users decide which documents to order.

* Explore the possibility of setting up an 800 number. Depending on how many members dial in and the phone rate you're able to negotiate, it could save money. A fax-on-demand system coupled with an 800 number can still deliver information for a little more than $1 per request.

Broadcast Fax

Another useful adaptation of fax-on-demand is broadcast fax. From the association system or your service bureau, a single document goes out to multiple recipients. Here are some of the benefits we've found using broadcast fax at the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations, Austin, Texas:

* Broadcast fax is like a mass mailing with no bad addresses. Bad telephone numbers show up immediately on the fax machine's report.

* You can select groups, such as your executive committee, to receive special bulletins.

* You can save on long-distance charges by sending a broadcast fax at nighttime phone rates.

* If you don't finish the hoard meeting agenda until 5 p.m., you can broadcast fax it overnight to the full committee. You'll have a printed report the next morning listing who received it.

* Even if your office on the East Coast closes before your office on the West Coast, you can be sure everyone has your message in the morning.

One caveat: Pay attention to who receives your fax and who doesn't. We once failed to get a memo through to our president about a conference call early the next morning. But only once.

HIGHLIGHTS

* FAX-ON-DEMAND allows members to access more information in less time than the postal system can deliver.

* AT THIS ASSOCIATION, empowerment members essentially to fulfill their own information requests means one staff person--not 11--can manage this member service.

* AFTER START-UP, fax-on-demand costs grow precisely as member use increases.

John Gormley is director of communications for the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations, Austin, Texas.