Pitney Bowes signs another partner to bolster Volly volumes

Pitney Bowes has signed up another partner to bring more mail volumes over to its digital mail service in the United States, Volly. As the customer communications specialist prepares for the consumer launch of Volly later this year, it said today that it will partner with California-based Solimar Systems to provide the secure electronic billing and statement service for its customers.

Solimar Systems claims 70 of the top US companies, as listed by the Fortune 100, as its customers.

This includes the likes of telecoms companies At&T, Sprint and Verizon, as well as finance giants American Express, Bank of America, Capital One and Wells Fargo; and utilities ranging from General Electric and Southwestern Energy to the MidAmerican Energy Company.

Pitney Bowes will be integrating its Volly service with Solimar’s SOLsearcher Enterprise (SSE) service, an electronic document and web presentment solution for transactional documents.

The company said it would mean lowering SSE customers’ operating costs while increasing their engagement with their customers.

Mary Ann Rowan, the Solimar vice president and CMO, said many of her company’s SSE clients had already been signing up with Volly ahead of the planned consumer launch in the second half of 2012.

“Volly’s federated storage model will allow requested documents to be securely served up and tracked from the SEE archive,” she said. “This is critical for our clients that manage sensitive information as they need to ensure secure access to consumer data and documents.”

Delayed launch

The Volly service, which goes up against rivals that have already launched in the form of Doxo, Zumbox and Manilla, has seen its consumer launch put back by Pitney Bowes by around a year after originally being slated to launch towards the end of 2011.

The delay to the launch has been the result of the company’s desire to ensure a large number of mailers are using the service to send digital bills and statements by the time consumers start registering to use the digital mailbox.

Earlier this month, Volly said it now had more than 50 agreements with partners in place to offer the service to more than 6,000 companies and brands.

Chuck Cordray, the Volly president, said today that more and more mailers were embracing the potential of the digital mailbox in the run-up to Volly’s consumer launch.

“Aggregating thousands of mailers on a single, easy-to-use and highly secure mobile platform really is the next wave in digital bill presentment and payment. We are pleased to partner with Solimar to bring these advantages directly to their business customers,” he said.