There are two ways of inserting one or more mailing items into an envelope; by hand or by machine. Most businesses will want to take advantage of the cost efficiencies of automating the process - it's about 4-5 times cheaper than hand enclosing. However, there are some occasions where the size, weight or shape of the mailing items or envelope cannot be machine enclosed and have to be manually inserted. A full service customer management contact centre should be able to offer both options.

Hand Enclosing:

Hand enclosing can encompass:

• Polybagging - inserting leaflets into folders and wallets
• Collating and inserting into ring binders
• Hand folding or machine folding
• Affixing labels
• Packing of promotional items

Machine Enclosing:

Most envelope enclosing machines have several feeding stations or 'hoppers' which are arranged in order beside a conveyor belt. By defining the enclosing sequence, each hopper is dedicated to feeding one specific mailing item only. During this procedure, mailing items are collated in sequence before being simultaneously enclosed into an envelope. This happens at very high speed - some enclosing machines are capable of enclosing and sealing up to 13,000 envelopes per hour.