In 1987, American Airlines famously discovered that removing one olive from each first-class salad would save the company $40,000 a year.
The lesson became legendary, not because of the olive, but because it exposed a universal truth:
Small inefficiencies, multiplied at scale, quietly drain enormous amounts of money.
Fast-forward nearly four decades, and organisations are still bleeding cash, not from olives, but from redundant communication.
Banks and government institutions invest heavily in digital transformation, automation, and customer experience initiatives. Yet many continue to tolerate redundant business processes, outdated communication rules, and disconnected systems that generate messages no one needs and no one benefits from. The result is a quiet but persistent form of operational inefficiency — letters, emails, notifications, and reminders sent simply because “the system says so.”
Individually, these communications appear harmless. Collectively, they represent millions in avoidable cost, unnecessary customer frustration, and a clear signal that end-to-end processes are no longer truly owned.
A Case Study
Two weeks ago, I visited a bank branch to close:
- A dormant current account
- An associated credit card unused for over six months
What happened next was, on the surface, efficient:
- The current account was closed immediately
- I was asked to call the card division
- I paid the obligatory €30 closing fee
- Within 24 hours, both accounts disappeared from my mobile app
From a customer perspective, the journey was complete. And yet…
Two Weeks Later: The Zombie Letter
A physical letter arrived by post, explaining that my account was dormant and what steps I needed to take to close it – steps I had already taken, processes that had already completed and systems that had already been updated.
The letter was clearly:
- Automatically generated
- Triggered by an outdated rule
- Blind to real-time account status
It served no customer value.
It incurred real cost.
The True Cost of One Redundant Letter
Let’s break this down conservatively for a mid-sized bank:
Per Letter (Estimated)
- Printing & stationery: €0.30
- Envelope & handling: €0.20
- Postage: €1.00
- Systems processing & batch jobs: €0.20
- Customer service follow-ups (calls, complaints, reassurance): €1.00
Total €2.70 per unnecessary letter
What does it mean at scale?
Lets consider a mid-size bank in Ireland which has 2.3–2.5 million personal customers and 200,000 SME / business customers.
For estimation, we’ll use 2.5 million total customer relationships. Even with digital banking, banks are still legally and operationally obliged to send physical mail for many events.
A conservative average per customer per year:
| Letter Type | Avg / Customer / Year |
|---|---|
| Statements & regulatory notices | 1–2 |
| Fee changes / T&Cs updates | 0.5 |
| Compliance & regulatory notifications | 0.5 |
| Account lifecycle events (dormancy, closure, reminders) | 0.5 |
| Exception handling (failed payments, confirmations, etc.) | 0.5 |
If a bank sends 500,000 redundant letters per year, that’s €1.35 million annually — for communication that should never have happened. And that’s just one letter type.
Now multiply that across:
- Dormant accounts
- Card closures
- Address changes
- IBAN updates
- Compliance confirmations already acknowledged digitally
Government Institutions: The Multiplier Effect
In government agencies, the problem is often worse due to:
- Legacy systems
- Siloed departments
- Regulatory “belt and braces” behaviour
- Paper-first legal interpretations
A single citizen action can trigger:
- A confirmation email
- A physical letter
- A follow-up reminder
- A “final notice” that ignores the prior steps
Each department is “doing its job” but no one owns the end-to-end communication logic.
Why This Happens
This isn’t about careless staff or poor intent. It’s structural.
Common Root Causes
- Event-driven batch processes that don’t re-check status
- Channels (branch, app, call centre, mail) not truly synchronised
- “Just in case” compliance rules that were never revisited
- KPIs that measure output, not outcomes
- No cost accountability for automated communication
In short:
Letters are cheap individually, invisible collectively, and therefore never challenged.
Most cost-reduction programmes focus on:
- Headcount
- IT consolidation
- Supplier contracts
Yet communication volume optimisation is often ignored—even though it is:
- Highly measurable
- Largely automatable
- Low-risk
- Invisible to customers when done right
In fact, customers notice only when it’s not done.
What Smart Organisations Do Differently
Leading organisations are starting to ask a new question:
“What communication can we safely stop sending?”
They implement:
- Event validation checks before outbound messages
- Kill-switch logic for completed journeys
- Digital-first suppression rules
- Cost-per-communication dashboards
- Customer journey owners, not channel owners
From Olives to Letters: The Same Lesson, Bigger Stakes
If American Airlines could save $40,000 by removing one olive…
How much would:
- Banks save by eliminating one redundant letter?
- Governments save by eliminating one unnecessary notice?
- Citizens gain in reduced confusion and frustration?
The answer is not theoretical. It’s measurable, achievable, and long overdue.
Final Thought
Digital transformation isn’t always about AI, apps, or chatbots. Sometimes, it’s about having the courage to ask:
“Do we really need to say this …again?”
