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In fact, Chevon's credit card statements are becoming one of their most effective marketing tools. "We wanted our statements to jump off dicing-room tables and command attention," says Fred Siegmund, manager of Chevron printer technology and Xplor EDPP. Simply Smarter-that's what Chevron preaches, and they practice it too.   With 200,000 statements printed in the United States every night and 5,000 more in Canada, what could be smarter than using the credit card statement itself to publicize new trends, such as pay-at-the-pump 24-hour service.

How does Chevron create these personalized statements? They use Advanced Function Presentation's (AFP) document processing. Chevron customizes the messages printed on the statement based on zip code, demographic, and other information. For example, for clients who are late paying their bills, Chevron prints an "Important Notice." Other customers may see an "Of Interest to You" item announcing the grand opening of a new Chevron station in their neighborhood.

When Chevron took a new look at its old form, they soon discovered that they were using the same line-data application they developed 20 years ago for an IBM line-feed printer and had migrated untouched to one of the original IBM 3800 printers 10 years later. The two-up format with uniformly space fonts contained superfluous accounting information and lacked visual appeal. Now that Chevron's print operation had been brought up to date with the purchase of 3900 Advanced Function Printers in California and a PSF/2 attached 3935 in Vancouver, the smart thing to do was to modernize the printed statement as well.

They surveyed customers and canvassed their employees, who are also loyal Chevron customers. Their result: a credit card statement should be readable, understandable, and personalized for each card holder.

"Only Advanced Function Presentation makes these tailor-made statements possible," according to Damon Trimble of Carrera Publishing, a company that specializes in AFP application development.

With Carrera's help, Chevron implemented their smarter statement. It not only uses typographic fonts; it uses rules and white space as well. Bold type emphasizes important items, such as due date and the minimum required balance. Transactions are separated by rules, showing clear and concise calculations. Previous-balance, payment-due,  credit, and finance charge fields are not printed unless there is an entry in that filed for the individual card holder.

Nearly every field changes on each statement, and each field has two to six values to be entered based on the information in the database.   The intricate conditions for processing proved a challenge to Chevron and Carrera. "AFP's full page mode is the best way to format all that variable data. There was no way we could attack the credit card application without it," explains Trimble. "From the beginning, we found that AFP offered us the most flexibility. We could place fields of text anywhere, choose the text to be printed, and compute the remaining space on which to print the marketing message all at the same time," concludes George DeVore, Chevron system analyst.

Best of all, Chevron's two 3900 printers run at rated speed. "Those printers just don't stop," continues Trimble. "We can insert roll-feed paper on the front end and feed the output to folder and inserter equipment. We can insert a combination of 11 different flyers based on the demographic information we have about the individual customer."

Chevron plans even more services for their credit-card customers, like including order coupons for travel planners and maps. "The flexibility of our new credit card-card statement allows us to generate more revenue by improving our product offerings," states Yvonne Ware, Chevron project manager.

"We are excited about Phase II of our credit-card application. We intend to add graphics and more customized messages so that we can reach out to our customers, one-one-one. In turn, we anticipate great benefits from our simple and smart AFP printing application," concludes Siegmund.

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