Leveraging a customer communications management platform is like using a general contractor for building a house versus arranging permits and hiring, scheduling, and overseeing all the construction yourself. Just as with siloed systems and multiple vendors handling individual communications channels, you can patch it together, but it will be more effort, time, stress and possibly cost for a suboptimal outcome.
A single CCM platform gives companies all the control and capabilities needed to develop and execute omnichannel communications strategies. Unfortunately, many companies have so far taken the do-it-yourself route instead.
To meet customer expectations for choice, they have expanded beyond print and mail to offer digital billing statements, payment alerts and other transactional communications. For every channel, they have turned to one or more specialized providers, greatly increasing complexity and their burden for managing internal and external systems and resources, meeting customer preferences, and providing consistent experiences across channels.
Unlike this piecemeal approach, CCM solutions enable companies to automate and digitally transform the entire communications lifecycle for greater productivity and cost-efficiency. Beyond simplifying and streamlining day-to-day operations, companies can develop and execute timely, strategic and curated omnichannel communications programs that engage, encourage prompt payment and build trust and loyalty.
Why is this so important? A strategy focused on improving the experience of current customers can deliver breakthrough growth for companies—often more than double that of their industry peers, McKinsey reports. In fact, 80% of the value creation achieved by the world’s most successful growth companies comes from their core businesses, primarily capturing new revenues from existing customers because of experiences that keep them choosing those brands.
CCM Solutions Improve Communication Strategies
Cloud CCM platforms provide a centralized, easy-to-use powerhouse for all stages of creating, managing, and delivering print and digital customer communications. Companies can:
- Work from anywhere
- Develop reusable templates for print communications
- Dynamically customize each communication with customer data and targeted content.
- Review documents, generate proofs for sign-off, and make disclosure changes in real time.
- Track distribution, run detailed analytics reports and create audit trails.
- Present documents in online settings.
- Archive documents and access them in real-time.
Even as the number of your clients and their consumers, brands and other variability grows, a CCM solution can keep the process simple yet customized, removing risk with superior version control and automated workflows. Other key benefits:
- Consistent experience, messaging and branding across channels.
- Personalization at scale, allowing tailored, relevant content based on customer behavior, preferences, demographics, or past interactions—across every channel.
- Channel optimization to meet consumer preferences for any combination of print and mail, email and text messaging.
- Improved compliance, with programmed rules and automated workflows that help ensure all customer communications are accurate and compliant with legal, industry, or brand guidelines.
- Seamless integration with company technology, including CRMs, ERPs, financial and other core systems.
- Reduced duplication and errors, with a central platform that automates manual steps and tracks all communications to each customer.
- Ability to make real-time changes, minimizing lengthy vendor turnarounds and accelerating response to changing regulations and business conditions.
- Ease of use. A centralized dashboard, pre-built templates and programmed logic, and automated workflows remove manual steps and increase productivity.
Companies can quickly move to cloud CCM platforms, layering these capabilities onto and integrated with their existing systems without requiring a major IT overhaul.
Better CX drives payments
Billing statements and other critical financial communications are the gateway to company cashflow, revenue and profitability. Satisfying customer communications experiences predispose consumers to cross through to payments.
CCM platforms enable companies to closely tie billing to payments to make them fast, easy and convenient, right in the moment. Billers can insert links in secure email statements and text notifications to payment portals. Mailed paper statements can prominently display online payment options. When CCM solutions are integrated with print and mail services, companies can add individual QR codes to paper communications that customers can use to go directly to their online accounts and payment sites.
In addition to delivering regular short-term gains, CCM platforms are instrumental in building stronger customer relationships over time that propel growth. Experience-led growth strategies that increase customer satisfaction by 20% or more also improve cross-sell rates by 15% to 25% percent and wallet by 5% to 10%, according to McKinsey. So leading companies recognize that cloud CCM platforms are more than a communications tools—they are strategic assets for CX success and growth.
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