Customer communications management systems carry out a range of functions, helping to improve and digitize processes, manage information and get customers on board with brands by personalizing content. They also help with compliance by keeping data and transactions secure. Companies that get communication right have happier, more loyal customers. But those that get it wrong can find themselves dealing with endless complaints from dissatisfied customers. In this blog find out about the six ways a customer communications management system can help companies to communicate better and improve the customer experience.
1. Create connected multi-channel experiences
There have never been more ways to contact businesses. With advances in digital technology being made on a seemingly daily basis, companies have a multitude of channels at their disposal. Customers want to use everything from live chat, email and websites to social media and the phone to get in touch. Issues arise, however, when different departments and channels within the business don’t work together in a seamless way. Customers, for example, might contact customer services via the website to raise their issues. Enquiries are logged and tickets raised, but the operational teams dealing with the issues don’t keep customers informed about how things are progressing. Customers are left in the dark waiting for updates and solutions. This causes frustration and could lead to them deciding to take their business elsewhere.
The reality for a lot of businesses is that a connected customer experience has been difficult to achieve. A centralized customer communications management platform helps create a more seamless customer experience by managing all the interactions between different business systems so they work together as one, enabling customers to pass smoothly between channels and departments.
2. Take a digital-first approach
More and more organizations are embracing digital transformation to improve the customer experience but they face challenges adapting existing systems, business processes and communications so they exploit the full potential of the digital world.
Customer communications management systems help businesses to repurpose the data and documents they already produce, so messages can be communicated more widely using a range of channels such as email, texts and live chat. Existing content can also be used to build interactive online experiences, for example including personalized charts, to help customers keep track of their spending and/or usage. This creates additional value and encourages people to keep coming back to the website, helping the business to develop the customer relationship.
3. Transform legacy content
Many organizations run older business systems that still produce old-style documents that were only designed to be printed; for example, reports, invoices and delivery notes. These documents are essential to the smooth running of the business but are often in fixed formats that are difficult to modernize, making it hard to incorporate them into digital channels, add personalization or update current branding. Making changes to these documents, or the legacy systems that produce them, may be considered too expensive or just not an option.
Customer communications management systems can breathe new life into this content, allowing it to be redesigned, personalized as required and created in multiple digital formats without updating the legacy application, saving time and money.
4. Create a single customer view
Businesses rely on information from multiple sources to communicate with and understand their customers. Organizing and making sense of every piece of that data is a huge challenge, especially as 80 per cent of it is unstructured, existing in many different forms around the business, for example as emails, text messages, live chat, video or social media conversations. Consolidating and understanding all of it is a necessary challenge if organizations want to build a single customer view, which will help everyone interacting with customers to provide a more personal service and ultimately generate more loyalty to the business.
Customer communications management software can capture all unstructured information, classify it by customer and make it accessible alongside other key data as part of a single customer view, as well as storing it long term to provide a complete customer history. This is then available for the customer services team who can pick up seamlessly on previous interactions the next time the customer is in touch. The customer has a better experience because their query has been dealt with quickly and efficiently.
5. Personalize communications
Customers don’t just want personalization, they demand it, according to research by McKinsey in 2021. Over three-quarters of customers said that receiving personalized communications is a key factor in them considering a brand and 78 per cent said such content made them more likely to repurchase.
Customer communications systems can help build personalization into communications by:
- Triggering personalized communications in response to customer actions and reactions
- Using blank space on documents such as bills, statements and delivery notes to add personalized messages and information
- Integrating with analytics platforms and customer profiling systems to drive personalized communications across multiple channels
- Combining automation with the human touch at key points in the customer journey
6. Strengthen data protection
The importance of data protection cannot be overstated as cyber-attacks and data breaches have become more frequent over the last few years. At the same time, the introduction of the GDPR in 2018 and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2020, as well as similar regulations in Brazil, Thailand and South Korea, has led to a tougher global compliance landscape and has meant that customers have greater rights over how their personal information is handled. Taking a rigorous approach to data protection is a necessary obligation – and it’s good for brands because it builds public trust.
Customer communications management platforms ensure that customer documents and other unstructured data within an organization are managed securely in line with data protection rules. They also provide data security and compliance features such as digital signatures, encrypted and tamper-proof data storage and the ability to easily redact personal information.
Doing customer communication well is increasingly important. To win the battle for customers and their loyalty organizations must exploit digital channels and offer a more personalized, seamless approach. Learn more about customer communications management systems and how they can help in our white paper: ‘Six ways to communicate better and improve the customer experience’.
