CCM Strategy
There’s never been a better time to review your Customer Communications Management (CCM) strategy
Now more than ever, customers expect companies to value their loyalty, recognise them as individuals, be cognisant of their personal needs and requirements and send them only the most relevant information or offers. That’s why a customer communications management strategy is so important, says Gabi Strijp.
Throughout the history of business, large enterprises have never had more customers, nor as many ways to communicate with them.
At face value, this is an abundance of blessings for leading brands and corporations. After all, when it comes to quantity of customers and quality of customer contact, more is better than less.
But the everyday reality of managing customer communication programmes today can be daunting, not to mention expensive, now that it involves the use of customer data to create personalised, multi-media experiences dynamically and delivering it securely to millions of individuals across a multitude of channels and formats.
The growing complexity of sending personalised correspondence at scale is one of the factors driving a resurgence of interest in the formerly low-profile category of software and managed services known as Customer Communications Management (CCM).
In fact, the global customer communications management market has been forecast to grow from $1.4 billion in 2017 to $4 billion by the end of 2024 – a compound annual growth rate of over 16%.
So what exactly is CCM software and managed services? And how do they help large enterprises deliver personalised communications and experiences at scale?
CCM defined
Research and advisory company Gartner defines the CCM market as solutions that support “the strategy to improve the creation, delivery, storage and retrieval of outbound communications, including those for marketing, new product introductions, renewal notifications, claims correspondence and documentation, and bill and payment notifications.
“These interactions can happen through a wide range of media and output, including documents, email, Short Message Service (SMS) and web pages.
“CCM solutions support these objectives, providing companies with an application to improve outbound communications with their distributors, partners, regulatory bodies and customers.”
Put another way, the ideal CCM service provider offers an integrated suite of software and managed services to enterprises to deliver personalised communications and experiences to millions of customers across any channel, format or device.
Importantly, while using a state-of-the-art CCM platform can improve the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of customer acquisition programmes, perhaps CCM’s most significant value-adds lie in its potential to improve Net Promoter Scores (NPS), strengthen customer retention and increase the business value of existing customers.
CCM helps companies achieve these goals with:
More relevant content
Use customer data to create hyper-personalised information, messages and offers that are more relevant and valuable to recipients.
Improved CX
Connecting multiple channels – such as email, MMS, SMS, in-app, HTML, posted documents and other pathways – on an integrated platform helps deliver smoother, more seamless and more impressive customer experiences.
Satisfaction, loyalty, retention
Turn routine and mundane correspondence – such as sign-up forms, onboarding processes, bills, statements, renewal notifications, service information and even payment reminders – into impressive and engaging touchpoints that surprise, delight and satisfy. The end game is better NPS outcomes and lower customer churn.
Digital transformation
Accelerate and upgrade the migration from analogue to digital.
Increased customer lifetime value
Generate more leads and conversions from existing customers who see value in relevant cross-sell/upsell offers.
Cost control
Realise the potential for considerable direct and indirect cost savings when moving from multiple, independent, ‘one-channel, specialist vendors’ to an integrated platform that can deliver a diverse array of touchpoints to customers through any channel.
Additionally, super compression technology reduces the size of personalised videos, HTML, and interactive PDF documents, leading to improved CX and substantial savings on the cost of delivery and archiving.
Now more than ever, customers expect companies to value their loyalty, recognise them as individuals, be cognisant of their personal needs and requirements and send them only the most relevant information or offers.
They also want to be contacted at just the right time via their choice of digital, mobile or print channel and given fresh, engaging, user-friendly experiences. CCM enables companies to deliver these goals.
Moreover, medium-range GDP growth forecasts in the world’s most advanced, developed economies are anaemic – typically 1-2%.
In this lacklustre business environment, it’s never been more critical for large enterprises to retain customers, raise the business value of every customer relationship and control costs.
Importantly, CCM also enables companies to streamline and simplify their customer communications infrastructure onto a single, cost-efficient and easy-to-deploy, rules-based platform that connects to other parts of the organisation, such as customer service centres.
In my opinion, the best CCM platforms are simple, fast and cost-efficient to set up, with minimal “systems integration” tasks, and they offer high levels of flexibility so they can be optimised to meet the needs and requirements of different companies and industries.