2021 Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Smart Communications Blogs

DocuSign & Smart Communications: Delivering SMARTER Conversations in 2021

Posted on May 11, 2021 by SmartComm

By Chuck Fazio, VP Global Partner Ecosystem at Smart Communications

Global business leaders face several challenges – some that have been around for a while, and others that have emerged or intensified more recently. Customers’ ever-changing expectations and increased appetite for digital-first engagements, remote work and more have forced most organizations to rethink customer engagement. Gone are the days of one-way, transactional communications. Today, enterprises must deliver meaningful, two-way customer conversations.

We recently sat down with Steve Park, Technical Director, Global Partner Solutions at DocuSign to discuss what’s on the horizon for businesses this year, plus how we can all learn and grow from the lessons we learned in 2020.

How did the big changes of the past year impact the employee experience?

DocuSign: The transition to a remote environment quickly altered our culture in some significant ways. The ability to gather, collaborate and connect with our colleagues and customers had to be managed differently in order to maintain DocuSign’s standard of excellence. We’ve had to rely more heavily on the systems and services that keep us connected with each other in order to keep business moving forward.

Smart Communications: It’s interesting that while digital transformation has been a focus for many companies in recent years, it took the challenges of 2020 to really accelerate these efforts. One silver lining of this experience is that it made clear that just translating traditional processes into a digital format isn’t enough. It’s really about making the end-to-end interaction more effective and engaging.

What can business leaders do to ensure employees have the resources they need for success?

DocuSign: Increase the touch points. High levels of engagement from your employees and customers are only achievable the more you communicate with them. That’s even more important in a virtual setting.

Smart Communications: In 5 Key Trends Transforming Customer Conversations in 2021, we collected insights from leaders across industries, and without exception, the employee experience is a key focus for this year. Making the remote work experience as seamless and efficient as possible is essential. Companies that are leading the way are investing in technologies that support a digital-first approach and help employees be more successful by eliminating silos, reducing manual processes and creating more powerful connections at scale.

What kind of impact did COVID-19 have on your customers’ expectations? What changes did you see as a result of the pandemic, and how do you expect those to evolve in 2021?

DocuSign: The vast majority of our customers indicated a need for digital transformation well before the pandemic. Consequently, COVID-19 accelerated those initiatives and DocuSign was ready to assist our customers during these complex times. It’s impossible to predict how things will evolve in 2021, but the power of the DocuSign Agreement Cloud^TM portfolio of products —coupled with the power of hundreds of partner integrations—can continue to help customers on their digital transformation journey.

Smart Communications: COVID-19 definitely brought the need for e-signature software as a business continuity tool to the forefront! Interestingly, we’re seeing that it is motivating businesses to take a look at all of the steps in their customer engagement processes to ensure they are digital-first and mobile-ready. Reducing the need for re-entry of data, enabling two-way data exchange and creating more personalized experiences are high priorities this year.

What are some business processes that are ripe for transformation? Where do you see automation having the biggest impact?

DocuSign: DocuSign has built a reputation of trust unparalleled in the market which is why hundreds of thousands of customers process millions of transactions on the DocuSign platform. However, many of those agreements still require negotiation and evaluation before they are signed—and we believe that’s ripe for transformation. Technologies that use AI to analyze, automate and simplify the process of negotiating, signing and managing incoming agreements will be valuable—DocuSign Analyzer being one example.

Smart Communications: In looking at engagement holistically, we couldn’t agree more. For many, e-signature solutions are just the first step. We encourage companies to evaluate the entire customer journey and identify ways to enhance every interaction by exploring how two-way conversations can improve the customer experience and maximize results. When it comes to collecting information and dynamically generating communications, AI is becoming a powerful tool for enhancing the process. We are truly on the cusp of this promising technology becoming a scalable solution.

What are the biggest risks to businesses in 2021? What are the greatest areas of opportunity?

DocuSign: The biggest risks to any business in 2021 and every year thereafter is complacency. Business doesn’t get any slower. So companies have to evolve, fast. The same is true for innovation—that has to continue at pace, and those that innovate effectively will capitalize on the market opportunity.

Smart Communications: Neil Greathead, Smart Communications’ Chief Customer Officer, recently said that the biggest risk to businesses is doing nothing. After the challenges of this past year, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But this is not the time to slow down or stop making progress. Companies that are thoughtful both about the way they collect data and how they use that data to build stronger connections to their customers are going to quickly get ahead. Technology is important, especially as we focus on being more strategic, as well as continuous improvement and adapting to new realities.

How will technology enhance the customer experience? How can businesses make data more scalable and actionable?

DocuSign: Technology used wisely can make tasks easier to do and in less time. If not, what’s the point? And it starts with data you already have. If you can use systems that make use of that data in logical ways, the sky is the limit.

Smart Communications: Most companies have great insights about their customers in their existing systems. The challenge is connecting the dots and putting that information to work effectively in customer interactions. By connecting core systems of record to customer engagement points, companies have the power to personalize and transform interactions into opportunities to delight. It’s about reimagining forms, communications and everyday touchpoints. Once companies do that, then using AI and advanced analytics to better understand customers and optimize the experience is more feasible. Being ready for what’s next starts with digital-first.

Learn more about how solutions like DocuSign can be a powerful starting point for elevating the digital customer experience in our eBook, Moving Beyond E-Signature: How to Elevate the Digital Customer Experience.

The Rise of SMARTER Conversations in a Post Pandemic World

Posted on April 15, 2021 by SmartComm

By: Nick Smith, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific at Smart Communications

Over the course of the past year, the way people live and work has fundamentally changed – and these are changes that will carry over into the months and years ahead. And as customer expectations continue to rise, the end-to-end customer experience will need to be better than ever.

The Smart Communications teams in EMEA and APAC have taken part in a number of events that explore how the COVID-19 health crisis is accelerating digital transformation initiatives in various industries and leading many enterprises to transform their customer communications into two-way, interactive conversations.

While most events have moved to the virtual stage, the discussions we have had were just as lively and the insights equally powerful. To ensure our readers have access to these expert panels, we have shared some of our favorite key takeaways from recent events below.

Delivering Digital Customer Communications in Times of Drastic Change

The CX Exchange BFSI Virtual Think Tank explored how smart organizations in the finance, banking and insurance sectors adapted to meet their customers’ rapidly evolving needs during the COVID crisis. By gathering the right data and personalizing communications based on individual circumstances, companies were able to remain relevant and, most importantly, customers felt heard. Neil Greathead, Chief Customer Officer at Smart Communications, moderated the event.

To learn more about the power of strong connections and efficient service at scale, read the full event summary.

Adapting to the New Era of Remote Work and Consumer Demand

Smart Communications and FST Media brought together leaders from financial services institutions across Australia and New Zealand to dig into the changing demands of employees and customers in this brave new world. The post-event report highlights examples of how COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation and identifies opportunities for business leaders willing to embrace change. One key takeaway: for forward-thinking businesses, a cloud-first, secure and easy-to-scale platform that links front- and back-end systems is essential.

Remote Work, Contactless Interactions and Transformational Change

Australian health insurers faced unique challenges in adapting to the many changes ushered in by the pandemic. This event, co-hosted by FST Media and Smart Communications, featured senior technology leaders discussing key business drivers this past year. In an industry that has long relied on paper-based interactions, customer demands for more seamless interactions are making the move to the cloud for a 360-degree customer view critical. While compliance concerns and regulatory hurdles require a more considered approach, the drive for digital transformation will continue to accelerate. Read more in the complete post-event report.

A More Personalized Approach in Personal Lines

Leaders from Aviva, Guidewire Software, and Smart Communications’ Chris Childs debated how customer interactions evolved over the course of the pandemic to answer the question: what do customers really want and expect from their insurers? According to customer survey data, six key considerations determine how satisfied customers are with their insurer. With soaring expectations and increasing dependence on the convenience of digital interactions, many organizations are struggling to keep up. Explore the event recap to find the proactive steps insurers can take to transform existing customer data into meaningful interactions that feel less transactional and keep customers happy.

Interested in more of the best insights from thought leaders who are transforming customer interactions? Check out INNOVATE 2021 on-demand, where Smart Communications’ customers, partners and industry experts reveal tips and strategies for post-pandemic success.

Employee Experience is a Top Priority for Successful Business Leaders: A Q&A with Sydney Trains

Posted on February 17, 2021 by SmartComm

By: Neil Greathead, CCO at Smart Communications

The COVID-19 health crisis created levels of unprecedented uncertainty for people and businesses around the world. We’re seeing more urgency around prioritizing digital deliverability, and even if you have started incorporating some digital components into your strategy, any manual paperwork you require as part of your process can cause unnecessary back and forth – straining not only the customer experience but the employee experience as well.

We recently spoke with Anne Lill-Holme, Information Management Lead at Sydney Trains, the operator of rail services across the metropolitan Sydney area to discuss how a global health crisis, remote work, virtual learning, shutdowns and more, impacted their employee experience and the key trends she believes will transform customer conversations in 2021.

The Q&A from our conversation is below:

Smart Communications: How have the events of 2020 impacted the employee experience? What can business leaders do in 2021 to ensure employees have the resources they need to perform their jobs successfully?

Anne Lill-Holme: With the sudden change to working from home, the shift has been dramatic in using technology. Eliminating paper forms and printing coincides with an increased demand for digital services in all parts of the organization. Reworking analog ways of working to a digital process have been vital to cater to this shift. As business leaders, we must support this shift by empowering our employees with digital solutions that enable them to do their work anywhere, without being bound to a specific location. Part of this is SmartIQ^TM, where we can easily access workflows, approve and make decisions related to our business processes.

Furthermore – it must be easy to use, not requiring an extensive change management process. Our employees expect everything to be readily accessible online and” just work.”

Smart Communications: Where has automation had the biggest impact on your team and how do you see that continuing into 2021?

Anne Lill-Holme: For us, automation has been essential. For example, we have seen a significant impact on converting processes such as 6- and 12-month performance reviews. We have taken what was a very cumbersome process of sending printed forms that would take up to 60 days for someone to complete, to getting completed forms back in real-time. We have so many different forms that it is difficult to pinpoint where the most significant impact will be, but simplifying the manual forms process means we can respond even faster.

The performance review was initially filled out as a Word document, converted to a PDF, and archived. When the next step in the performance review arrived, that document had to be located, text manually copied onto the next step template before giving it to the staff for the next review cycle. Imagine doing this for more than 1,000 people-staff twice a year with all the emails and possible errors! Digitizing this process and making the information available in a database has changed the whole process.

When starting the next cycle of reviews, the information from the previous review cycle is already available for staff, based on that particular staff member’s unique employment ID. They have to respond to the email sent from SmartIQ and start the review cycle with all information already present. All communication, workflows, and decisions flow through SmartIQ, with notifications and dashboards for showing progress and bottlenecks in the process. We see that the biggest impact probably will come from automating more processes like this for our organization.

Smart Communications: How will technology continue to support your team’s goals and objectives in 2021?

Anne Lill-Holme: There is more to technology implementation than just buying a piece of software. It must be fit for purpose. I mean that the solution used, like SmartIQ, must be good enough to do the job it is designed to do. SmartIQ fills that brief and more.

The technology must support and connect to what we do as a business, regardless of size and scale. Soft skills must also be considered and implemented as part of the process as well. As leaders and as a business, we understand this, and technology will improve and enhance the customer experience.

Smart Communications: In your opinion, what key trend do you see having the biggest impact on businesses in 2021 and beyond?

Anne Lill-Holme: I think one of the biggest trends we will see in the coming year is increased importance placed on solutions designed to help companies understand and support the shift towards virtual engagement with both customers and employees. It is essential to find new ways to engage and build trust when working from home and in an increasingly virtual environment.

What the team and I have seen is that there still is some resistance to change. Not so much for the staff, but within some management structures in the organization. You cannot email your way through this, and you need to engage and talk to people, show them the difference between the old process and the new process by giving them transparency into how more effective they can be digital.

There is no ‘one answer’ for building this trust, but we have seen that breaking up the message in smaller pieces for a more targeted approach seems better. Focus the message on how to solve their problem, not what the software can do for them.

Smart Communications: Is there anything else you’d like to add to help businesses improve the employee experience?

Anne Lill-Holme: As we have seen during the COVID-19 lockdowns, the need for an easy-to-use digital platform like SmartIQ is essential. It is important to us for all our solutions to collaborate and integrate in a seamless and easily accessible way for all employees. Taking a digital-first approach will be more critical than ever in 2021 and beyond.

Interested in learning more? Download 5 Key Trends Transforming Customer Conversations in 2021 to check out additional tips and strategies for the year ahead.

Smart Communications and Assentis Deliver the Future of Customer Conversations Management for Financial Services

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Ayla

By: James Brown, CEO at Smart Communications

We are kicking off 2021 in an exciting fashion! On Jan. 7, we announced our intent to acquire Assentis and today this news became official as the deal has closed. This is a significant moment for us as a company and for our industry as we work towards a SMARTER future, enabling enterprises around the world to deliver two-way, interactive customer conversations.

This acquisition allows us to expand our geographic reach and provide our industry-leading cloud solution to enterprises in Continental Europe in addition to the UK, United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. In addition, by welcoming the talented Assentis team into our organization, we deepen our expertise in financial services, giving us an opportunity to deepen our strategic support of financial services accounts around the world.

Enabling smarter conversations between financial services institutions and their customers has never been more critical as customers increasingly seek digital-first interactions, while new fintech entrants simultaneously create an ever-more competitive landscape for traditional providers. In fact, many of the up-and-coming challengers are mobile-only banking providers and, according to IDC, 40 percent of in-branch appointments will be initiated on digital platforms and then fulfilled by specialists. All of this is leading many banking and financial services organizations to quickly invest in technology that improves or enables the customer experience through digital and mobile channels.

As customers’ expectations for a digital-first approach will only continue to increase, the best way for companies to succeed in both the near- and long-term is to invest in cloud-based solutions that optimize the end-to-end customer experience – and adapt and scale as these needs continue to evolve over time.

Bringing Assentis into the Smart Communications family strengthens our expertise and deepens the solutions we provide to financial services organizations around the world. More than 100 enterprises – including the largest banks and financial services providers in Germany and Switzerland – rely on the Assentis CCM solution to generate a wide variety of critical documents including client reports, fund fact sheets, product presentations, contracts and marketing collateral. We will build on these strengths and continue delivering top-notch support for Assentis CCM solutions while also making it easy for current Assentis customers to quickly take advantage of Smart Communications’ proven leadership and expertise in multi-tenant SaaS.

Our acquisition of Assentis follows our acquisition of Intelledox (now SmartIQ^TM) in July 2019. SmartIQ is a key component of our Customer Conversations Management (CCM) platform that transforms traditional forms-based processes into intelligent, conversational user experiences.

We are thrilled to take this next important step for our company and our industry and look forward to continuing to empower enterprises with customer conversation programs that meet today’s evolving needs.

Year in Review: The Top Trends that Impacted Customer Conversations in 2020

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Ayla

By: Leigh Segall, CMO at Smart Communications

A new year offers a fresh start and a new beginning. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on the big trends and events that helped lay the foundation for the months and years ahead. The way people live, work and communicate has fundamentally changed following a year that was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As companies around the world continue to explore new ways to positively influence revenue, differentiate themselves from the competition and enhance customer conversations even in a time that is still far from “normal”, we’ve compiled five of our favorite blog posts from the previous year, that may help them do just that. These tips and strategies for success will empower companies to successfully navigate a forever-changed employee experience, increasing customer expectations and technology innovations.

Communications in the Time of COVID-19: Delivering SMARTER Digital Conversations Just Became More Critical
In the face of a global health crisis, businesses needed to support their customers from a distance. Many enterprises were faced with accelerating their digital transformation initiatives in order to deliver the high touch, digital interactions customers expect. This post from James Brown, CEO of Smart Communications, details how organizations can keep customers at the center and reduce friction, despite remote work environments.
Having SMARTER Customer Conversations Requires Forms Transformation
COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the way the world lives, works and communicates. These factors combined with customers’ already increasing expectations are forcing businesses to go beyond traditional customer communications and start implementing two-way conversations. Smart Communications makes this possible with forms transformation via SmartIQ^TM. This post details how enterprises can engage customers in dynamic conversations from acquisition, to onboarding, to servicing and why interactions that are still paper-based and static pose significant risk to the customer experience.
Engaging and Empowering Employees During this Remote Revolution
Among many of the challenges that 2020 presented was how to keep employees engaged and productive in an almost fully remote work environment. This post from Smart Communications’ Jo Sweet, HR Director, details three areas organizations should focus on to successfully navigate a new way of working while empowering employees to achieve the best results possible.
Situations Change, So Too Must Your Processes
There’s no shortage of data in the digital era. Organizations across the public and private sectors have an abundance of data, but all too often are unsure how to best use it. This post from Nick Smith, VP Sales & General Manager, APAC, at Smart Communications, details how organizations can not only use data, but also gain insights that lead to better outcomes for the end-customer.
The Results are In, Customer Demands are Changing and Businesses Need to Quickly Adapt
Throughout 2020, businesses around the world faced challenges that will continue to have an impact on customer conversations in the months and years ahead. Smart Communications commissioned research from Harris Interactive to gain a better understanding of how new challenges, changing expectations and accelerated digital transformation have impacted consumer preferences and corporate priorities. Highlights from the results are featured in this infographic and the full report can be viewed here.

For an in-depth look at the major trends featured above, as well as additional information and thought leadership for how organizations can deliver SMARTER customer conversations in 2021 and beyond, check out our Thought Leadership page.

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