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From Legacy to Flexibility: 3 Benefits of a Cloud-based Customer Communications Management Platform

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Ayla

By Chris Murphy, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Smart Communications

Digital transformation is obviously a key priority for nearly all strategic leaders today, but companies have been experimenting with new digital ways of conducting business for decades. Yet, its importance has never been so keenly felt. Even well before COVID-19 IDC predicted that 80 percent of revenue growth by 2022 will depend on digital offerings and operations. However, when it comes to customer communications, many companies are still using a combination of business intelligence applications, home-grown document processors, and manual document templates to manage their customer communications.

The reality is that these legacy architectures can no longer keep up with the demands of modern communication due to poor integrations with core systems, costly maintenance, and time-consuming production processes. Not to mention, these outdated systems make it extremely difficult to provide consistent and timely messaging – which is key to meeting customer experience expectations. Here are three key benefits of breaking free of the status quo:

Organizational Agility

One of the key benefits to moving from an outdated legacy system is building an organization’s ability to be agile – increasing both the speed and the efficiency in being able to respond to changes. Whether organizations are looking to adapt to changing market dynamics, launch new products, reach new market segments, scale up agile teams with new services for their customer-base, or incorporate a newly acquired business into their existing infrastructure, having the ability to design, integrate, test, launch and ultimately maintain supporting communication services with minimal friction is paramount.

The use of in-house document creators, ad-hoc word templates, and the reliance on business intelligence applications to locate data and populate forms are all blockers to being able to promote agility and speed in your organization. We’ve seen several instances where organizations can drastically decrease the number of labor hours required to make template edits once transitioning to a modern customer communications management (CCM) platform. A more streamlined and efficient template process allows IT staff to work on more pressing business objectives. Shifting template changes to line-of-business workers allows everyone to focus on what they do best. In fact, Smart Communications helped one customer reduce their number of templates from 1700 to 300, a reduction of around 82 percent!

Cost Savings

With the ability to engage customers via digital channels and offer on-demand access to important relationship documents, companies can reduce the reliance on sending this information via standard mail. According to recent findings from our Forrester TEI Report, companies can expect a 25 percent reduction in annual paper and postage spend by simply shifting communications to electronic forms.

Additionally, the cost of maintaining an on-premise solution can add up significantly. Depending on the number of environments, companies typically require at least one full time employee, if not more, that is solely dedicated to maintenance and upgrades. Not to mention the hardware and support costs that coincide. By transitioning to a digital-first CCM solution, future updates and necessary upgrades are performed in the cloud, which means that budget that was typically associated with labor and maintenance costs can now be allocated to other areas – like digital transformation initiatives.

Improved Brand Recognition

With the reliance of business users having to create their own templates, on-premise systems typically prohibit a consistent branding environment. Without a system that centralizes various logo files, fonts and formatting, there’s a lot of room for messaging and branding errors. Modern CCM platforms empower organizations with clearly defined enterprise-level customer communication standards that need to be adhered to across the business. They eliminate the usage of ad-hoc templates historically used by individual agents or business users. Organizations can appreciate a consistent look and feel across all its customer communications touchpoints and channels – which ultimately improves brand recognition.

Need further convincing? Moving to a cloud-based and digital-first CCM solution won’t only empower a more rewarding customer experience, but also provides material financial benefits, including a three-year risk-adjusted ROI of 139 percent and payback in less than six months. Download The Total Economic Impact of Smart Communications and learn how one customer experienced these benefits firsthand.

How to Deliver “High-Touch” Digital Experiences in Wealth Management

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Ayla

By Neal Keene, Field CTO at Smart Communications

Financial services firms, particularly those in wealth management, pride themselves on providing “high-touch” digital experience services to clients. Agents and advisors often meet customers in person, and then spend hours understanding their needs, family relationships and goals, before working to create customized plans. Building a long-lasting relationship based on trust is key to success and certainly requires a personal touch.

However, times are changing, as is the understanding of what a personal touch really means. Customers’ communications preferences had already begun to drastically change and shift more toward digital before COVID-19 ever entered the picture. As revealed in a recent report from analyst firm Aite Group and Refinitiv, 86 percent of wealth managers consider adoption of digital-servicing capabilities as highly important, with 46 percent only partly or not satisfied at all with their current digital experience.

But in the past few months, the need to “digitalize to personalize” became an understatement. Social distancing and stay-at-home orders made it difficult, if not impossible, to meet face-to-face to conduct business. However, customers never stopped needing advice. In fact, in some ways it seems that agents and advisors are busier than ever, struggling to adjust to working from home while also finding new ways to communicate with customers.

The good news is, the shift toward digital experiences doesn’t have to compete with or diminish the personal relationships you have with your clients, it should complement them!

Better leveraging digital experiences allows firms to connect with customers anytime, anywhere on their preferred digital channels— including text, email, and even digital assistants like Alexa or Siri. And even more importantly, lets them seamlessly move between channels as it suits them. To achieve this level of digital transformation, firms should explore which customer touchpoints would be best suited for digital delivery, ideally those that can be quickly tested. A good place to start is to look for processes that rely on printed communications (e.g. customer service correspondence) or fillable forms and prioritize those for digital delivery.

Because evolving to become more digital-focused provides agility and scalability, incorporating this approach into a customer communications strategy also helps firms operate more efficiently and be better prepared for whatever the future holds. Advisors and agents with digital-first firms will be more productive and responsive to individual customer needs by using more modern communication tools. Not only does this allow for more timely updates to content as rules and regulations change but also leads to more personalized communications that still adhere to compliance standards.

Moving to a digital-first communications approach doesn’t mean that you lose personal connections with clients. In many ways the connection can become even more personal as you begin to interact with them on their terms, via their preferred channels—anytime and anywhere.

For more tips on ways to achieve digital agility in the Age of COVID-19, check out my recent post.

How Insurance Companies Can Thrive in the New Normal

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Ayla

By: Larry Hogan, Account Executive at Smart Communications

So far in 2020, insurers have had to find unique ways to quickly respond and adapt to a unprecedented level of disruption. The good news is, depending on the approach, 2020 also brought an unexpected opportunity for insurers to be champions for digital change – setting an example for how digital transformation should be embraced when we settle into a new normal.

Here are a few common challenges facing insurance companies today, and how adopting a digital-first approach to communications will help insurers become more resilient.

Claims Volume Fluctuations
Depending on the area of insurance that you’re in, claims volumes have likely either significantly increased or decreased in recent months. For P&C insurers, as more people are required to work from home and vacation plans have been altered, the number of traffic accidents are dropping. Fewer accidents means fewer claims. While some P&C insurance carriers have made some progress toward digital transformation, when it comes to automation, much of the industry is still heavily reliant on manual processing and in-person interactions. The good news is, reduced claims volume provides an opportunity for P&C insurers to find new ways to connect with customers. Consumer Federation of America recently reported that 80 percent of American auto insurers have announced that they will refund or credit drivers more than $6.5 billion over the next two months. Touchpoints like this are great opportunities to keep customers engaged and loyal – so it’s important that your business is digitally equipped to deliver these types of communications quickly and efficiently.

On the contrary, health insurance companies have seen a significant increase in claims that need to be processed quickly. Life insurance companies have also experienced an increased demand for policy applications and new account openings. Fabric, a provider of instant online life insurance says it has seen a 50 percent increase in life insurance applications since mid-February. Similarly, LifeQuotes, a national online life insurance agency, reports a 29 percent increase in applications requested since January 20. One way to adjust for a volume overload is to leverage a modern claims automation solution, which provides faster cycle times, increases employee productivity and ultimately yields higher customer satisfaction.

In both cases, either an increase in claims submissions or a decrease in claims submissions, insurers have been reminded of the importance of being a trusted resource to their customers all the time. It’s crucial to process claims quickly and effectively, but it’s also just as critical to the long-term relationship to maintain open lines of communications in between key milestones as well.

Call Center Overload
During a time of uncertainty, it’s easy to understand why customers would have more questions that usual and might want to seek out customer service representatives for assurance. Many insurance companies are seeing surges in operational volume with new claims being filed, general coverage and billing questions, and response to government mandated actions or new programs – the list goes on. As a result, insurance companies have experienced a spike in call center volume as individuals seek out immediate responses. If customers can’t reach you by phone due to high volumes and can no longer participate in the insurance processes that rely on face-to-face or paper-based transactions, you run the risk of losing the trust and personal touch that keeps customers loyal.

To ensure a consistent level of service during peak times, insurers have no choice but to rely on digital channels to communicate with their policyholders. With reduced mail and print processing and the delays that physical communications can be subject to, there’s a significant need to be able to process applications and correspondence faster. These challenges have forced those who lag behind in digital to catch up. According to VentureBeat, some companies are positioning AI as a solution to service gaps. While the use of AI and automation has been top-of-mind for many forward-thinking companies, most insurance companies still lack the digital tools and platforms needed to meet today’s on-demand customer expectations. Insurers should use this time as an opportunity to explore automated solutions, like chatbots, self-service portals, and mobile apps, which provide new communication channels that enable policyholders to engage in two-way conversations. These types of digital-first communication methods lead to smarter conversations and more consistent interactions throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

Finding the Solution Through Digital-first Communications
As customers become used to digital interactions as the new norm, there will be a changing level of expectation in how they are communicated with from now on. Life will not go back to normal – there will be a new level of expectation around digital-first communications. This is actually some much-needed good news. The changes made now will last long into the future– providing customers the digital-first experience they’ve been desiring can be achieved by embracing a modern cloud-based solution.

Are you ready to engage in SMARTER digital conversations with your customers? Connect with us today and we’ll show you how we can help.

Embracing the Future of Customer Communications Management Today

Posted on May 7, 2019October 19, 2026 by Smart Communications Team

By Chris Murphy, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Smart Communications

The customer communications management (CCM) industry has been around for some time. Born out of a need for companies to be able to produce compliant, yet highly personalized communications, enterprises invested in platforms that allowed them to produce mission-critical business and customer communications at massive scale.

Yet, despite its extensive and tenured history and the disruption caused by industry consolidation, innovation is still alive in the CCM space. During a recent webinar, Craig LeClair, vice president and principal analyst of Forrester Research, painted a vision for where the industry is moving and where vendors who support customer communications will need to shift focus in order to realize success for the modern customer. With movement to the cloud, eDelivery promotion across digital channels, and customer experience improvements, the future of SMARTer customer communications is looking bright.

Communication Types Require Specialty Focus Areas

Craig adeptly broke down the types of customer communication management areas of focus, and the different business use cases that each are well-designed to meet.

Structured offerings are largely on-premise and are ultimately designed to handle high-volume print outputs.
Interactive offerings allow for deeper personalization and afford high-levels of business user control in order to customize the type, channel, and content of the communication.
Cloud-based offerings, often delivered via hybrid-cloud or in a true multi-tenant fashion, signify a future where they can interact with cloud-based analytics services to gain an understanding of the customer’s true intent and to then seamlessly choose from an array of dynamic templates in order to deliver the right content.

Movement to the Cloud

One of the key trends mentioned in the webinar was the movement of CCM vendors to the cloud. This pivotal shift will allow CCM to begin to play a much more integrated role in the wider technology ecosystem and can be more easily informed by analytics from other technologies will be predominantly cloud-based in the future. The modern customer is not predictable, nor linear in the methods and channels that they engage with you through. The ability to consume information from these third-party analytics systems will allow CCM vendors to hone in on what the customer is ultimately trying to achieve, and how to get them there with hyper-focused communications. Ultimately CCM vendors will adopt a Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS) strategy, where a callable infrastructure is used to generate and initiate communications based on real-time customer actions as well as triggers from third-party systems.

Communication Trends are Changing………Toward the Customer

Communications trends are changing from a siloed, line-of-business run approach to one that is much more centralized and has the customer firmly in the center. There has been a movement from focusing on the template approach driven by systems of record to reimagining how these communications are received – and perceived – by the end customer.

Image courtesy of Forrester Research.

With an emphasis on interactivity, responsiveness, engagement, and contextual understanding, the future of communications will be analytics-based and incorporate digital communications.

The Critical Impact of Language

“You say tomato, I say tomahto.” While we’re all familiar with the song, I think that we can agree that this approach just doesn’t work in print. Similarly, much of the language used in current communications often fails to articulate the core message we’re trying to portray to our customers and makes it difficult to understand the meaning, definitions and ultimately next steps. As a result of overly stringent legal input into the language used in these communications, what often ends up protecting the company can also end up confusing the end recipient. There is a growing trend to begin to use shared language libraries made up of definitions and shared content that is easily understood and leveraged across a variety of communications.

Key Areas to Look for When Building Next-Gen CCM

While everything should be driven by core business requirements, there is an energetic movement of CCM vendors to the cloud. As a result, Craig cautioned against falling into the trap of assuming managed services are the same as true cloud-based solutions.

In Craig’s words, “You want to look for a cloud-ready solution. You want something that has proven multi-tenancy, that has browser and thin-based clients, and a good set of APIs that can work to get to on-premise information. Look for an architecture that has a more generic type of format as core content to make it easy to switch from one channel to another.”

Future Innovations Driving CCM and Customer Experience Innovation

The growing interest in customer journey mapping and Design Thinking will firmly move the focus towards a customer-centric point of view and this will be the driver for the next generation of communications. The combination of core system data with a customer’s behavioral activity will represent the foundation of machine-readable content to which machine learning can be applied to analyze, learn and ultimately predict the most optimized communication, content and even channel to engage through.

As customer experience (CX) becomes a source of competitive advantage for more companies, customer communications – both the communications that you share with them as well as the opportunities that you provide for them to communicate with you – will continue to play a crucial role in the creation of those experiences.

To listen to a complimentary recording of this webinar, please visit the following page.

Digital Transformation: Tips for Taking a Proactive Approach

Posted on December 20, 2018October 19, 2026 by Smart Communications Team

By Leigh Segall, CMO of Smart Communications

For nearly every innovation-centric organization, digital transformation has been a top-trending buzzword and while many get excited about the endless possibilities that come with digital transformation, the process can seem daunting. It’s important to understand that digital transformation isn’t about demolishing all your current technologies and starting from scratch. Instead, it’s a time to reflect on past behaviors and processes. Organizations that get this right not only focus on the construction of a new strategy that responds to ever-changing customer needs; they also build their strategies as continuous journeys and not one-time events. Here are some ways you can take a proactive approach toward digital transformation and help prepare your business for success.

Make a List and Check it Twice

First, you’ll want to identify a list of action items to begin your digital transformation journey. Starting with a few target capabilities will jump-start your innovation process. This list will become your “digital roadmap,” highlighting small-scale digital initiatives that give you an easy, manageable place to start. Once you’ve gained a comprehensive understanding of what needs to be accomplished and which projects are already in play, include a cost-benefit analysis on how these steps will allow your organization to gain market share, increase loyalty, and beat out the competition.

Conduct a Capabilities Audit

Having trouble identifying digital gaps within your organization? Conduct a capabilities audit to establish a 360-degree view into the effectiveness of existing tools and procedures. Which applications are siloed? How much visibility do you have into the conversations happening with customers from across your enterprise? What are some common customer experience challenges? Where do you stand in the industry against your competitors? Taking proper time to understand and appreciate your business needs will lead to tangible insights that will further drive the success of your digital transformation efforts.

Establish Customer Experience Councils

As the role of customer support functions evolves to cover more communication channels and disciplines, the quality of your customer experience (CX) should encompass a full range of support and service to those who need it. A CX Council provides an open forum that allows team members to discuss what’s working and what’s not. These discussions help determine the ultimate digital vision for next year. Make sure to include a variety of key stakeholders across various functions, including IT, Customer Service, Marketing, Sales and Operations. Review initial priorities with a lens toward leveraging this Council to continue building future iterations of both the strategy and the action plan. By building this function as a cross-departmental committee, you’ll not only generate better ideas and buy-in; you’ll also demonstrate to the business the value of treating digital transformation as a continuous area of focus.

Take a Customer-First Strategy Approach

If you’re struggling with the “how-to” element of your digital transformation strategy, you’re in good company! While we rarely hear from a company that hasn’t listed digital transformation as a key priority, it’s just as rare for us to speak with organizational leaders that believe their work here is done! As you plan for 2020, recognize that defining digital transformation in the context of what your customers seek and expect is key. So too is building a manageable action plan that helps you migrate – step by step – toward better processes to meet those needs. If you’re interested in hearing more about how leading companies across industries are getting this right, contact us! We’ll include you in a couple of upcoming events designed to showcase great work around the world.

Ready to jump-start your digital transformation journey? Download our helpful how-to guide and start transforming your customer communications the smart way.

The Cloud Is Now: Why 2019 Is the Year to Go Cloud-First

Posted on December 18, 2018October 19, 2026 by Smart Communications Team

By Simon Tindal, CTO of Smart Communications

It’s no surprise that a growing number of today’s organizations are implementing a cloud-first strategy as they shift their spending away from servers, and other on-premise, legacy systems and technologies. In fact, Gartner predicts that 28% of spending within key enterprise IT markets will shift to the cloud by 2022, up from 19% in 2018. Furthermore, Forbes recently released the State of Enterprise Cloud Computing which revealed that 77% of enterprises currently have at least one application, or a portion of their computing infrastructure, in the cloud. With the public cloud services market projected 17.3% percent growth, totaling $206.2 billion in 2019, it’s clear that a cloud-first approach is no longer just an option – it’s becoming a necessity for organizations to scale.

As cloud becomes widely adopted, it will begin to influence even greater portions of enterprise IT decisions as organizations aim to improve their system infrastructures. We’ve already touched on how moving to the cloud can lead to more personalized and impactful customer conversations, but there are even more reasons migrating to the cloud should be at the top of your to-do list in 2019.

Overcoming the Fear of Digital Disruption

These days, “digital disruption” is no longer a concern for the future, it’s a reality NOW! Whether it’s a fear of migration, a need to adhere to strict compliance regulations, stringent privacy issues, or geographic barriers, every organization is experiencing their own set challenges, regardless of the stage of digital transformation they are in.

Knowing Your Options

The good news is, there are several cloud deployment options designed to fit your unique business needs. Here’s a quick overview of the three main cloud deployment models that could transform your business:

Public Cloud: Public Cloud services are offered by third-party providers over the public internet, meaning they are available to anyone willing to purchase them. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud and Google Cloud platforms are some of the more well-known public cloud providers.
Private Cloud: A private cloud model is a single-tenant environment where the hardware, storage and network are purchased and provisioned for a single client or company.
Hybrid Cloud: One of the more popular deployment models, the hybrid cloud uses a combination of public/private cloud with on-premise services.

Why We’re Running With AWS

Earlier this year, we announced our plans to support SmartCOMM^TM, and SmartCOMM^TM for Salesforce solutions on the AWS to provide additional deployment flexibility to our already available cloud and hybrid-cloud options. Running on the AWS infrastructure adds yet another layer of innovation to our platform and additional deployment flexibility. In addition to receiving amazing benefits including elastic scalability, and improved efficiency, our customers are better positioned to be at the forefront of digital transformation within their respective industries.

As demand has increased for our technology to support AWS across APAC and EMEA, as well as in the US and UK. AWS is a mature, globally-enabled secure environment – enterprises can trust that it will continue to enable them to scale as their needs and volumes evolve over time.

To learn more about our latest AWS announcements, visit our resources page or click here.

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