How Enterprise Risk Management Helps Enterprises Safeguard Their Reputation

Posted on October 24, 2023October 19, 2026 by Chris Murphy

By Chris Murphy, Vice President of Product Marketing, Smart Communications

In today’s digital world, regulatory oversight is on the rise, and it’s not necessarily a negative thing. From consumer protections to privacy safeguards to accessibility guidelines, constantly evolving regulations affect nearly every industry—particularly those that handle sensitive information, such as insurance, financial services and healthcare. This fact is great when we consider that much of the regulatory oversight was put in place to help protect consumers in marginalized or vulnerable groups. While compliance has traditionally been viewed as a business necessity that creates more work, in today’s enterprise landscape it actually presents an opportunity for organizations to show their customers that they care, earning trust and safeguarding the business’s reputation. Though it may be seen as a business challenge, it allows companies to be responsible in their actions and held accountable by developing a strong process for enterprise risk management and compliance.

To stay aligned with ever-changing requirements, enterprises need an agile and scalable technology stack that makes it easy to keep up. Cloud-based solutions provide many of these benefits. For example, cloud-based solutions offer open APIs that make it easier to connect to core systems and use known data to deliver more transparent and personalized client experience. Modern Customer Communications Management (CCM) solutions can provide instant visibility into the content and language being used across the entire library of forms and communications so businesses can easily find and update even the smallest details.

Shifting Regulations Present New Opportunities for Risk Management and Compliance Management

In recent years, digitization has led to increased data privacy and consumer protection regulations. To stay compliant with regular updates, enterprises need to take a closer look at how they interact with customers. Cloud-native solutions offer the agility and speed that's required to meet these regulatory requirements while also offering an opportunity to better serve customers. This is especially true for the industries that are subject to the most scrutiny. Some examples:

Insurance: Evolving requirements

The global pandemic accelerated digitization in the insurance industry, impacting compliance requirements and other key areas such as data security and consumer privacy. In the US, 21 states have adopted the NAIC Insurance Data Security Model Law. On a global level, Insurance Capital Standard (ICS) development continues, with ICS 2.0, in a five-year monitoring period that began in 2020, while also being reviewed for compatibility in the US. As digitization grows, insurers will need to balance an increasingly long list of regulatory issues, making visibility into organization-wide documents and communications a top priority.

Financial Services: Under the microscope

The rise of open banking, growth of digital-first fintechs, and rising defaults and customer vulnerability coming out of the COVID pandemic have all sparked a new wave of regulations and penalties in financial services. Regulators like the FCA in the UK; the European Commission; and the CFPB, SEC and FINRA in the US are focusing on transparency and data usage. Keeping up with changing demands is difficult for even the most well-resourced compliance teams. Lending businesses are focusing especially on refining their default and collections business processes, while wealth and asset management firms are focusing on suitability and client reporting, all with an eye on making sure customers know more about costs and risks. Sophisticated, cloud-based systems are critical to staying one step ahead of both regulations and threats—which is critical to protecting the reputation of any financial services organization. Having a full audit trail that shows who, when and how changes were made to forms or document templates is an absolute must.

Healthcare: Privacy law updates

The healthcare sector in the U.S. has long been subject to strict consumer privacy laws including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Some states are implementing even more stringent regulations. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CSPA) along with new laws in Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Virginia, collectively known as “2023 Privacy Laws,” will affect the extent to which entities maintain patient information and lay out complex exemption standards that vary by state and law. Healthcare organizations in affected states need to prepare to update data management processes and also to present relevant privacy policies to consumers. Legacy systems simply aren’t up to the task.

WCAG Driving Change Across Enterprises

Until recently, accessibility was considered a “nice to have” element in terms of digital presence and communications for most enterprises. But with European Union Directive and the Department of Justice’s recent assertion that websites (or outbound communications and other digital experiences) fall under “public places of accommodation” in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III, certain accessibility standards are now required. While specific requirements vary by country, the most recent Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are the international standard for accessibility, focus on four principles: perceivability, operability, understandability and robustness. WCAG also lays out three levels of conformity with most organizations striving for the middle, Level AA. Failure to meet WCAG standards can lead to costly litigation – not to mention loss of reputation.

Making websites and communications accessible helps enterprises reach a wider audience and also builds trust, because consumers today care about doing business with ethical companies. Digital forms and other customer communications should also meet accessibility standards. Some accessibility requirements are fairly straightforward — for example, including alt text on all images and transcribing audio files. But incorporating accessibility into the entire digital ecosystem at the enterprise level is complex. Updating things like font size and color, background color contrast, and screen reader accessibility require a sophisticated approach. Relying on outdated systems or manual updates runs the risk of error, costly fines and litigation. Modern solutions allow enterprises greater visibility into and control over digital assets at scale.

Reducing Risk for Highly Regulated Industries

For the most closely regulated industries and the public sector, the risks of failure to comply are costly. Healthcare organizations can face minimum penalties ranging from $100 to $50,000 per HIPAA violation, with a maximum of $1.8M for top tier violations. Failure to meet Service Organization Control (SOC) 1 and 2 requirements relating to data confidentiality can result in total lack of public trust. For businesses operating in the cloud, SOC 2 compliance has become table stakes. Similarly, the international standard for managing information security, ISO/IEC 27001, brings hefty fines for failure to comply. In the U.S., the SEC has leveled huge fines on asset managers who failed to deliver Customer Relationship Summary forms to clients, part of the Reg BI standards that call for brokers to act in their clients’ best interest. For this reason, prioritizing compliance has become a strategic imperative across the healthcare, insurance and banking industries.

Protecting customer data and reducing errors are also critical to safeguarding a company’s reputation and should be at the core of any enterprise’s risk management and compliance efforts. Failing to show good faith in securing data or making content accessible can reduce an enterprise’s competitive edge and likely lead to revenue loss as well. Moving to the cloud gives organizations the visibility and agility that’s needed to maintain compliance and minimize risk, without driving up costs. Rather than manually searching forms and communications one-by-one to find what needs to be updated, modern-architected solutions compartmentalize the building blocks of communications into component parts. This creates a seamless process for searching entire communications libraries for language fragments that are used across communications and make instant updates across the board. Even things like font size and color can be updated centrally, making it easy to keep up with changing regulatory requirements.

Choose the Right Solution Partner to Enhance Compliance and Regulatory Risk Management Capabilities

Choosing the right cloud solution provider can help enterprises greatly reduce oversight-related risks by simplifying, and in some cases automating, compliance. Choosing a vendor-hosted SaaS solution with an established data security framework and built-in safeguards can help enterprises meet privacy requirements, prevent breaches and automate reporting. A cloud-based solution also provides deep visibility into nuanced vertical requirements and the agility to quickly update language, formatting and other content when regulations change—which they always do.

Discover how The Conversation Cloud makes it easy for highly regulated industries to maintain compliance and mitigate risk.

About the Author
Chris Murphy is Vice President of Product Marketing for Smart Communications, the only provider of a customer conversations management platform specializing in helping enterprises – many in the world’s most highly regulated industries – to deliver smarter conversations across the entire customer lifecycle. Chris is currently responsible for the go-to-market strategy for its flagship product SmartCOMM™, a customer communications management solution. A frequent speaker at customer and industry events, Chris has over 18 years of industry experience and has held various positions at leading organizations including SalesLoft, IBM, and Silverpop.

Healthcare Member Communications Are Ripe for Transformation – Are You Prepared?

Posted on September 25, 2023October 19, 2026 by Smart Communications Team

By: John Zimmerer, VP of Industry Marketing, Insurance at Smart Communications

As parts of the world begin to open up, it’s easy to think that life, for both businesses and consumers, can simply pick up where we left off. But to do so would ignore the opportunities for improvement that we were forced to explore during the worst of the pandemic. One key lesson at the top of our list? The need for healthcare payers and providers to focus on timely, relevant and personalized member communications. While the pandemic provided the catalyst to accelerate the implementation of better digital conversation experiences, there’s still a long way to go, as revealed by data from J.D. Power:

54% of members do not understand if telehealth services are covered
48% believe the payer has not shown concern for their health since the pandemic began
Only 25% view the payer as their trusted partner
Only 36% feel the payer acts in their best interest

Clearly, there are major gaps in the way healthcare payers and providers think they are communicating to members, and how members are actually receiving those messages. In fact, recent research revealed that 63% of businesses think they are delivering excellent or very good communications to their customers, but only 51% of consumers give the same ratings to the communications they receive.

In a recent panel discussion at the Cognizant Healthcare Conference, three Smart Communications experts shared their perspectives on how the healthcare communications landscape is changing, and what leading payers and providers need to do to transform member experiences. While we invite you to view the full recording below, this post also highlights some of the key takeaways from the discussion and some best practices for delivering two-way, digital conversations.

Key Challenges Accelerating the Pace of Communication Transformation

The J.D. Power statistics show us that trust is low, and key messages, like those around telehealth coverage, are being missed or fall flat. Historically, this has been caused by both technological and operational limitations:

Static, mass email blasts to all customers delivering the same high-level messaging regardless of individual circumstances
Disconnected communication experiences that force members to provide the same information again and again across channels
An over-reliance on print for communicating key messages instead of a multichannel approach based on a customer’s stated preferences

These challenges have been felt across the four key areas of the healthcare member experience where it is most important to get communications right: member acquisition and enrollment, onboarding, care management and claims. If customers feel like they’re having suboptimal experiences everywhere they turn, it’s no wonder their frustration results in lower scores on the most critical customer satisfaction metrics.

Creating SMARTER Member Conversations

The good news is that many of these challenges can be solved. Leading payers and providers are taking the steps necessary to overcome traditional challenges and build the technical and operational infrastructure needed to transform the future of healthcare communications.

One powerful example of how to achieve the dream state of SMARTER customer conversations comes from Blue Shield of California, as shared at INNOVATE 2021. In their quest for 95% of communications to be digital-first, they pursued the following principles for success:

Make it Simple – only deliver communications that solve or pre-empt members’ needs and expectations. Rely on dynamic templates that drive consistency across channels but also increase agility. Then, streamline preview and approval processes.
Make it Useful – only deliver communications that provide relevant information in every channel, based on a combination of stated preferences and insights derived from advanced analytics.
Make it Mine – only deliver communications that are personalized, while keeping security top of mind.

These guiding principles are an important starting point for the larger question healthcare payers and providers are focused on – where are the biggest opportunities for improvement?

Here are just a few examples of how digital optimization can make a huge impact, along with real-world results:

Collecting Open Enrollment Choices Digitally

As the largest customer-owned health insurer in the U.S., supporting 140,000 employers across 5 states, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) realized the importance of transforming its open enrollment processes. HCSC had 250 manual, static forms which contained 20 unique sections with 3,000 different attributes that needed to be delivered to 26 downstream internal and external customers. The need for a highly scalable solution was especially evident here. HCSC worked with Smart Communications to eliminate manual forms in favor of a single, guided, digital interview process.

Using SmartIQ^TM, HCSC eliminated manual re-entry, reduced their support team training time and increased the amount of time employers had to make decisions, ultimately increasing productivity while lowering cost. Learn more about HCSC’s success in Transforming Manual Forms Processes into Exceptional Digital Experiences from INNOVATE 2021.

Streamline the Contract Generation Process

A leading managed healthcare and insurance provider sought to digitally optimize and improve their employer-sponsored plans. By working with Smart Communications, they managed to optimize a manual contract generation process involving multiple internal and external groups that took 2 weeks to just 1 business day—a 90% increase in efficiency. Additionally, when used in combination with SmartCOMM^TM for Salesforce, they were able to generate a contract in only 30 minutes, a dramatic improvement from where they were.

Globalization and Optimization Across the Enterprise – at Scale

The ability to optimize across multiple brands, jurisdictions and languages can vastly improve efficiency while reducing cost. By leveraging approachable technology, payers and providers can also optimize their workload throughout the organization, instead of being in a situation where certain tasks can only be completed by IT or specific subject matter experts.

With healthcare communications at an inflection point, taking proactive steps to align technology and operations for an optimal member experience is essential. And the cascading business benefits are measurable.

If you’d like to learn more about transforming healthcare member communications, check out our white paper “From Onboarding to Lifelong Relationships.”

The Personalization Imperative Comes to P&C Insurance

Posted on August 29, 2023 by Eileen Potter

By Eileen Potter, VP Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications

Smart Communications recently had the opportunity to participate in Guidewire’s Insurance Forum in Sydney, and we were honored to co-present along with Laura Drabik, Chief Insurance Evangelist at Guidewire Software, about the importance of personalization in insurance communications. In Laura’s most recent blog, 'The Personalization Imperative Comes to P&C Insurance', she dives into how delivering personalized communications at scale isn't just an unprecedented opportunity for P&C insurers – but a strategic imperative for carriers who want to cut customer acquisition costs, increase revenue growth, and gain significant share over rivals.

Editor’s Note: The original article was written by Laura Drabik, Chief Insurance Evangelist, Guidewire Software and published on Laura Drabik’s blog.

Mounting competition and soaring customer expectations are turning the ability to deliver personalized messages, offers, and experiences at scale into more than just an unprecedented opportunity for P&C insurers. It could soon become a strategic imperative for any carrier seeking to cut customer acquisition costs, increase revenue growth, and gain significant share over rivals.

Just look at Amazon, Netflix, and Google. These and other digital-first brands long ago began analyzing vast amounts of data to deliver highly relevant offers based on each customer’s specific needs, behaviors, and personal preferences.

It may have started with a recommendation for a binge-worthy spy series, a new release from your favorite band, or those solar-powered garden lights for your newly landscaped yard. Fast-forward a few years and a seismic shift to digital channels later, and consumers have come to expect this same level of personalization from every company in every industry—including P&C insurance.

In fact, they demand it. According to McKinsey, more than 7 in 10 consumers now expect personalization as a standard feature when interacting with every company, and nearly 76% get frustrated when it’s not. The payoff from personalization can also be huge. Companies that excel in personalization can boost revenues by 10-15%—with best-in-class performers achieving increases of up to 25%.

While industries like e-commerce and entertainment may have led the charge, a rapidly expanding universe of cloud-connected data, analytical tools, and automation is making the notion of delivering personalized communications at scale possible—perhaps even vital—for P&C insurers. Here’s why.

Personalized Communications at Scale: A Differentiator That Pays Dividends

Putting the solutions in place to deliver personalized messages to customers—policy recommendations, tailored coverage options, and all the associated policy documentation—can seem daunting to many insurers. Especially when you consider this level of personalization spans call centers, emails, in-app offers, text messages, and more across human and digital channels at every point in the customer journey.

But according to McKinsey’s research, 76% of consumers see personalized communications as paramount when considering a brand, and 78% say personalized content makes them more likely to repurchase. In addition to helping attract net-new and repeat business, personalization offers many other benefits—including the following.

Reduced Marketing Costs

Personalization can help cut customer acquisition costs by 50% relative to the continued use of mass, one-size-fits-all communications or discrete campaigns using basic segmentation or personas. This matters at a time when just four of the top U.S. insurers spend a combined total of nearly $5 billion on marketing annually, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Higher Share of Existing Revenue

Personalization can also help insurers protect and increase their share of existing industry revenues. In McKinsey’s view, for instance, U.S. auto insurers could reap an additional $5.5 billion if they leverage personalization to retain just 10% of the $55 billion in direct written premiums that switch from one carrier to another each year. In the EU, that could represent an additional $3.3 billion, assuming 10% retention of the $30 billion in gross direct premiums that switch carriers in the eurozone annually.

Better Cross-Selling

451 Research estimates that $5.6 billion in additional consumer spending can be influenced by cross-selling or other personalized recommendations based on key milestones or evolving customer needs. Indeed, personalization can aid in introducing additional or higher-margin coverages and value-added services aimed at risk mitigation—further boosting loyalty and customer lifetime value.

Mastering Personalization at Scale Across the Full Insurance Life Cycle

Carriers with a modern, cloud-based insurance platform have a built-in advantage in achieving this kind of personalization at scale. The Guidewire Cloud Platform, for example, dynamically orchestrates the cloud-connected analytics, document management, and intelligent automation that are essential to delivering personalized, omni-channel customer communications across policy, billing, and claims processes. Without it, you’re forced to toggle between disjointed systems—making true scalability impossible.

Building on the capabilities built into the platform, Guidewire partners with industry-leading conversation management platform provider Smart Communications to enable tailored communications at unlimited scale.

When integrated to SmartCOMM, the Guidewire platform extends the logic, data, and rules insurers establish within InsuranceSuite so users can deliver personalized, compliant communications—automatically or on demand. Think quotes, policy declarations, renewals, statements, bills, claims correspondence, and more, delivered through the customer’s choice of email, text message, physical mail, and customer portal.

This is all facilitated within a single, cloud-expandable platform—eliminating the need to manage disparate systems and ensuring unlimited scalability as storage, channels, and other requirements grow. Let’s look at three examples that illustrate the power personalization at scale brings to the entire insurance life cycle.

The Policy Phase: Personalization Hits the Fast Lane

Let’s start with a car buyer purchasing a new vehicle through the manufacturer’s website. Guidewire’s Embedded Insurance Solution enables digital engagement with consumers so they can interact directly with PolicyCenter in fully automated quote-and-buy experiences for coverage offered with the purchase of third-party products or services.

Examples include extended warranties offered when buying electronic devices, travel insurance when booking a trip, or in this case, coverage bundled with the purchase of a car. Embedded insurance ecosystems are expected to account for up to 30% of all personal lines auto premiums by 2030.

Once our car buyer has reviewed the insurer’s quote, selected coverage, and provided payment details, Guidewire acts as an intelligent automation engine to dynamically issue the policy and generate the associated documentation directly within PolicyCenter—including a personalized Declaration page.

With PolicyCenter integrated to SmartCOMM, these documents are generated using templates, prefilled with the pertinent details, and stored within the Document section of the policy file. Meanwhile, a copy is sent to our new policyholder via their preferred channel. And it’s all done instantly and automatically—no human intervention required.

Personalized Billing: Automated or Self-Serve

Down the road, our new policyholder decides to make a change to their policy—switching their payment plan from monthly to annual, for example. Within BillingCenter, this and many other tasks associated with invoicing, premium collection, or refunds can be automated through digital self-service or completed manually by an agent.

In this case, the associated documentation is automatically generated and prefilled to reflect the change in our policyholder’s payment schedule and is autosaved within the billing file. The insured also receives the documents through their preferred mode of communication.

Whether through digital self-service or a live representative, this kind of convenient, personalized service can help insurers avoid unpaid coverage while boosting customer satisfaction and lifetime value.

Claims Management: On-Demand Documents with a Personal Touch

The ability to generate personalized communications is as important in claims as it is in policy and billing—only more so. A personal touch can turn an otherwise satisfying claims experience into a remarkable one.

Take an adjuster who needs to send a claim release to our new auto policyholder. ClaimCenter integrated to SmartCOMM empowers adjusters to create their own personalized communications on demand. In this instance, the adjuster selects a template for a letter that is dynamically prefilled with the appropriate claim details.

Adjusters can personalize the letter to include a comment based on the phone conversation they had with the insured or an answer to a question the policyholder emailed earlier in the day.

In the example shown here, the adjuster inserts a call to action to sign and return the enclosed release within 10 days so the policyholder has clear instructions for moving their claim forward. The adjuster can then review and append the release form and send it in accordance with the policyholder’s preferred choice of communication.

Meanwhile, a complete history of all communications related to the claim is saved and maintained within the Documents section of the claim file so it’s easily accessible at any time—without flipping between systems.

Moments Made Powerful (And More Profitable) Through Personalization

According to Accenture, organizations that implement the technologies needed to meet demand for personalized interactions and experiences can multiply their profitability year over year by a factor of 6 relative to industry peers.

With the right solutions in place, insurers can see a rapid return on their investment. Guidewire’s industry-leading insurance platform integrated to SmartCOMM, for instance, has already helped carriers quickly and cost-effectively launch personalized communications at scale in more than 100 deployments worldwide—which means the personalization imperative isn’t just coming to P&C insurance. It’s already here.

Our partnership with Guidewire is driven by a commitment to deliver the cloud-first technology that will enable P&C insurers to meet the needs of their customers now and in the future.  The Smart Communications team is already looking forward to Guidewire Connections in Nashville this November, where we’ll be celebrating the Power of Community with insurers, industry leaders, and other Guidewire and Smart Communications partners for three powerful days of education, networking, and fun.

Learn more about our partnership with Guidewire.

How Can Customer Communications Management (CCM) Software Benefit Life Insurers?

Posted on August 14, 2023 by Eileen Potter

By Eileen Potter, VP of Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications

Given today's competitive market, having an effective customer communications strategy is a strategic imperative for life insurers. While that might sound a bit dramatic, consumers nowadays have an abundance of options—and a willingness to jump ship even after one bad experience with a brand they like.

With so many customer touchpoints to account for, creating a personalized member journey packed with clarity and ease may be difficult without leading customer communications management software at the helm of your technology stack.

This article explores these topics and provides insights to business and technology leaders in charge of claims, policies, and customer experience. The valuable information we delve into is truly for anyone who’s part of the buying or innovation committees for new technology vendors.

The Evolving Landscape of Life Insurance

We’re keenly aware that advancements in technology have not only shaped customer expectations but have also opened new avenues for enhanced communications that provide consumers with an abundance of information—potentially too much information. When a customer is facing what could be a critical moment in their life, they need pertinent information and clear responses to their pressing questions. Even in the not-so-crucial moments, timely and succinct communications remain key to building trust and confidence in your brand. In fact, new benchmark data shows that the most important factors for establishing trust are security, ease, transparency, and empathy.

When thinking about the evolution taking place across the life insurance market, a few insights that keep coming up are:

The growing need for consumer education in order to help people make informed decisions about their coverage options and insurance needs. When equipped with modern CCM solutions, insurance professionals can truly become a trusted advisor in empowering consumers to make the right decisions for their unique situation.
An increasing demand for personalized coverage options for term life, whole life, and universal life insurance, that can be adjusted to meet a consumer’s financial and family goals.
The emphasis on life insurance as part of a holistic financial planning strategy. This means consumers are looking for policies that provide more than just death benefits. They want additional features like tax advantages, investment opportunities, and cash value accumulation.

The shifting regulatory landscape that’s apt to remain in flux for the foreseeable future. Life insurance markets are especially subject to changes in regulatory requirements which can directly impact underwriting processes, distribution channels, and offerings.

While there’s undoubtedly more change to come for life insurers, let’s look at how you can account and plan for the evolution.

You might be interested in knowing why insurance organizations are among the enterprises that benefit most from customer communications management software. Read the blog to find out!

How Does Effective Customer Communications Improve Policy Management and Claims Processing?

Effective, personalized communication enhances customer satisfaction, reduces errors, and streamlines the overall process when a consumer has a coverage question, makes policy changes or files a claim. Here's a few ways customer communications management technology improves policy management as well as claims processing:

Clear Communication of policy terms. When customers understand their insurance policy terms, coverages, and limitations clearly, they're less likely to make mistakes or misunderstand their coverage. Clear communication at the time of policy issuance helps avoid disputes later and ensures that customers know what to expect in the event of a claim.

Transparent claims procedures. Effective communication ensures that customers are aware of the claims process, including how to file a claim, required documentation, and expected timelines for resolution. Transparent claims procedures foster trust between the insurer and the policyholder, leading to smoother claims processing and quicker resolutions.

Faster claims processing. When customers submit all necessary information and documentation accurately from the beginning, it reduces the back-and-forth communication between the insurer and the policyholder. This efficiency results in faster claims processing, benefiting both parties.

Reduced disputes/litigation. If there is a claim denial or disagreement, clear communication can help resolve issues between the customer and your company through mediation or arbitration rather than leading to costly and time-consuming legal battles.

Personalized interactions. Utilizing customer communication channels effectively allows your insurance organization to tailor its messaging to individual policyholders. Personalized interactions demonstrate that the customer is valued and known as an individual, strengthening the customer-insurer relationship.

Data collection for analytics. Customer communications can also be a source of valuable data for insurers. By analyzing customer inquiries, feedback, and behavior, insurers can gain insights into customer needs, pain points, and preferences, enabling them to optimize their services and offerings.

By delivering personalized, timely, and relevant information, insurance companies can build stronger relationships with their customers, leading to improved loyalty and retention. On the other hand, poor customer communications can have severe consequences, impacting policy management and the claims lifecycle—even leading customers to switch to your competitor.

Find out which trends will impact businesses and how pure cloud CCM software can help improve agility, scalability, and profitability.

Key Advantages of Cloud-Based Customer Communications for Life Insurance Providers

Cloud-based CCM software offers numerous benefits over traditional legacy systems or the absence of one entirely. Some of the main advantages include:

Increased agility. Cloud-based CCM solutions allow insurers to respond to changing regulatory requirements with more speed and flexibility.
Enhanced customer engagement. Cloud-based solutions enable personalized communications across multiple channels, providing your customers with tailored experiences and building stronger connections. This is an absolute must-have feature for today’s savvy customers.
Document delivery and management. The right CCM software helps you automate the delivery and management of policy documents, reducing manual effort while improving accuracy and ensuring compliance.
Omnichannel capabilities. Solutions that specialize in managing customer interactions offer a seamless experience across multiple channels, including email, web portals, mobile apps, and social media. This helps empower your customers by allowing them to choose their preferred method of communication.
Streamlined policy management and claims processing. CCM software streamlines policy management and claims processing by automating workflows, reducing paperwork, and improving efficiency, leading to faster turnaround times.

Cost savings and ROI. Implementing cloud-based software can result in cost savings through reduced printing and mailing expenses, improved operational efficiency, and increased customer satisfaction. All of these benefits ultimately yield a positive return on investment.

Every touchpoint in the life insurance journey matters. From the moment someone considers purchasing a policy to the regular updates and policy reviews, each interaction should be seamless and meaningful. As technology and customer expectations evolve, insurers should also refine their processes and technological capabilities.

This might start with things like leveraging data analytics to better understand your customers' needs or simply ensuring that communications are sent to a customer's preferred channel every time. Whatever changes you intend to make, research supports a shift to cloud technologies that help insurance organizations offer more security and agility to their customers.

Adapting to Changing Customer Expectations with CCM Software
Over the last several years, we’ve all learned much about adapting to change. For an industry aimed at helping its customers with transitions, life insurance companies need to be at the top of their game in regard to adaptation. Luckily, leading CCM software can help make lighter work of becoming an agile, customer-centric organization. From shifting policyholder behaviors/expectations to keeping up with changing regulations or compliance requirements, life insurance leaders need to be poised for evolution especially in the realm of their technology stack.

A study by multinational professional services network, KPMG, published a report that leveraged research data collected by Forrester Consulting that explored input from more than 425 L&A industry decision-makers in July 2022. The report specifically stresses the need for insurers to be at the forefront of transparency and trust in an effort to prevent the mishandling of customer data. This, as well as ESG considerations, further showcases the importance for customer communications software that allows insurers to not only protect sensitive customer data but to give consumers more ownership over how their data is collected and used.

Speaking of data and the way it’s used; insurers can do more with the information they collect throughout the customer journey. Open channels of communication allow customers to provide feedback on their experiences with the policy management and claims process. Insurers can use this feedback to identify areas for improvement, refine their processes, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

With the right solutions and approach, your life insurance organization can stay ahead of the competition and meet evolving demands from regulators and customers alike. By embracing technology and prioritizing effective customer communication, you can drive success in the ever-evolving markets.

Discover how customer communications management (CCM) software for life insurance can help boost customer engagement and operational efficiencies at your organization.

Drive Efficiencies and Cost-Savings: Migrate and Consolidate CCM Solutions

Posted on July 11, 2023October 19, 2026 by Chris Murphy

By: Chris Murphy, Vice President of Product Marketing at Smart Communications

During times of economic uncertainty, the only constant is change—which is why businesses need to be agile and always looking ahead. With markets shifting, inflation rising and jobs fluctuating, it’s a good time to focus on building a technology ecosystem that allows enterprises to meet both the near- and long-term needs of the business; not to mention, it also helps to future-proof in the face of unknown business needs. When it comes to customer communications management (CCM), legacy systems slow down operations, provide little to no business user control and can be quite costly. If this is a key challenge for businesses, CCM migration and consolidation should be a priority.

As enterprises around the world are being tasked with cutting costs and doing more with less, employees need the right solutions to support existing customers while also attracting new customers. The right systems and solutions enable better processes and more consistency. A consolidated tech ecosystem allows enterprises to increase operational efficiency and reduce overall costs—a critical focus in a down economy. Automating and digitizing processes reduces the burden on IT, further lowering costs while allowing for internal innovation. To achieve an improved CX and meet business goals, enterprises must consolidate technology and adopt a modern, pure-cloud CCM solution.

Business Drivers for CCM Migration from Legacy to Cloud

There’s no shortage of reasons for CCM migration from legacy systems to a sophisticated, pure-cloud customer communications management platform. But the best way to start is by assessing existing communications processes and technology.

If you’re currently using a multitude of applications to generate customer communications, consolidating into a single enterprise system will help streamline internal processes and workflows. Ultimately, the level of speed and agility a cloud solution offers simply can’t be matched by legacy systems. Connecting all mission-critical technologies into a single, flexible ecosystem allows teams to take advantage of new technology faster and accelerate response times for customers.

Migrating to a modern customer communications management solution that integrates seamlessly with existing core systems offers further operational benefits by allowing disparate systems to communicate and diminishing the number of integrations that must be managed. With a sophisticated solution, automation and personalization make interactions more dynamic and productive. Best of all, moving to an enterprise CCM would make change management and future upgrades simpler.

In keeping with widespread digital transformation initiatives, many organizations have implemented an enterprise-wide cloud strategy aimed at driving operational efficiency and competitive advantage. Moving to a cloud-native solution allows businesses to align customer communications with corporate strategy to reduce overall costs, reprioritize IT resources and maintain security and compliance. At the same time, modern customer communications solutions allow businesses to support enterprise-wide efforts to improve CX—meeting CSAT goals and building loyalty.

RELATED READING TO DOWNLOAD | ‘A CCM Migration Roadmap’

Cost-Savings and Operational Benefits of Consolidating Legacy Customer Communications Technologies

According to a recent Qualtrics XM Institute study, 60% of IT leaders are focused on increasing operational efficiency in their IT organization—and 89% say agility is extremely or very important for responding better to unexpected events. A modern CCM solution delivers speed, agility and scalability that powers efficiency at every touchpoint – and enables enterprises to keep up with evolving customer expectations and weather the unknown by building flexibility into processes and responding to change rapidly.

For example, let’s say a large financial services institution needed to automatically turn on access for hundreds of new end users in order to account for an influx of customer inquiries. With instant-on provisioning —made possible through cloud technology — providers can make this happen within minutes instead of lengthy implementations and/or upgrades that would be required with legacy platforms.

By making investments in improving operational efficiencies, enterprises in turn boost profits and drive overall growth, reducing the burden on costly call centers with a digital solution that supports self-service via guided digital interactions. A consolidated CCM reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) compared with multiple disparate systems and reduces the amount of time and money spent on maintenance, updates and operations.

Improving the customer experience and meeting customers where they are with an omnichannel approach helps to prevent churn. Not only does this bolster revenue, it reduces costs up front—because it’s significantly more expensive to win new customers than it is to hang on to existing ones. This makes enhanced CX a strategic imperative, especially when budgets are tight. To support growth, invest in the customers you already have.

As customer preferences and business needs continue to shift, an enterprise CCM solution enables enterprises to pivot on demand without investing in new technology. Key benefits include:

Updating customer communications strategies to keep pace with market shifts, changing regulations, and evolving customer needs, without relying on IT
Empowering business users, customers, and the business at large by consolidating the tech stack and migrating to a single, powerful enterprise solution.

KEEP READING | ‘Building a Business Case for Change: How to Secure Stakeholder Buy-In When Purchasing Enterprise Customer Communications Management (CCM) Software’

The Purpose-Built Enterprise CCM Solution for Today’s Needs

Moving to a pure cloud CMM solution helps businesses increase operational efficiency and decrease costs during times of economic uncertainty. While it may seem like a time- and resource-consuming undertaking, it doesn’t have to be. Migrating to a modern, purpose-built platform reduces TCO and accelerates ROI. At the same time, it allows enterprises to consolidate data, streamline processes and enhance the customer experience.

The goal of any forward-looking enterprise should be to do more with less and use automation and data-driven insights to optimize every interaction. On the point of doing more with less, consolidation has several key benefits that can help businesses future-proof, such as:

Maintenance is less burdensome and costly. With CCM Migration, there are fewer places to update things when changes are necessary. This, coupled with depreciating disparate solutions, organizations will save money and time.
Reliance on IT is diminished. Consolidating means organizations don’t have to worry about battling separate IT upgrade schedules. And, working with a single cloud vendor who manages updates will often mean there’s no onus on the end-user to manage upgrades.
End-user empowerment. A center of excellence and shared knowledge/resources can be developed to help business users handle projects faster and train new users quicker.

Smart Communications is uniquely positioned to help enterprises successfully migrate without disrupting customer communications and focus on elevating the customer experience to improve efficiency, retention and revenue. We offer a suite of purpose-built migration tools that use automation to reduce manual steps by up to 30-65%, saving resources and accelerating the process. Our Professional Services team has helped hundreds of companies migrate successfully. We’re here to offer expertise and support for even the most complex projects.

If you’re ready to future proof your business with CCM migration and consolidation, get in touch with us to learn how a pure cloud, enterprise customer communications management system can help.

About the Author
Chris Murphy is the Vice President of Product Marketing for Smart Communications, a customer communications management technology leader focused on helping businesses engage in more meaningful customer conversations. Chris spoke about CCM and operational agility at the DSF '23 in Charlotte, NC.

3 Ways Insurers Can Prioritize Technology Investments to Improve CX

Posted on July 6, 2023October 19, 2026 by Eileen Potter

By: Neil Greathead, CCO at Smart Communications

Having meaningful customer conversations has always been important, especially for insurance companies. But due to COVID-19, more customers are looking to insurers for security and guidance, forcing them to challenge the status quo in order to effectively respond to the drastic increase in customer demands. As a result, many insurers are questioning where they should prioritize their investments. Here are three important thoughts to consider to ensure you are focusing on the most important elements.

Determine Where You Want to Go First

Be realistic and pick your battles! When it comes to making technology investments to support digital transformation initiatives, remember it’s a marathon not a sprint. How do you need the investment to make a difference within your organization? Is the goal to grow revenue? Reduce expenses? Improve customer satisfaction? Knowing the answers to these questions will help identify which technology systems will bring the most value to the company – these are likely the systems you’ll want to get in place first. Investing in a modern customer conversations platform can move the needle on all of these priorities. By enabling enterprises to engage in interactive, real-time conversations across multiple channels, and giving consumers choices when it comes to channel preference will lead to deeper customer trust and loyalty, and ultimately increased ROI.

Identify The Right Integration Approach

Now more than ever, insurance providers need to be able to take full advantage of insurtech and other CX-focused technologies to meet the growing needs of the customer. To create a more seamless customer journey, McKinsey & Company reveals it’s crucial that insurers build a flexible API-based architecture that supports a quick integration of offerings that are vital to providing a more cohesive customer experience. By selecting a customer conversations platform that allows for key pieces of customer-facing technologies to be easily integrated, insurers can provide a more holistic view of the customer, quickly adjust and adapt to customer communication preferences and leverage data insights to break down silos in order to increase internal efficiency as well. According to Patrick Knight, Regional Vice President, UK Insurance at Salesforce, “Insurers need to leverage the wealth of data they have been collecting for all these years across all of their businesses and silos to make journeys that are easy, joined up and use the customer’s channel of choice.”

Consider The Entire Customer Lifecycle

Keep in mind that customer experience is informed at multiple points across the entire customer lifecycle. Look at the various reasons a customer interacts with you and identify all your customer touchpoints. Are there interactions that are causing friction? This will give you a better idea of which interactions should you hone in on more urgently. For example, think about your forms processes. Are you still expecting customers to complete paper-based forms or fillable PDFs that are not mobile friendly and are prone to errors, or are you collecting information via more intelligent, conversational user experiences? By selecting a conversations platform that can transform the forms experience and then use the information collected to deliver more personalized and relevant communications you can have a positive impact on customer experience from onboard to servicing and every interaction in between. You’ll also gain a better understanding of customer workflows and can identify which interactions can be done strictly via chatbots and virtual assistants and which require more in-depth, personal conversations.

There’s no denying that the increased importance on digital interactions has taken unprecedented priority for insurers. If you’re looking for more inspiration on how to overhaul your customer conversations strategy by capitalizing on new technologies, watch our webinar, Leveraging technology to drive the next phase of customer engagement: from trust to hyper-relevance, or download the full summary here.

Here’s What We Learned at Duck Creek Formation ‘23

Posted on June 20, 2023October 19, 2026 by Smart Communications Team

By Eileen Potter, VP Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications

Recently the Smart Communications team attended the 2023 Duck Creek Formation conference. After reflecting on the insights, trends, and especially the conversations we had over the event, we’d love to share them with you. Spending time at a partner’s customer conference is particularly energizing and is a great opportunity to discuss the latest developments in insurance technology and strategy.

The theme for this year’s conference was “Building Together,” with timely sessions focused on how human experience will drive the next era of insurance by building meaningful interactions that foster trust, earn loyalty, and create lasting value. In this article, we’ll dive into our takeaways from the event and further guidance for insurers looking to remain customer centric.

Focus Areas for Insurers to Remain Customer-Centric

Build Greater Trust

For insurers, building trust starts with effective communication throughout the policy and claims lifecycles. In today’s connected world, that means taking advantage of cloud-based technology that will enable you to drive a digital-first customer experience strategy.

Customers want to feel secure and confident in their insurance company, and one of the best ways to build trust is through clear communication, including being proactive in reaching out to customers when there are updates or changes that might affect them. Insurers should be responsive and accessible when customers have policy questions or concerns, and most importantly, make the claims process as smooth and hassle-free as possible, from FNOL to close.

Communicate Clearly

Customers buy insurance to protect themselves and their assets, and they expect their insurance company to be there for them when they need it. Your customer communications should reinforce the value of your policies and the protection they offer, including easy-to-understand explanations of policy language and coverage limits. Additionally, part of the value and protection is to educate them on ways to minimize risk and prevent losses.

Deliver More Human Experiences

In today's world, customers crave authentic, personalized experiences. They want to feel like they're dealing with a real person, not a faceless corporation, and they want empathy – especially when they have a claim. Your customer communications should reflect this desire for a more human touch, including giving your policyholders options for how they can interact with you. And make sure to personalize communications whenever possible, using the customer's name and referencing specific details about their policy.

Conclusion

The accelerating pace of change in the industry combined with the current economic environment is challenging insurers to reimagine the way they do business, including how they interact and communicate with their policyholders. By focusing on these key areas, P&C insurance companies can create long-lasting relationships with their customers and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Our partnership with core system providers like Duck Creek enable us to help insurers build technology ecosystems that will deepen customer relationships, drive loyalty, and deliver amazing customer experiences.

Customer communications is not just part of our company’s mission – it's all we do, and we believe this is why more insurers selected Smart Communications as their CCM partner in each of the last five years than all other CCM providers combined. Learn more about our partnership with Duck Creek.

Achieving Digital Transformation the SMART Way

Posted on March 27, 2023October 19, 2026 by Smart Communications Team

By Hitesh Bhindi, Director of Professional Services at Smart Communications

According to IDC, worldwide spending on digital transformation initiatives will reach nearly $2 trillion by 2022. So, what’s keeping your organization from jumping onboard? Let’s face it, digital transformation for any organization large or small is a huge commitment, not to mention a big financial investment. There are reasons why some are hesitant to pull the trigger, but that doesn’t hide the fact that digital is here to stay. Transforming to a digital-first organization and in turn, selecting a modern customer communications management (CCM) platform are both critical decisions for any company that wishes to maintain its competitive edge.

While revamping your customer communications strategy and incorporating new technologies does invite certain complexities, the tradeoff of improved communications across a wide range of channels will be well worth it. But, before you reach out to your boss with an exciting new idea on how to push your organization along the digital route, take some time to think things through and develop a comprehensive plan of action.

Why Upgrade to a Modern, Cloud-Based CCM Solution?

It’s important to clarify why now is the time to modernize your customer communications strategy and emphasize the need for change. Shockingly, many people still have the mindset, “If it’s not broken, why fix it?” According to Forbes, a recent study found 83 percent of enterprise workloads will be running on cloud servers instead of on-premises platforms by 2020. The cloud has come of age! Companies that don’t embrace the cloud, and the internal and customer-facing benefits it affords, risk falling behind their competition.

How to Gain Buy-in Across Your Organization

Key to the success of a digital transformation project is employee engagement. Barriers to this often include people feeling that either the new program doesn’t relieve their pain points, or it was imposed on them with little or no input. It’s important to be aware of these sentiments within your organization to identify how going digital can help address their needs. In our latest whitepaper, Setting the Stage for Change in the Digital Age: How to Gain Organizational Buy-In, we reveal five key steps to follow that will help the process run smoothly.

Crafting a Plan for Digital Transformation

Once you’ve done your homework and connected with key stakeholders across your organization, it’s time to develop a proposal for your executive team. You’ll want to start by articulating how a cloud-based CCM will help your organization improve your communications. Then, you’ll need to address how you’ll update your operational model to match a new, digital-focused communications strategy. Using the data gathered during the fact-finding process, you can create a digital content roadmap highlighting where digital communications can be incorporated. Finally, you’ll want to showcase areas of opportunity for quick wins and demonstrate ROI early. Seems straightforward, right?

While it might not be a one-day project, it will be well worth the process!

3 Ways Insurers Can Improve Communications and the Customer Experience

Posted on March 27, 2023October 19, 2026 by Smart Communications Team

By: Ruth Fisk, VP Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications

As every insurance carrier knows, improving communications with customers is vital to a greater claims experience. Communication templates are critical to managing the myriad of correspondence that policyholders and claimants receive each day. The challenge? Keeping track of thousands at once and needing IT support to make any changes. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the complexities of ad hoc correspondence, “the significant number of one-off pieces of correspondence that may be created in claims operations on any given day.”

It’s time to take a step back and remember that insurance isn’t a template generation business. It’s a people business. Being there for customers during some of their most challenging moments is the reason insurers exist. Communications play a key role in making sure those potentially devastating experiences are as positive as possible. So, for insurers finding themselves overwhelmed with managing thousands of communication templates in custom software applications, we have good news: there’s a SMARTER way.

With the help of Smart Communications’ customer Chris Plunk, Director of Application Development for Claims IT at Farmers Insurance, we explore how to improve three critical areas of document template management for insurers:

Tip 1: Fewer, More Dynamic Communication Templates Simplify Management

The best place to start when it comes to organizing your communication template strategy is to whip existing templates into shape. Just like cleaning and organizing a home, the first step is to discard items no longer being used, to focus the larger efforts on the most relevant tools. Get rid of old templates that have run their course or were created for specific situations that no longer apply.

Also consider your most dynamic templates. The idea is to have fewer, harder working templates. This is particularly powerful when using a more scalable cloud-based customer communications platform. It’s important to focus on communication templates that do the heavy lifting in a variety of situations. This offers more opportunity for personalization and an effective way to streamline management in the insurance industry.

“Prior to implementing SmartCOMM, we had thousands of communication templates that we maintained in our custom application. With SmartCOMM, we’ve been able to reduce the number of templates by more than 50%.” – Chris Plunk, Director of Application Development for Claims IT, Farmers Insurance

Tip 2: Implement a Template Management Strategy that Creates Consistent Customer Experiences and Personalization at Scale

From onboarding to claims management, insurance carriers know how important it is for policyholders and claimants to receive consistent messages that align with their company’s brand promise. Insurers also know that impersonal, mass communications don’t carry the same weight anymore. Customers want personalized messages that speak to their unique situations. Static templates that are disconnected from evolving customer data and manually updated one by one simply don’t cut it for modern insurers who want to deliver consistent and personal communications at scale.

That’s why Farmers chose SmartCOMM, which gave them the power to transform their communication templates into dynamic vehicles that remain on-brand and in sync with customers’ specific situations.

“We need to make sure that we’re getting the right information – worded in the right way – in all of our communications, and having these templates in place through this application really helped us achieve that.” – Chris Plunk, Director of Application Development for Claims IT, Farmers Insurance

Tip 3: Faster Communication Template Updates Yield More Response

In insurance, customer communication speed is everything. When policyholders need to file a claim, they need to do it immediately and expect a fast response on the other end. Today, it is important to think of insurance communications as real-time conversations. This makes the ability to update templates efficiently vital. In this new era, speed wins every time. By leveraging a cloud-based communications management solution for templates, insurers can cut down on template update time and IT burdens and ensure that their customers get the right messages more quickly.

“By using SmartCOMM, we’ve been able to reduce [template update] cycle time significantly, and actually push the ability to make changes to these communication templates from the IT department back into the business. What used to take weeks can now be accomplished in a few days.” – Chris Plunk, Director of Application Development for Claims IT, Farmers Insurance

Enterprises That Benefit Most From Customer Communications Management Software

Posted on August 12, 2022October 19, 2026 by Chris Murphy

By: Chris Murphy, VP of Product Marketing, Smart Communications

Enterprises around the world are navigating a digital landscape and customer expectations that are changing faster than ever, leading many organizations to rethink how they interact with customers—especially companies within highly regulated industries like financial services, healthcare and insurance, as well as the public sector. As these enterprises engage with customers at critical moments in their lives, it’s imperative that one-way, transactional communications be replaced with two-way, interactive conversations that offer a seamless customer experience. This is where cloud-native customer communications management (CCM) software can help.

An unfortunate truth is that outdated, legacy CCM systems do not provide the necessary agility to meet customers’ growing expectations. Companies that implement pure cloud CCM will be more capable of achieving the unmatched levels of innovation, agility and scalability that today’s customers require.

In this post, we’ll explore how making the shift from legacy, manual systems to a cloud-based CCM solution can help enterprises remain agile, competitive and compliant, as well as some of the main challenges that can be solved with CCM.

Why is Cloud CCM a Necessity for Highly Regulated Industries?

Early adopters of cloud-based CCM are already noticing the benefits of making an investment in sophisticated cloud software. In fact, the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Customer Communications Management Applications 2022 stated that organizations cited a 26% improvement in customer satisfaction as a result of embracing digital transformation. Enterprises need the right systems to help them decrease friction while still gathering the details and information required to help customers achieve their goals and remain satisfied.

As noted earlier in the post, highly regulated industries often interact with people at their most vulnerable or critical moments: a car accident, a first-time home buying experience or claims appeal after a major health issue. Navigating these life milestones is difficult enough, for both the customer and the company’s employees. With less time spent on paper heavy, manual tasks, employees have more room to be empathetic and focus on providing an exceptional customer experience.

When every customer interaction is high-stakes, enterprises within the insurance, financial services and healthcare industries require solutions that provide deeper visibility into every customer touch point, increased efficiency and the ability to deliver omnichannel communications – all of which is only achievable with a cloud-first approach.

How Cloud-based CCM Solutions Enhance Business Efficiency

In our fast-paced world, efficiency continues to be a main driver for businesses. The way we work and live has shifted exponentially over the last several years, making the customers of today more digitally savvy than ever. People have become accustomed to working out of their homes with systems and tools they once never used. Now, businesses are playing catch up and they need future-ready ways to help them remain efficient at scale. Rather than taking a reactive approach to these changes, proactive enterprises understand the cost savings and agility that come from cloud-based CCM solutions. Some of those include:

Greater Visibility into Delivering Compliant Communications. When considering the need for compliance and the ever-changing regulations, visibility into the language being used across forms and other external communications can make or break a brand, like manually searching for and replacing dozens of instances where language may be outdated or replaced for any number of reasons. This could be due to compliance regulations that dictate the way a contract is formatted. However, a sophisticated CCM solution that leverages the power of the cloud can search an entire library of communications for fragments (including sentences, logos or pre-made E-signatures) and replace it with the correct content. Minute details, like font sizing or color, can also be updated easily as per regulatory standards, such as a Terms and Conditions section in a document.
Reducing Administrative Burden on the IT Department. Another big benefit of utilizing cloud technology is for IT departments. Unlike legacy, on-premise tools, a cloud-based customer communications management solution reduces the burden on IT and frees up resources/budget that allows for more innovative initiatives. Without the added weight of managing or updating software and systems, IT teams can spend more time taking a strategic approach to the products or services a company offers.
Increased Control and Ownership for Business Users. The business user has more control and ownership of the software and can enjoy seamless updates (managed by the vendor) and flexibility that isn’t possible with on-premise tools. This is especially important when considering the hybrid or fully remote working situations across large workforces. With cloud software, customer service representatives have the needed flexibility to provide a great customer experience from anywhere in the world—without sacrificing customer safety or risking non-compliance.

The above benefits certainly extend to highly regulated industries like financial services, insurance and healthcare. In the rest of this post, we’ll examine some additional benefits of CCM for each of those industries.

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Healthcare

The healthcare industry, for good reason, has some of the toughest regulations and compliance-related expectations. To remain compliant and agile, while also focusing on patient satisfaction, requires health insurers to rethink the systems and solutions they use to manage the end-to-end customer experience. In addition to those top priorities, key findings from a recent Forrester report highlighted these main challenges facing health insurers:

Health insurance members prefer offline channels for customer service due to unsatisfactory digital experiences
51% of customers are dissatisfied with phone interactions
Insurers find it challenging to provide a seamless, personalized digital experience
Insurers’ top priorities indicate a focus on acquisition rather than improving current members’ experience

The above challenges can be solved by investing in a customer communications management solution that leverages the power of the cloud and provides health insurers with a strategic approach to improving customer experience—from acquisition through servicing—and ultimately improving retention. Consolidating CCM use cases onto a single enterprise-wide platform also improves operating efficiency and increases speed to market.

Helping members be seen and known as individuals will take a concerted effort to do away with manual processes and tools that only offer a one-way transaction. Health insurers need to reimagine how they engage with members and adopt digital solutions that enable interactive, two-way conversations.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE | ‘Connecting the Healthcare Claims Experience’

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Insurance Providers

Not only are customer needs very similar in both the healthcare and insurance industries, the compliance and regulatory requirements are, too. Protecting customer data and reducing errors is critical when thinking of the total customer journey. In addition to these drivers, the following are also top priorities for companies in the insurance industry:

Reducing cycle time and NIGO rates for claims to increase customer satisfaction and associated renewals
Reducing dependency on IT to create new reports, reduce template maintenance and number of templates
Eliminating disparate systems to provide for a more cohesive approach to managing customer conversations

Unfortunately, insurance companies that are hanging onto legacy technology might also be hindering speed-to-market innovation, limiting digital-first strategies and inhibiting the ability to respond to rapidly evolving product and customer preferences. To overcome these challenges and meet strategic priorities across the industry, insurers must invest in CCM solutions that help them foster two-way, interactive customer communications with agility and efficiency.

Manual, analog systems might be the expectation for insurers, but their customers are digitally savvy and have adjusted their expectations based on how they do business with companies that have already digitized and automated core business functions. To become a truly customer-centric organization while also remaining competitive, insurers must accelerate their innovation by adopting pure cloud, digital platforms that work seamlessly with policy, claims, billing systems and other enterprise software tools. This approach will allow for personalization and omnichannel delivery across the entire insurance lifecycle.

KEEP READING | ‘Becoming a Digital First Claims Organization’

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Financial Services Institutions

Banks and financial institutions have always competed for loyalty and wallet share based on delivering the best customer experience (CX), which has only become more difficult as new digital channels of engagement pop up every day. According to a March 2022 report from Celent, 58% of banks say “it is more challenging to win and retain customers than 12 months ago.” Competition from fintechs and non-bank lenders means banks need to step up their digital game.

CCM software solutions enable banks to engage customers with personalized, relevant communications in real time across a growing number of channels and engagement points, from getting a loan to onboarding investments to statements and customer service transactions. CCM platforms built for enterprise scalability enable banks to manage and deliver millions of documents or digital messages every day, including marketing offers, product information, compliance disclosures, renewal notifications, delinquency notices, just to name a few.

Meeting customers where they are while delivering the right messaging across all channels is just one way banks and other financial institutions can not only cut down on customer frustration, but also reduce compliance risks by managing communication templates. Banks can achieve massive cost savings by reducing paper and postage costs for ongoing communications. According to Forrester, one bank saved $16.7 million in overall costs by modernizing its CCM platform and shifting to digital communications.

Solving these challenges is at the forefront of the mind for many leaders in the financial services industry, as well as how to:

Support digital-first, two-way conversations that encompass the entire customer lifecycle, beyond sales
Provide customers with seamless transitions between in-person and virtual communications without friction
Remain compliant and protective of customer data while still providing flexibility throughout the various touchpoints

Financial institutions and banks are beginning to operate with a new customer experience paradigm. The old standard of reactive, one-way interactions is no longer accepted by a digitally equipped consumer base. Instead, banks and financial institutions have begun the process of adopting systems that can meet these increasing customer demands and allow remote or hybrid workers to account for gaps, no matter where they’re working from.

This digitalization goes beyond delivering documents or signing contracts; two historic use cases of early CCM tools. Customers can now be empowered to create their own journey, so to speak, when provided with digital-first, interactive conversations across the various engagement mechanisms that exist (e.g. website, chatbots, apps, in-person, phone). These capabilities support a customer-centric approach that is enabling financial services institutions to win customers and grow deposits.

READ THE REPORT | ‘IDC Industry Spotlight: Empathy at Scale at the Pace of Digital in Financial Services’

Why Smart Communications

Interactions across the insurance, financial services and healthcare industries are often stressful and/or high-stakes. This means it’s even more important than ever to deliver a customer experience that accounts for these factors. In fact, recent benchmark data from Smart Communications revealed that communications are important to 81% of consumers’ overall experience with a company—a high percentage when considering the various factors included in the end-to-end customer experience.

As one of the only CCM providers in the space that is fully committed to a cloud-first approach, Smart Communications has enabled many enterprises with the ability to shift from one-way, transactional communications to two-way, interactive conversations. This is one reason why we’ve been recently recognized on the Aspire Leaderboard for the strength of our solutions, strategic vision and global reach. In addition, Aragon, IDC, Gartner and other analysts have named us as a leader in our industry.

When considering the unique and specific needs in highly regulated industries, Smart Communications takes compliance and data safety seriously. We’re certified compliant by an independent third party and maintain HIPAA, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, SOC 1 and SOC 2 certifications. This makes it possible for enterprises to provide contextual, compliant communications across the various channels their customers prefer.

Smart Communications is uniquely positioned to help enterprises in highly regulated industries realize a better way to manage customer communications. To learn more about how our pure cloud-native CCM software helps enterprises better serve their customers and remain strategic, check out the Aspire Leaderboard for Customer Communications Management.

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Shifting Regulations Present New Opportunities for Risk Management and Compliance Management

WCAG Driving Change Across Enterprises

Reducing Risk for Highly Regulated Industries

Choose the Right Solution Partner to Enhance Compliance and Regulatory Risk Management Capabilities

Discover how The Conversation Cloud makes it easy for highly regulated industries to maintain compliance and mitigate risk.

Personalized Communications at Scale: A Differentiator That Pays Dividends

Reduced Marketing Costs

Higher Share of Existing Revenue

Better Cross-Selling

Mastering Personalization at Scale Across the Full Insurance Life Cycle

The Policy Phase: Personalization Hits the Fast Lane

Personalized Billing: Automated or Self-Serve

Claims Management: On-Demand Documents with a Personal Touch

Moments Made Powerful (And More Profitable) Through Personalization

The Evolving Landscape of Life Insurance

How Does Effective Customer Communications Improve Policy Management and Claims Processing?

Key Advantages of Cloud-Based Customer Communications for Life Insurance Providers

Conclusion

Discover how customer communications management (CCM) software for life insurance can help boost customer engagement and operational efficiencies at your organization.

Business Drivers for CCM Migration from Legacy to Cloud

Cost-Savings and Operational Benefits of Consolidating Legacy Customer Communications Technologies

The Purpose-Built Enterprise CCM Solution for Today’s Needs

If you’re ready to future proof your business with CCM migration and consolidation, get in touch with us to learn how a pure cloud, enterprise customer communications management system can help.

Focus Areas for Insurers to Remain Customer-Centric

Conclusion

Customer communications is not just part of our company’s mission – it's all we do, and we believe this is why more insurers selected Smart Communications as their CCM partner in each of the last five years than all other CCM providers combined. Learn more about our partnership with Duck Creek.

Why is Cloud CCM a Necessity for Highly Regulated Industries?

How Cloud-based CCM Solutions Enhance Business Efficiency

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Healthcare

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Insurance Providers

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Financial Services Institutions

Why Smart Communications