Forms Automation Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Smart Communications Blogs

Onboarding for Credit Card Customers: When Does It End?

Posted on May 16, 2024 by Scott Draeger

By Scott Draeger, SVP of Product Marketing and Vertical Solutions at Smart Communications

While the title of this article might seem like an easy question to answer, it depends on who you ask. Whether it’s Marketing, Sales, Operations, Security, Compliance, Customer Experience, or Accounting, they’ll all have different answers. More importantly, your customers may have different opinions as well.

Let’s look at each of these perspectives to see why 45% of Banks say ‘digital account opening’ is a top investment priority, according Celent’s report, Retail Banking IT Priorities and Strategy in 2023 Leading banks are implementing cloud-native Customer Communication Management (CCM) technology to foster collaboration, attract new prospects, convert them to customers, and support important first transactions.

Marketing Stops Measuring When an Application is Started

The key metrics for a bank’s marketing team are Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC,) and other campaign performance metrics that measure how the department locates prospects, engages them, and converts prospects into qualified opportunities. Banks also have a variety of Conversion Rates (CVR) that track prospects to leads, lead to loan applications, application to approval, and other key milestones in the customer lifecycle. When a marketing campaign works—whether it is a TV commercial, email, social ad, billboard, t-shirt cannon, or other channel—a prospect provides some information, and the prospect turns into a qualified sales lead.

Your marketing team has a rapidly growing technology stack that helps them collect, check, and correct the data before qualifying it as a lead. Once it qualifies as a valid lead, it is sent to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Once it’s an opportunity, the marketing team returns their focus back to attracting more prospective customers. A poorly designed application experience will result in marketing hitting their targets, but lower conversions across the customer lifecycle.

Sales Stops Measuring When a Customer is Approved

The sales team and marketing may squabble from time to time over the quality of the leads that come into the CRM system. When the leads are pursued, the sales team generally measures the conversion of the leads to accounts and the size of the accounts opened. Before a customer is approved, the sales team will rely on partners from operations and compliance before they can claim success.

Operations and Compliance Partner on Qualification and Fulfillment

Operations and compliance require tight IT integrations, as operations often hosts the IT aspects of the application experience. Whether this is entirely digital, via the telephone, in person, or a combination of methods, the operations team must collect data from the applicant, and then quickly turn it over to the security and compliance teams to ensure compliance with Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations while screening for fraud. If this integration is not smooth, time is lost. This lost time can be interpreted as inconvenience, incompetence, or disinterest. After the risk and compliance checks are passed on the data side, the operations team starts to process the new account.

Then, operations’ chain of processes begins. An account number is assigned, the card(s) are produced, the cards are mailed, a digital message includes delivery time and channel, and delivery confirmation messages are sent. Once the card is delivered, operations waits for an omnichannel activation. If activation is not timely, reminders may be sent to ensure the card was received by the customer.

Leaders Don’t Stop Measuring When the Card is Activated

Once the card is activated, surely, the onboarding journey is complete, or is it? The customer experience, or customer success teams, want to see that active card being swiped, tapped, and added to digital wallets, because no bank wants to incur the costs of marketing, application processing, fraud detection, risk management, physical production, and rush delivery just to be a backup account with zero activity. At leading firms, Customer Experience (CX) and customer journey experts work to arrange activity while the card is in transit. They issue interim digital numbers to facilitate the first usage, for example.

CX leaders often send instructions on how to connect the account to a digital wallet, smart watch, key internet retailers, or other default payment methods while the card is in transit. During this initial period, banks also work to help the customer set up their payment method to link to their bank account. When done well, customer experience teams can inspire a new customer to connect to funding sources, put the card as a default payment option for commonly used apps, and make the first transaction. Then, and only then, is a customer fully onboarded.

When Does the Customer Stop Measuring?

The customer never stops measuring because they don’t think about your departments at all. The less they must think about your organization, the better you are performing. But many organizations are siloed, which creates frustration for the individual who moves from campaign member to prospect to applicant to customer. They should not feel like they are being thrown over a wall from one department to another. But, if 45% of banks are investing in digital onboarding, that is a sign that the state of the art is not meeting customer expectations.

How Can I Ensure Onboarding Success at my Bank?

The common thread in all these departmental perspectives is communication with the future account holder. Customers expect rapid responses from financial institutions. Customers demand to know the status at any instance in the process. They want to know this from a variety of channels that they choose. Leading banks have moved away from a complicated combination of single-purpose departmental technology stacks. They are shifting to a unified Customer Communication Management (CCM) approach, to ensure the look, feel, tone, and delivery of communications that span the entire onboarding process are managed.

This approach allows a variety of stakeholders from sales, marketing, legal, risk, operations, compliance, and operations to work on relevant parts of communications, while collaborating as a group. CCM technology like SmartIQ™ facilitates the data collection, AML, KYC, and fraud prevention requirements during a seamless digital onboarding process.

Leading CCM technology, like SmartCOMM™, generates omnichannel communications that inform the customer at all the steps of the onboarding process.

If you’re interested in learning how these solutions can help your firm take customer onboarding to the next level, get in touch with us today.

Unlocking Digital Inclusion: Embracing Global Accessibility Awareness

Posted on May 15, 2024 by Chris Murphy

By Chris Murphy, VP of Product Marketing at Smart Communications

One billion people. That’s three times the population of the United States—and the number of people around the world who are reported to have a disability or impairment. Imagine a world where every individual, regardless of their circumstances, can seamlessly navigate the digital realm. May 16, 2024 is the 13th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) which shines a light on the importance of making our digital world a place where everyone feels empowered and valued. Most importantly, it encourages companies to think holistically about improving digital access and offering digital services in a more inclusive way.

The need for digitally accessible solutions and services isn’t just about meeting regulations; it’s about creating a more inclusive and vibrant digital landscape. When individuals face barriers online, it not only affects their ability to interact with businesses but also hampers the valuable contributions employees can make to their organizations. However, this growing awareness of digital accessibility sheds light on the shift in compliance and gives due recognition to the importance of ensuring equal access and engagement for all individuals in the digital sphere.

According to the GAAD (Global Accessibility Awareness Day) Foundation, here are where most digital experiences fall short:

Source: https://accessibility.day

Drivers for Digital Accessibility Interest

There are several key drivers pushing organizations to evaluate their accessibility and build accessibly-oriented business practices, guidelines, and compliance frameworks. Those are:

1. Compliance: Accessibility rules and regulations can vary broadly from region to region (for example, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the EU Accessibility Act, the Accessible Canada Act), but it is fair to say that there is a growing trend in both the number and strictness of the legislative oversight—as well as the number of lawsuits and value of fines for noncompliance.

2. Customer Experience: Organizations have also focused on accessibility initiatives to help provide better experiences for their consumers and to serve a broader pool of their target market more effectively.

3. Employee Experience: According to IDC’s Digital Accessibility Survey from September 2022, providing a better user experience to internal employees was one of the main reasons to implement digital accessibility – more than customer experience, business benefit, and corporate value reasons.

Who Benefits from Digital Accessibility Initiatives?

The short answer: more than you think. Digital accessibility guidelines and regulations have primarily been put in place to protect the pockets of individuals impacted by a disability or impairment. It’s easy to imagine how someone with a visual limitation—complete or partial blindness, for example—might struggle with digital experiences. Those with visual impairments often benefit from improvements around color/text contrast ratios, the ability to zoom without loss of clarity, and the ability to utilize common technologies like screen readers that can translate these digital interactions into auditory experiences. Alternatively, individuals with auditory impairments typically benefit from captions or descriptions discerned from screen readers and visual media transcripts.

Good accessibility practices benefit everyone. Being able to zoom in on a document or see text with a good contrast ratio creates a more inclusive experience for people with declining eyesight as well as for those who are partially blind/visually impaired. Communications written in plain, understandable language—that avoid using jargon or slang—can help individuals with cognitive impairments as well as those where English (or the communication language) may not be their first language or who read at a lower-than-average reading level. 

How Software Vendors Can Help With Your Digital Accessibility Frameworks

Increasingly, leading organizations are leaning on their software value-chain partners and vendors for support with their accessibility initiatives—with Customer Communications Management (CCM) and form process automation solutions being a major part of their accessibility strategy. There are several areas in which this is happening;

Accessible Customer Communications: Leading CCM solutions are able to help organizations create and manage accessible experiences for their customers. Some examples include accessible PDFs, and communications that can be effectively read by a screen reader. Communications can also be exported in XML format that can then be ingested into third-party solutions for transformation to Braille, Large Print, and other formats that may be required.
Accessible Customer Form Experiences: Much like standard customer communications, digital forms need to offer a range of tools that can offset a consumer’s physical disabilities or impairments. The ability to include images with alternative text or build a question sequence that guides the experience (and avoids ever having to reference a specific place within a form) are “small” but significant steps toward creating accessible data collection processes. Taking it one step further, companies can compensate for various reading levels by including helper text to offer clarification and data validation messages to help the end-user feel confident that what they are providing is correct and will take them to the next desired step in the process.
Accessible Software and UI Experiences: While improving the customer experience and being able to serve a more diverse and broadened customer base through improved accessibility remain important drivers, enhancing the employee experience is also a key motivator for accessibility projects. Ensuring the software and solutions employees utilize everyday meet accessibility standards is becoming a prerequisite for procurement and commercial teams. Accessible software solutions offer features that maximize the number of individuals who can use them effectively. Common requirements include keyboard shortcuts, keyboard focus, semantic ordering of content, standardized tab order to navigate to different sections of the user interface, ARIA role attributes, appropriate contrast ratios and other functions that are important in promoting inclusivity.

When considering a new software vendor, leading organizations will be able to provide you with a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (or VPAT for short). This type of document is often administered by a third-party accessibility firm and identifies areas of the software under consideration that either comply with or are out of conformance with specific accessibility standards.

Additional questions around the development strategy and testing regime for new functionality or applications within the software will help you understand how well a vendor’s R&D team is operationalizing accessibility for the future.

Conclusion

By prioritizing accessibility in our digital designs, communications, and interactions, we not only meet legal requirements but also unlock the potential for innovation, creativity, and empathy.

Through our dedicated efforts and ongoing initiatives, we at Smart Communications strive to lead by example, ensuring that our digital solutions prioritize inclusivity and empower individuals of all abilities to fully engage with the digital world. We’re proud of our track record in assisting our customers in producing accessible communications and forms experiences, and we remain committed to our dedicated roadmap of innovative enhancements. These efforts not only position our customers as leaders in compliance but also elevate their customer and employee experiences, ensuring inclusivity and empowerment for individuals of all abilities.

Let us continue to champion accessibility not just today, but every day, as we strive to create a world where barriers are replaced with bridges, and inclusion becomes the norm.

From Data to Dialogue: Integrated Forms Automation for Unified Customer Journeys

Posted on April 30, 2024 by SmartComm

By Smart Communications

In today's hyper-connected world, seamless customer interactions are an absolute necessity. With people more digitally plugged in than ever before, brands are under pressure to get customers and employees from point A to point B quickly—particularly during significant events like a home flooding or a new car purchase. To meet those expectations, every interaction along the customer journey ties together seamlessly—with minimal effort from the customer.

In an ideal world, this would mean every time data is collected—whether it’s through a call center, company website, or somewhere else—it would seamlessly transform into a personalized conversation where data flows effortlessly to core systems and automatically triggers reviews, approvals, or any number of next steps. This is the promise of integrated forms automation—a game-changer in modern customer communication processes. Can you confidently say this describes your brand? If not, keep reading.

The Need for Integration

Legacy communication management strategies fall short in meeting the demands of today's complex customer journeys. Siloed systems create bottlenecks, leading to disjointed experiences and frustrated customers. Your customers and employees deserve smarter tools and processes that help bridge this gap—with integrated solutions that unite cross-channel customer communications and the data collection processes that surround them. Not only does this streamline key interactions from start to finish, but it also reduces customer burden and fosters a sense of trust in your brand.

An integrated approach helps achieve this by ensuring that every step of the customer journey is connected. From the moment a customer or employee first begins to enter information to the follow-up communication they receive, there are no gaps or disconnects. This cohesion creates a sense of continuity and reliability, making customers feel valued and understood. When customers experience this level of attentiveness and care, they are more likely to develop a strong connection with your brand, leading to increased loyalty and advocacy. Ultimately, by prioritizing integration, businesses can cultivate meaningful relationships.

Forms Automation in Enterprise Ecosystems

Picture this: a customer submits a request to make a change to their account, and in an instant, they receive a personalized response tailored to their request, maybe with additional information requirements that they can access and complete directly from an email. Integrated forms solutions create this experience by not only collecting customer data but by leveraging it for personalized communications and additional processes that may need to be completed. From onboarding to servicing, integration ensures a relevant, valuable experience throughout the communication journey.

Integrated forms automation solutions are also a tool companies can use to address manual entry and the inconsistent, incorrect data streams associated with forms. With information seamlessly flowing from a digital “form” to a communication platform, there's no need for tedious data entry or downstream cleanup. This saves time for your employees and ensures that customer information is structured and consistent across all lines of business.

And, looking at this from a slightly different perspective, customer communications technology can leverage collected data to personalize future interactions. By analyzing customer preferences, past interactions, and demographic information, your business can tailor communications to resonate with each individual. Whether it's sending reminders, information on related products, or proactive support messages, personalized communication fosters a deeper connection with customers and drives engagement.

Let's consider a real-world scenario. Imagine yourself as a policyholder and your car insurance company uses an integrated forms automation solution. You notice your premium has increased, so you log in to the website and submit a digital form requesting a review of your bill and policy. You receive a text confirming the request and, a few minutes later, receive an email—your good driver discount expired. To renew, click on the link and submit your mileage log and a copy of your driver’s license. You do this (your policy information is all prefilled for you), upload your documentation, and submit. About an hour later, you receive a notification that the discount has been reapplied and will be reflected on your next bill. Behind the scenes, your information was updated in the customer database, ensuring an agent can follow up with you if necessary. This seamless integration of data collection and personalized communication not only resolves your issue but does so quickly and with very little effort on your part.

All this to say integrated digital forms solutions bridge the gap between automated customer data collection and personalized communication, creating a smoother and more engaging experience for customers. Integration will allow your brand to deliver exceptional customer experiences that set you apart from the competition and foster long-term loyalty.

Key Features and Advantages

Integrated forms automation isn't just about efficiency and faster outcomes—it's about transforming the entire journey for customers and the employees that support them. By digitizing form experiences, every interaction adds meaningful value and downstream communications are relevant and personalized. This contributes to key experience metrics like customer experience, agent onboarding experience, customer effort, and more.

Access to data and approval workflows remove many internal, manual steps and allow employees to spend time on more strategic initiatives. By automating data flows and approvals, time spent on tedious tasks decreases, allowing you to allocate your resources to revenue generating tasks.

At the same time, digital solutions include security measures that paper processes lack.

Every company, including yours, prioritizes the protection of customer data, especially those operating in highly regulated industries. With evolving technology and regulatory requirements, enterprises face the ongoing challenge of compliance and securing vast amounts of data across platforms and geographic regions. Compliance with data protection regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is difficult when relying on manual processes.

And there are extensive benefits of low-code, cloud-based digital forms solutions. A drag and drop interface means changes can be made, tested, and implemented and minutes, bypassing the lengthy timelines of older technologies operated by IT. Furthermore, this is a centralized technology that—once implemented—requires no maintenance or build out.

Empowering Businesses for Success with SmartIQ™ and SmartCOMM™

When it comes to managing your processes effectively, it's all about empowerment. SmartIQ and SmartCOMM are here to make sure you're not just managing but thriving. With user-friendly interfaces and low-code solutions, we put the power back in your hands. Your teams can design, maintain, and control your forms processes with ease instead of waiting on a bogged down IT team.

Empowerment isn't just about you—it's about your customers, too. With enterprise forms automation and customer communications technology integrated with one another, you enhance the customer experience by providing personalized form experiences, device compatibility, and real-time data validation to ensure you’re offering the very best customer experience. Say goodbye to generic interactions and hello to meaningful connections that keep your customers coming back for more.

When it comes to remaining agile, processing time is no longer a barrier. Our combined capabilities reduce abandonment rates and incomplete data submissions through pre-built connectors and sophisticated data routing that ensure everything flows seamlessly. This eliminates bottlenecks, enhances efficiency, and protects your revenue opportunities.

Our cloud-native architecture doesn't just improve efficiency—it revolutionizes it. With reduced infrastructure costs/tech debt and improved agility, you can scale your business without worrying about limitations.

Conclusion

Combining an enterprise forms automation solution, like SmartIQ, with your customer communications platform has the potential to revolutionize customer conversations and deliver significant internal efficiencies. By seamlessly integrating data collection processes and communications, these solutions intersect to maximize the value of every interaction, personalize communications, and build loyalty with customers and employees.

For more detailed information on the features and benefits of SmartIQ and SmartCOMM, we invite you to download the data sheet or request a demo. Explore the combined capabilities of these solutions in depth and discover how they can drive success for your business.

The Future of Customer Engagement: Embracing E-Forms

Posted on April 25, 2024 by SmartComm

By Smart Communications

In this digital era businesses are seeking ways to boost convenience and efficiency. The adoption of electronic forms, or e-forms, has become one strategy for accomplishing this.

Enterprises across the insurance, financial services, and healthcare industries are benefiting from digital transformation efforts and how they simplify the form-completion process. Not only does this revolutionize the customer experience and drive operational excellence, but it also gives companies like yours a competitive edge

Let’s dig into the article to discover how you can develop a strategy to help your organization accomplish these feats.

The Shift Toward E-Forms and Customer Engagement

Traditionally, paper forms have been the foundation of data collection and transactional processes. However, the limitations of paper-based systems have become increasingly apparent in today's fast-paced business environment. Cumbersome, error-prone, and time-consuming, manual paper forms often lead to inefficiencies and frustration for both customers and employees alike.

Enter e-forms—the digital version of traditional paper forms, designed to streamline your data capturing and processing through electronic means. Converting traditional paper form processes to digital ones will make it easier and more efficient for your customers to engage with your company. This will lead to higher form completion rates and increased customer loyalty and trust in your organization.

Advantages of E-Forms

Leveraging technologies such as web-based platforms, mobile apps, and electronic signatures, electronic forms offer you a variety of benefits over their paper counterparts, heralding a new era of customer engagement and operational efficiency.

Accessibility: One of the most significant advantages of e-forms is their anytime, anywhere accessibility. No more mailing, printing, or scanning, forms is required. Instead, e-forms can be accessed, filled out, and submitted from any device, any time, and from any location. This enhanced accessibility empowers customers to engage with your business at their convenience, eliminating geographical barriers and enabling seamless interactions.
Faster Completion Times: Your customers expect you to appreciate the value of their time. Modern forms solutions, such as SmartIQ, excel in expediting transactional processes. They automate data validation, pre-populate fields, and enable real-time submission and processing, significantly reducing the time required to complete forms.

Whether your company’s goal is to streamline insurance claim submissions, the opening of a bank account, or filling out medical history forms, electronic forms enable swift and hassle-free transactions, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Combat Form Abandonment: For years, companies like yours have analyzed form abandonment rates and wished they were lower. Replacing manual forms with electronic forms is the answer. By taking advantage of digital forms, your company can simplify form-filling exercises for your customers. Much of the process will be automated thanks to data validation and pre-population of fields that advanced electronic forms solutions offer. The entire form process will be easier and more efficient. As a result, fewer people will give up on submitting information and more of them will make it all the way through the process.
Enhanced Data Accuracy and Security: Manual data entry is prone to errors, leading to inaccuracies and potential compliance issues. Electronic forms mitigate this risk by implementing data validation rules and pre-populating fields, ensuring that only accurate and complete information is submitted.

In addition, leading solutions like SmartIQ offer enhanced security features such as encryption, access controls, and audit trails, safeguarding your sensitive customer data from unauthorized access or breaches. By maintaining data integrity and confidentiality, you can instill trust and confidence among your customers, helping foster long-term relationships and regulatory compliance.
Integration with Legacy Systems: If your company is like most, you may be hesitant to transition to digital processes because you have several legacy systems already in place. Electronic forms offer a seamless solution because they will integrate harmoniously with your legacy systems, ensuring smooth data flow across your organization from one centralized solution. This interoperability ensures continuity in business operations while leveraging the advantages of modern digital technologies.
Reduce Operating Costs: Your business’s operating costs will be lowered because the high cost of paper, postage, data entry and document management that is associated with manual form processes will be eliminated.

The Importance of Adopting E-Forms in Today’s Digital-first Environment

In today's digital-first environment, the implementation of e-forms is not merely a choice but a strategic imperative if your business is seeking to differentiate itself in the marketplace and meet evolving customer expectations.

With cloud solutions, like SmartIQ, you can enhance customer engagement, streamline operations, and drive business growth. However, the successful adoption of e-forms requires more than just technological solutions; it necessitates organizational alignment, process optimization, and change management. Your company’s Customer Experience Manager can play a pivotal role in orchestrating this transformation by championing the acceptance of e-forms as a catalyst for customer-centric innovation and operational excellence.

What are the Typical Use Cases of E-Forms?

When considering insurance, healthcare, and financial services business processes, the interactions happening can be emotional, incredibly time-sensitive, and highly stressful—with everything from life to multi-million-dollar investments on the line.

Here are some typical applications that can benefit from digital forms and approval automation:

Embrace the Future: Implement E-Forms into Your Business’s Processes

The future of customer engagement lies in the seamless integration of digital technologies that empower customers, streamline processes, and drive meaningful interactions. E-Forms represent a cornerstone of this digital transformation.

By leveraging the accessibility, speed, integration capabilities, and security features of electronic forms, your business can forge deeper connections with your customers, separate itself in the marketplace, and pave the way for sustained success in the digital age.

The time to embrace the future of customer engagement is now, and digital solutions like those mentioned in this article are the gateway to unlocking your organizations’ full potential.

Take Customer Engagement to the Next Level

Transform your form processes into streamlined, secure, and personalized approaches to data collection with SmartIQ. Learn more or request a demo.

Unpacking Forrester’s 5 CX Predictions for 2024 and Their Implications for Healthcare Payers

Posted on February 12, 2024 by John Zimmerer

By John Zimmerer, VP of Healthcare Marketing at Smart Communications

Forrester Research analysts Judy Weader, Christina McAllister, Su Doyle, and Senem Biyikli recently hosted a webinar where they presented their five customer experience (CX) predictions for 2024. As I watched, I couldn’t help but think about the degree to which each applies to healthcare. I won’t give away too much, as you should really watch the webinar and download the related presentation to get Forrester’s full perspectives. But below, I’ll go through each headline and offer some color commentary.

Prediction 1: Global Average CX Will Improve for the First Time in Three Years

Well, that would be nice. If you’ve been following Forrester’s CX Index reports, you know that healthcare has one of the lowest industry average scores. In the webinar, Weader made the point that the trendline for CX says we’re due to see improvements. For healthcare, we’re long overdue. Weader also noted that Forrester expects APAC and EMEA to make outsized gains in CX. I would have to agree when it comes to healthcare. From my experience, payers and providers outside of North America are further up the CX maturity curve, on balance.

Prediction 2: 50% of Large Global Firms Will Experiment with Customer-Facing Generative AI

That might be high for healthcare. For the most part, the firms I’ve spoken with are very reluctant to put generative AI (GenAI) out front. Only those that are playing with their own large language models (LLMs) or a hybrid public/private model are thinking of being that bold. Most are looking to use GenAI for creating initial drafts, suggesting edits to existing content, or for first-pass language translation. That’s all behind the firewall. The recent negative headlines about how some payers have been using AI will only slow the adoption of GenAI in healthcare.

Prediction 3: 50% of Large Global Firms Will Report CX Metrics; Only 5% Will Link to Financials

Both are probably high for healthcare. I’ve only seen a handful of firms publicly disclose their CX metrics. That’s partly because only a few have good metrics to report, but mostly because their CX practices are relatively immature. I have only seen one payer sophisticated enough to link CX through operations to their income statement. I’m sure there are others; the point is, they’re rare.

Prediction 4: One-Third of Brands Will Launch Experiences That Are Biased, Inaccessible or Harmful

Here’s where healthcare might shine. That’s because we’ve been subject to accessibility regulations for decades. That created a certain disposition towards empathy and formalized processes and procedures. I’ve seen user experience (UX) and CX teams with their own accessibility manuals and style guides. I’ll be very surprised if a single healthcare organization shows up on the offender list.

Prediction 5: Two out of Five CX Teams Will Turn Away Work Because Their Remit Exceeds Resources

This one is a mixed bag for healthcare organizations. I doubt their CX teams will be flooded with requests; however, I’m sure they are under-resourced. It is a rare payer or provider that fully funds a CX team. That has more to do with company culture than cost structure. The customer just isn’t at the center of many healthcare organizations in the way you’d hope they would be.

How to Link Forms and Communications to CX and Financial Metrics

I applaud the Forrester analysts for putting these predictions – and themselves – out there. I know they’re basing these prognostications on the past year’s inquiries and briefings they’ve been involved in, so they’re well founded. The one I think that matters most to healthcare payers is the inability to demonstrate the link between CX metrics and business outcomes.

CX impacts the bottom lines of healthcare organizations. Period. And yes, it is possible to connect CX improvements to financial outcomes. In an upcoming webinar with Judy Weader, I’ll show you:

Examples of how forms drive call volume;
How communications are linked to appeals; and
Ways to improve CX and business metrics tied to forms and communications.

If you’re ready to discover how to accelerate the healthcare customer experience at your organization, click the link to register for the webinar: Register Now!

3 Trends Transforming New Member Enrollment for Healthcare Payers

Posted on August 1, 2023 by SmartComm

By: John Zimmerer, VP Industry Marketing, Healthcare at Smart Communications

Healthcare payers are facing several new challenges from outside forces– from government regulations to ongoing technology innovation – but these challenges offer an opportunity for payers in healthcare to embrace change, examine their enrollment processes, and reflect on goals and expectations for the future.

With member engagement expectations being set by other industries like online retail and financial services, the digital transformation bar has been set high. Despite rising expectations and new rules and regulations to grapple with, many healthcare payers have barely budged from their analog ways. In this post, we dive into three key trends that are transforming member enrollment and how insurers can close the digital gap with healthcare payer solutions.

Member Expectations are Higher than Ever

Achieving growth, countering competition, controlling costs, reducing risk and maintaining compliance are perennially at the top of every healthcare payer’s C-suite priority list. But as member expectations quickly evolve, member satisfaction has now become top priority. Results of a recent survey from HealthEdge indicate that member satisfaction “dominates boardroom agendas,” along with “competitive pressures, IT and business alignment and managing costs.”

Stricter Government Regulations Require Digital Transformation

In 2018, the U.S. Health Care Transformation Task Force, an industry consortium made up of healthcare payers, providers, purchasers and patient advocates issued a set of guiding principles for how best to engage consumers from the beginning of their interactions with the healthcare system. The HCTTF recommended using modern ways of obtaining consumer input and providing interfaces that prioritize simplicity, clarity and transparency, including when obtaining information and coverage from a plan. Any of these recommendations could become rules or regulations at any time.

…But Digital is Still Difficult for Many Payers

Recently, when consulting firm Deloitte surveyed 35 leaders of health payers, roughly half reported that they still struggled to prioritize overhauling their healthcare payer systems. Only two respondents said that they had modernized even one of five core technology platforms such as administrative, analytics, clinical, core and customer service and engagement.

These payers are missing out on some big benefits.

When J.D. Power analyzed responses from a 2021 commercial health plan member survey (32,066 members of 147 health plans in 22 regions throughout the United States), they found:

Plans that invested in improving member information and communications increased their Net Promoter Scores by an average of 10 points,
The perceived level of trust in those health plans increased two percentage points over the last two years, and
32% of members said they connected with their health plans via web, mobile app or text message in the past year.

The prior year’s study revealed that customer satisfaction is directly linked to customer engagement. Plans that offered personalized, relevant information to members had nearly 23% higher customer satisfaction scores versus plans that did not. This is notable because commercial health plans had among the lowest average customer satisfaction scores compared to other industries the firm evaluated.

Where do Payers Go from Here?

Member Engagement and Satisfaction Begins with Enrollment

The healthcare enrollment process has an outsized impact on member experience and plan profitability. That’s because it sets the bar for everything that follows. But enrollment is plagued by inefficiency and disconnected data. This creates anxiety for the member and introduces the possibility of fines for the healthcare payer.

Whether you’re signing new employers or enrolling individual plan members, you need to deliver a digital-first, frictionless experience. Yet many health insurance carriers are challenged by outdated, inflexible technology that relies on custom IT development. Traditional engagement strategies are siloed and inconsistent. Paper and fillable forms result in data errors and slow processing. Making sure healthcare enrollment forms and policy documents have the correct regulatory language by state and jurisdiction can be an incredible burden for compliance departments.

Insurers need to reimagine enrollment communications as two-way, digital conversations. This begins with prioritizing the digitization of healthcare payer systems and solutions. By improving the payer enrollment experience, carriers can reduce costs, improve overall utilization rates and increase member satisfaction.

To see how other healthcare payers have successfully transformed the member enrollment experience, check out Digital Enrollment and Onboarding for Health Insurance Plans.

About The Author
John Zimmerer is the Vice President of Vertical Marketing, Healthcare at Smart Communications, where he acts as a subject matter expert on the digital transformation of customer communications and data-centric, often form-based workflows. Most recently, John has been researching and writing about improving customer experience in healthcare and is regarded as a thought leader in this area. John has over 20 years of software product marketing experience. His areas of expertise include market research, analyst relations, public relations and digital marketing.

Provide a Better Customer Onboarding Experience with Enterprise Forms Automation

Posted on July 11, 2023 by Sally Schulte

By Sally Schulte, Product Marketing Director at Smart Communications

Creating the right customer onboarding experience is part science, part art. Because an individual’s perception is subjective, companies will walk a mile in their customers’ shoes to gain perspective and ask “which parts of the onboarding process are the most difficult,” “which parts are negatively impacting the experience,” and “how do we improve?” In many cases, where to begin can be the biggest hurdle to initiating a change—but it is one worth tackling.

We all know first impressions matter. In fact, the first 90 days of the customer journey are the most critical in establishing a positive long-term relationship. Enterprise forms automation is an attainable (often overlooked) solution that quickly streamlines your onboarding processes and provides an end-to-end digital customer onboarding experience — one that expedites the overall process and improves the experience. Discover how forms automation software helps you create an exceptional customer onboarding experience that sets you apart from the competition.

For more insights on the customer onboarding process, read: ‘How to Streamline the Plan Buying, Enrollment, and Onboarding Experience’

The Current State of Customer Onboarding

Customer onboarding is any activity that helps new customers or members acquaint themselves to your business and systems as well as your products or services, and it helps your company remain compliant with related regulatory requirements. Enterprises like yours work tirelessly to ensure customers have the right resources and information to move forward efficiently and with as little effort as possible. However, there may be disconnects in your onboarding experience that leave customers feeling that it wasn’t as smooth or seamless as they would have liked.

Organizations across the healthcare, insurance, and financial services industries face unique challenges in ensuring a seamless and efficient onboarding experience. Factors such as new or changing regulations, lengthy form processes, manual data entry, compliance protocols, and the risk of errors or (even worse) a security breach can make transformation feel like an insurmountable task. The key is finding a technology that is fit for purpose, easy to implement, and can connect with other technologies across the enterprise to provide meaningful impact at scale.

Customer expectations are growing and shifting—especially their digital expectations. While the preference for companies and customers for digital-first experiences isn’t new, there’s still work to be done. Improving customer engagement within the first 90 days can be as simple as prefilling a form with information you already know about someone. Or it can be giving them the ability to upload photos, sign (with their finger) on the dotted line or providing a fully mobile experience.

For more on how you can create more efficient forms processes, check out: 10 Reasons to Digitalize End-to-End Form Processes

How Does Forms Automation Software Enhance the Customer Onboarding Experience?

With more importance being placed on efficiency and personalized experiences, your business needs solutions and strategies that make fully digital customer onboarding the norm. Forms automation software is built with the purpose of simplifying the data collection process, ensuring data accuracy, and reducing the amount of effort for customers and employees when entering new patient or member information. With advanced features and functionalities such as internal collaboration tools, electronic and digital signature options, automatic data and approval workflows, and turnkey implementation, this type of software eliminates the tedious and time-consuming manual steps that comprise these older processes. It also creates the personalization that builds trust and makes customers feel recognized through the use of prepopulated, known information. This can influence not just whether someone chooses you for the service or benefit they need today, but if they use you for the business they will want to conduct in the future.

When looking at operational efficiencies, customer onboarding can be a labor-intensive and lengthy process. It requires back-and-forth communications, multiple approvals, and gathering additional information along the way. This requires time and effort from various stakeholders or departments within the business as well as from customers, as they call and inquire about the status of their submission. Forms automation software automates the approval process (even with multiple approvers) and provides real-time status updates to customers, letting them know that things are moving right along. The right solution can take a fragmented, messy onboarding process and create an automated, personalized customer onboarding experience.

Considering today’s customers can acquire nearly anything they want in a matter of seconds, people expect ultra-fast-paced interactions. In fact, studies have shown that nearly 50% of internet users expect web page load times of less than two seconds. If a page doesn’t load within three seconds, visitors high tail it to a competitor’s site. So, the more accessible you make solutions to a customer’s problem or request, the more likely they are to move forward. If a customer or new member is required to print, sign, and scan physical documents, you’ve already asked them to do too much.

What Are the Best Strategies for Creating a Seamless Customer Onboarding Experience?

Did you know that 60% of customers will abandon a form if it’s too difficult to complete? To ensure you’re providing the best experience, one that enables customers rather than deters them, we suggest you develop a seamless approach to customer onboarding.

Below, we outline a few practical steps you can take to create a seamless customer onboarding experience.

Design mobile-friendly forms that capture essential information efficiently. An industry-leading forms experience is mobile responsive and fully secure. Data collection should be limited to entering only relevant information, based on what a person wants to do.
Leverage integrations to reduce manual data entry and eliminate costly errors. With real-time data validation, customers can be notified of missing or incorrect information as they complete forms, reducing need for follow-up and data re-entry.

Ensure compliance and security—and build trust and confidence from day one. Securing PII data and ensuring compliance for manual forms processes is nearly impossible. Digital onboarding not only reduces the risk of compromised customer data. It offers a digitally auditable trail to help maintain compliance.
Make forms accessible. Digital forms should be accessible to customers with disabilities. Use appropriate formatting like larger text, high-contrast colors, and alternative text descriptions for images to be WCAG-compliant.
Enable and empower non-technical users. Reducing the need for IT involvement is a key factor in enabling business ownership and operational efficiency. It also allows IT departments to focus on innovative initiatives that help the business grow. Low-code solutions empower non-technical users to update forms in real-time or create new projects in a matter of hours.

These are just a few of the strategies and tips to effectively utilizing a leading forms automation solution.

Learn how a leading forms automation solution can help enterprises like yours enhance their customer onboarding experience.

Maximizing Customer Onboarding Efficiency with Enterprise Forms Management Solutions

Leading enterprise forms management solutions help organizations like yours unlock the full potential of your customer onboarding process. Integration with core systems enables centralized data and document processing that helps streamline workflows and achieve unprecedented efficiency without putting undue strain on customers and employees.

Speaking of employees, forms management software means that data entry teams don’t need to be co-located with the mail room. Approvers and stakeholders can digitally re-route for approvals or reviews when they are out of the office. And companies don’t need to worry about filing or destroying documentation that contains personal data. These are significant factors in today’s remote and hybrid-model work environment.

And the ideal onboarding experience doesn’t end with the final submission. When customers can self-serve and get acquainted with your company securely, it reduces follow-up calls to customer contact centers. This allows agents to focus on serving other customers and supporting other parts of the business.

Conclusion

The most important thing to remember is that the customer onboarding experience can be a make-or-break moment for your company. First impressions set the tone for how a customer will inevitably interact with your company throughout the life of their relationship with the brand. Embracing cloud enterprise forms automation solutions to help optimize your operations and deliver an exceptional experience will elicit big benefits in the long run and help your organization be customer centric from end to end.

For more information on how to enhance the customer onboarding experience at your organization, get in touch.

What You Need to Know About Customer Complaints Management in Financial Services

Posted on July 11, 2023 by SmartComm

By Karen Oakland, VP of Financial Services Marketing at Smart Communications

Complaints management can be a costly affair, especially for regulated industries like financial services and insurance. Support staff and call centers are expensive, which is why improving digital self-service capabilities is an important priority for many financial institutions. Meanwhile customer expectations for fast response time and personalized attention are higher than ever.

Apart from managing customer service costs, businesses now need to factor in the cost of reputational damage when customer complaints are aired in the digital arena. No company wants to be “flamed” online. Yet the trend has been for customers to voice complaints on social media rather than through traditional channels like contact centers or complaint letters, particularly among younger generations.

In financial services, customer complaints management is drawing the attention of federal and regional regulators. In Australia, regulators are taking a stronger approach to consumer protections that sets a precedent for rules makers in other countries, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the U.S., and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the U.K.

Here’s what you need to know, and some tips for how your business can more effectively manage complaints and credit disputes (even if you’re not operating Down Under).

What are the Key Provisions of Australia's RG271 for Complaints Management?

In Australia, financial services institutions (FSIs) are regulated by the Australia Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which acts in partnership with Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). In October 2021 ASIC issued Regulation Guide 271 (RG271) for Internal Dispute Resolution, or IDR.

Some key provisions of RG271 include:

Expanding the definition of "complaints" to include dissatisfaction with a company, its staff, products or services
Expecting financial institutions to proactively address complaints, even those expressed on social media and not submitted directly or in writing
Ensuring ease of complaint filing for customers and providing clear communication about the complaint process
Requiring financial institutions to acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours

Mandating a written response with the outcome of the IDR process to be delivered within 30 days (reduced from the previous 45-day timeframe)
Requiring FSIs to record all complaints and regularly report to the company's board and senior management
Introducing a new IDR data reporting framework, necessitating the submission of reports to ASIC every six months on complaints handling starting in 2023

Different timeframes apply for resolving certain types of complaints, including those related to superannuation (or retirement fund) death benefit distributions; credit-related complaints involving default notices; and those involving hardship notices or requests to postpone enforcement proceedings.

While these requirements may seem straightforward with the advancements in digital technology, regulators believe that many banks and other FSIs struggle due to inadequate capacity and resources to investigate and resolve customer complaints promptly.

In fact, the ASIC found late last year that 20 percent of all superannuation funds were still not meeting the regulatory requirements for communicating with customers as part of a dispute resolution process. And it said that 80 percent of the funds were poorly managing systemic issues around complaints management. Most failed to ensure all complainants were kept informed within the required time frame. If your business wants to improve in this area, here are three areas to consider.

1 in 5 super funds fail to adhere to ASIC’s dispute resolution guidelines – InvestorDaily

How to Ensure Compliance with Complaints Management Regulations

The Smart Communications Conversation Cloud™ (the combination of our cloud-based customer communications management solution, SmartCOMM™, and forms automation solution, SmartIQ™) platform offers capabilities that can help your organization achieve RG271 compliance for IDR in Australia, or simply enhance the effectiveness of your customer support operations, in the following ways:

Rethink your use of traditional forms to capture data on complaints. For many customers, forms are frustrating and mind numbing. Moreover, they often require manual work for internal employees to process and retype data into other systems. Our SmartIQ forms automation software supports digital and mobile interactions, while making it faster and easier for FSIs to process the information with connection to employee task dashboards and workflows. This type of guided interview can elevate your customer self-service and can be used in internal contact centers to improve efficiency. And with a low-code architecture, you minimize the burden on IT. (Take a closer look within our Ultimate Guide to Digital Forms Software.)
Utilize customer communications management (CCM) software to centralize your templates for complaints communications across output channels. SmartCOMM, our cloud customer communications management (CCM) solution, enables FSIs to be confident that every message and document is compliant, from automatic acknowledgements to IDR responses to regulatory reporting. Cloud-native, SmartCOMM provides prebuilt integrations to CRM, intelligent automation and ECM archives, giving you even more cost efficiency and flexibility to design the best customer journey. If you use a process automation solution like Pega or Appian, for example, you can use those solutions to trigger these dynamic communications to be sent via the customer’s channel of choice. With our Pega connector, customer service representatives have the ability to create ad-hoc letters and correspondence from within that user interface.
Improve insights into complaints using content intelligence. With our built-in content intelligence capabilities, you can understand where customers are missing questions in a complaint interview, or where customer communications can be improved across the lifecycle. With our Content Intelligence module, you can evaluate the readability, sentiment and tone of communications to make sure they are both empathetic and effective.

At its core, resolving complaints and disputes requires a two-way conversation between the customer and your support team. Resolving them quickly means re-imagining that conversation in a digital-first world, improving the ability to self-serve. By leveraging the power of composable, cloud-based software platforms, you can connect all your touch points and remove points of friction.

Case Study: Digitizing Credit Card Dispute Resolution for Improved Complaints Management

Here’s a real-life example that illustrates this new way of thinking. We’re working with one of our largest banking clients in Australia to re-imagine the customer experience and digitize the process of resolving complaints such as credit card disputes. Like many services requests, the resolution process requires the customer to submit a form to start the process.

Historically, that form was only available as a blank PDF the customer was required to download and complete on paper. Why was this a problem?

It wasn’t an easy experience – and not mobile friendly
The burden was on the customer to complete it correctly

It required an employee to rekey data into another system – with the risk of NIGO errors
That data needed to be input into another system before any process automation could begin

With SmartIQ, the bank is now able to provide branded, device-responsive digital interviews from within its secure customer portal. Integrated with the bank’s CRM system, these guided “forms” are prefilled, making it easier for customers to complete and reducing errors thanks to real-time data validation.

In addition, the data automatically generates acknowledgements and other customer communications as required by regulators – all integrated seamlessly with the bank’s e-signature and document archiving solutions. The incoming data further triggers automated processing via Appian, ultimately speeding up compliant resolution time and improving customer experience.

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Enable customers to easily upload supporting documents and switch between mobile or desktop.

Resolving Customer Complaints Faster Has Long-Term Impact

Beyond the regulatory “bite” of potential fines and penalties, improving the way you manage complaints and disputes can deliver results in terms of greater efficiency and customer loyalty scores. Many organizations today are adopting the use of “Customer Effort Scores” as a key measure of client satisfaction, in addition to traditional churn metrics, according to analysts like IDC.

Our benchmark research reveals that 81% of global consumers consider the communications they receive as important to their overall experience with a company. The increasing number of communication channels, coupled with customers’ ever-changing expectations, is putting more pressure than ever on financial institutions to keep pace across every interaction, not only in complaints management.

At the same time, you’re continuing to face cost pressures and need to squeeze efficiencies out of every process to stay competitive in a volatile economy. Servicing is still primarily a cost center, not a profit center. That means it’s more important than ever to automate and streamline your complaints management processes while deploying your staff where they provide the most value.

If you’d like to talk about ways to take your complaints and disputes management process to the next level, reach out and talk with us.

The Limitations of OCR: Why it’s Time to Rethink Data Capture

Posted on July 10, 2023 by Stephanie Clarke

In today's digital age, relying on optical character recognition (OCR) technology for data capture and forms processing may no longer be sufficient for businesses seeking true digital transformation. While OCR has been a trusted tool for scanning and processing paper or PDF forms, it comes with inherent limitations that hinder a seamless and mobile-friendly customer experience. At Smart Communications, we offer companies a path to retire expensive, jarring OCR-based processes and truly reimagine data collection and forms-based processes.

Understanding the Limitations of OCR

Let's take a closer look at how organizations typically use OCR solutions to manage forms data and the challenges that arise along the way:

Unnecessary Effort: Today’s customers expect speed, convenience, and personalization. So asking them to go online and download or print the right form creates unnecessary effort and impacts the overall customer experience.

Cumbersome Form Filling: Lengthy forms and complex questions can be overwhelming for customers, especially when they are asked for the same information multiple times or are required to answer questions that are irrelevant to the process they are trying to complete.

Inaccurate Data Collection: Scanning-based processes are limited in terms of how much data they can ingest and process—and the data they collect cannot be validated, resulting in errors, follow-up calls, and delayed processing.

Delayed Processing: Despite best efforts, achieving scanning accuracy and approval automation with OCR is challenging. Processes still require manual intervention and forces processes that could be handled in hours to take weeks.

Rethinking Data Capture and Digital Transformation

To overcome the limitations of OCR and achieve true digital transformation, forward-thinking organizations are adopting intelligent, guided digital interviews that personalize the customer experience and streamline processes. Here's how this approach reimagines forms:

Guided Customer Interviews: Instead of expecting customers to find and complete the right form, ask them what they want to accomplish and guide them through the process.

Personalized and Prefilled Information: Leverage existing customer data to create a personalized interview experience, minimizing the need for redundant data entry.

Mobile-friendly Capabilities: Utilize mobile features like geolocation and photo uploads to enhance the customer experience and support easy submission of required documentation.

Simplified Journey with Business Rules: Replace confusing if/then statements with streamlined business rules that determine relevant questions, simplifying the customer journey.

Seamless Multi-Device Experience: Allow customers to switch between devices without starting over, enabling them to complete the process at their convenience.

Automatic Data Synchronization: Eliminate the need for intermediate steps like OCR by seamlessly synchronizing data with core systems of record.

Automated Document Generation: Generate personalized documents, agreements, and contracts tied to e-signing for faster close and automatic archiving.

Workflow Integration: Incorporate workflows to ensure timely updates and information exchange among the right people and systems.

Move Beyond Static Forms with SmartIQ

OCR may be limited to data capture, but SmartIQ offers a comprehensive solution that empowers businesses to go beyond scanning and truly embrace digital transformation. With our expertise and SmartIQ's capabilities, you can transform your static PDF forms into interactive and engaging customer experiences. Our exclusive Quick Reference Guide provides an insightful comparison of business processes before and after implementing SmartIQ.

Break free from the constraints of OCR and embark on a digital transformation journey that puts the customer's needs at the forefront. By embracing intelligent digital interviews, you can enhance the customer experience, improve accuracy, and accelerate processes. At Smart Communications, we're here to guide you through this transformation and empower you with SmartIQ, a game-changing solution for end-to-end forms processes. Say goodbye to the scanning cycle and unlock the true potential of digital transformation in your business.

What Are Enterprise Forms and How Are They Different from Most Web Forms?

Posted on June 13, 2023 by SmartComm

By Smart Communications

In today's digital age, forms play a crucial role in capturing personal, first party data and facilitating processes that have the potential to create seamless customer interactions and provide faster resolution. Basic web forms often fall short in meeting the complex requirements of enterprise organizations especially when it comes to versatility, security, true automation. This is where enterprise forms technology comes into play.

In this article, we will explore what enterprise forms are, highlight the challenges organizations face with form processes, discuss the key capabilities needed to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency, and go over what to look for in a vendor.

Why Most Web Form Tools Fall Short in Meeting Enterprises' Needs

Most web form tools are designed to capture information as part of a one-directional interaction—things like completing a survey or job application. While this will work for situations where there is only one path an end user can take, they are missing the capabilities needed to support applications that have different outcomes based on the information someone provides—applications such as lending, onboarding, enrollment and claims.

Businesses around the world—specifically businesses in heavily regulated industries like healthcare, financial services, and insurance—deal with intricate approval processes, large volumes of highly personal data, and the need for seamless integration with their other existing systems. Basic web form tools simply do not offer the capabilities needed to meet these demands effectively. Let’s look at some other current challenges facing companies.

Challenges that Enterprises Face with Paper Forms

From the amount of effort required by customers and employees to physically fill out forms to the difficulties companies face extracting the data, storing the forms, and managing all of the additional documentation required, enterprises are incurring heavy costs and introducing severe risk as they try to manage these outdated methods 20 or more years after they were first introduced—when volumes were much lower and no other options existed. Additionally, concerns around data security, regulatory compliance, and the environmental impact of paper consumption and waste are adding to the sense of urgency to the need for change.

Looking at these processes more through the lens of the employees involved in them, in an increasingly remote work environment, the limitations of physical forms hinder collaboration and productivity for distributed teams. Considering these obstacles, enterprises are seeking innovative solutions to streamline their form processes and overcome these challenges.

Time-consuming and labor-intensive: Manual and paper-based forms require significant time and effort to create, distribute, collect, and process. Employees and customers must physically fill out the forms, resulting in delays and reduced productivity. Moreover, manual data entry can be error-prone, leading to inaccuracies and the need for additional validation steps. Enterprise forms, on the other hand, can be completed within minutes.

Inefficient data storage and retrieval: Storing paper-based forms poses challenges in terms of organization, storage space, and retrieval. Enterprises often struggle with locating and accessing specific forms, resulting in wasted time and frustration. Additionally, paper forms are susceptible to damage, loss, or misplacement, leading to potential data loss.

Limited data security: Paper forms lack the security measures provided by digital systems. Sensitive information can be easily compromised if forms are mishandled, lost, or accessed by unauthorized individuals. Compliance with data protection regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), becomes more difficult when relying on manual processes.

Lack of real-time visibility: Paper forms are not conducive to real-time data tracking and visibility. Enterprises may face challenges in monitoring the progress of form submissions, identifying bottlenecks, or obtaining timely insights for decision-making. This lack of visibility can hinder effective workflow management and hinder responsiveness to changing business needs.

Higher costs and environmental impact: Manual and paper-based forms incur costs related to printing, storage, distribution, and disposal. These expenses can add up significantly, especially for large enterprises with extensive form requirements. Moreover, the environmental impact of paper consumption and waste contradicts sustainability initiatives, some of which are being mandated by state and local regulators.

Reduced collaboration and remote work challenges: Physical forms restrict collaboration and pose challenges for remote teams. Sharing, reviewing, and collaborating on paper-based forms requires physical presence, hindering the ability to work remotely or in distributed teams and significantly impacting a remote workforce’s productivity. This limitation becomes more pronounced in today's globalized and digitally connected business environment, especially when work flexibility leads to greater happiness, according to one source, thus, higher job satisfaction.

Not sure how your company can move forward with enterprise forms? Read our guide for more about the cost-savings and overall benefits of investing in a digital forms management solution.

Impacts to Customer Effort and Experience

Many enterprises still rely on manual processes and that include outdated technologies like fillable PDFs and non-intelligent forms. These older tools not only drive internal inefficiencies related to data accuracy and handling time but they also detract from the user experience. The manual data entry still required on the back end, lack of automation, and absence data integration and validation result in errors, delays, and frustration for customers and employees. And, as we mentioned earlier, there is a sense of undue effort felt by customers and employees that diminishes their overall customer experience.

Let’s pretend you’re a prospective client at a bank and you want to apply for a new commercial loan. You’re asked to fill out a general commercial loan application, then another form related to the assets being used to back that loan—and half the information is the same information you just filled out on the first firm. Then you find out what additional documentation you need. So, home you go and, a week later, you’re back at the bank, documentation in hand, and…wait, what’s that? Another form? You brought the wrong tax document? . This increased frustration rate can lead to abandonment and less likelihood that you’ll recommend the financial institution to anyone else.

Desired State – Creating a Better User Experience

Enterprises can easily create a better user experience by streamlining their form processes—but it may not feel like it would be easy, with so many forms, so many technologies, and so many teams involved. They seek solutions that provide intuitive interfaces, automate repetitive tasks, ensure data accuracy, and integrate seamlessly with their existing systems. Enterprise forms are designed to address these requirements and provide a comprehensive solution for efficient form management. Customer experiences can vary based on anything from an individual customer’s expectations to their demographic and/or comfortability with tech solutions. Cloud solutions are typically more intuitive, allowing for ease of use across multiple demographics and user levels. This is especially true when it comes to creating an easy-to-navigate forms experience, a feat that enterprise forms can certainly help with.

Key Capabilities Needed by Enterprises

To effectively modernize and digitalize form processes, organizations are looking for innovative, sophisticated tools to help them reduce the amount of effort it takes for customers to do business with them. We’re here to help guide that process by offering a few key capabilities to look for, below:

No More Manual PDFs

Enterprise forms eradicate the necessity for manual PDFs by offering dynamic, web-based forms that are conveniently accessible and can be completed online. Users are relieved of the burdensome tasks of printing, scanning, or faxing forms, resulting in significant savings of time and resources. Moreover, enterprise forms provide the flexibility to modify and update forms effortlessly, eliminating the need to redistribute physical copies. This not only ensures a safer environment for managing and securely storing customer data but also contributes to minimizing paper waste and supporting your company's commitment to reducing its carbon footprint, thereby promoting sustainability and environmental consciousness.

Low-Code Form Builder

Enterprises require a low-code form builder that empowers non-technical users to create and customize forms without extensive programming knowledge. With a user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop functionality, employees from various departments can quickly design and deploy forms tailored to their specific needs. Because of the nature of low-code functionality, IT involvement is next to none, allowing the IT department to focus on more strategic and innovative projects.

Read our latest blog to see how current events are guiding businesses to adopt enterprise forms automation.

Integration with Legacy Systems / Disparate Systems

Seamless integration with legacy systems is of utmost importance for enterprises. Enterprise forms must seamlessly integrate with pre-existing databases, core systems, CRM systems, and other applications, thereby guaranteeing the smooth flow of data and eliminating the need for manual data entry. By establishing connections between disparate systems, enterprise forms facilitate efficient information sharing, leading to enhanced operational efficiency across the organization.

Field Validation to Improve Data Accuracy

Data accuracy is paramount for enterprises. Enterprise forms should include robust field validation capabilities that verify the correctness and integrity of entered data from the point of entry. Automated validation rules, such as data type checks, range limits, and mandatory field validations, help reduce errors and ensure high-quality data collection.

Workflow & Automation to Accelerate Back-End Processes

Enterprises often deal with complex workflows involving multiple stakeholders and back-end processes. Enterprise forms offer workflow and automation capabilities that streamline these processes. By defining rules and triggers, forms can automatically route submissions to the appropriate departments, initiate approval workflows, and trigger backend actions, reducing manual intervention and accelerating process completion.

SmartIQ offers a robust low-code form builder, seamless integration with existing systems, advanced field validation options, and powerful workflow automation features.

There’s more to learn about the benefits of low-code functionality. Read more in this blog about how SmartIQ enhances customer experience, operational efficiency.

Case Study: The Bancorp Delivers a Fast, Easy Digital Client Experience for Loan Origination

Based in Delaware, The Bancorp is a payment services provider and specialized lender. It provides securities-backed lines of credit, insurance-backed lines of credit and advisor financing to the independent wealth management channel. With increased competition from banks in that space, they were looking to set themselves apart and set ambitious goals. Some of those include:

Doubling their market share
Quadruple the company’s assets and revenue

Increase profits tenfold

To do this, they knew they needed to create an exceptional client experience that made it simple and fast for clients to borrow from their portfolios.

This meant they had to modernize and automate their manual legacy workflow processes which included a lot of paper, postage, and data entry. From start to finish, it took between 20 and 30 days on average to complete a loan approval process.

With SmartIQ, The Bancorp's loan origination forms are pre-populated with known customer data, and advisors can complete the form on behalf of their client online. Within 5-7 minutes, the loan package is automatically generated, personalized, and delivered via the customers’ preferred channel. The customer can quickly sign the loan package via eSignature to complete the process.

As a result of this new lightning-fast process, The Bancorp has increased their loan volumes by 400%, and are projecting a 750% ROI. In addition, they have reduced “Not in Good Order” rates down to nearly zero, and have eliminated costs associated with document printing, postage and shipping. 

The Bancorp continues to add new lending lines and expand the use of SmartIQ across the enterprise. 

Read the full case study to learn how The Bancorp, a specialized lender in Delaware, transformed its loan origination process to achieve ambitious business goals using our SmartIQ.

Here’s What to Consider When Looking for an Enterprise Form Solution

If you’re in the market for a new enterprise forms solution, here are some things you should consider before making the investment:

Centralization
Ensure the solution you select can be applied across a variety of internal and customer-facing use cases across your entire business. Centralizing your forms processes unlocks a range of powerful benefits for organizations seeking to streamline their operations and ensure consistency across forms. With a centralized approach, making changes to forms in real-time becomes a breeze. Whether it’s updating a logo, modifying regulatory language, or implementing brand and theme changes, you can make the change only once and apply it across all forms in real-time. This eliminates the tedious and time-consuming process of updating each form individually, ensuring your organization maintains a unified and up-to-date brand image. Moreover, centralized content management allows for easy collaboration and governance, enabling teams to work together seamlessly and maintain control over the entire forms experience.

User-Friendly Experience
Opt for a form builder with an intuitive interface that even users with limited coding knowledge can navigate effortlessly. This will save you time and resources during form creation and management. Solutions that offer drag-and-drop abilities, for instance, make it easier to personalize and customize forms.

Customizations
Look for an enterprise form builder that provides extensive customization options, allowing you to design forms that align with your branding without requiring you to have a coding degree. You should also have the flexibility to customize your form creation, management, and delivery based on unique customers' needs.

Security and Compliance
Ensure that the form builder you choose prioritizes advanced security measures such as data encryption, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance. This guarantees the protection of sensitive information and helps you adhere to industry, federal, or local regulations.

Robust Workflow & Automation Capabilities
By selecting an enterprise forms solution with robust workflow and automation, organizations can effectively manage complex workflows that involve multiple stakeholders and intricate processes. By leveraging the power of automation, enterprise forms enable the seamless routing of form submissions to the right departments, initiate automated approval workflows, and trigger backend actions based on predefined rules and triggers. This reduces the need for manual intervention, minimizes delays, and expedites process completion.

Collaboration and Access Control
Leading enterprise form solutions facilitate teamwork by enabling multiple users to collaborate on forms from anywhere they are, share data in real time, and manage access-level controls. This is critical for hybrid or fully-remote workforces that need to offer flexibility to employees and efficiency/security to customers.

Seamless Integrations
Look for a solution that has partnerships with leading software vendors, like Salesforce and industry core systems like Guidewire or Pega. This ensures smooth data transfer and boosts overall productivity.

Conclusion

Enterprise forms offer a superior alternative to traditional web form tools for meeting the unique needs of enterprises, giving customers the freedom seamlessly communicate across unique member journeys. By eliminating manual PDFs, providing low-code form builders, enabling integration with legacy systems, ensuring field validation, and offering workflow automation, enterprise forms help companies streamline processes, enhance data accuracy, and improve the user experience. Leveraging advanced solutions like SmartIQ™, enterprises can revolutionize their form management and drive operational excellence in today's digital era.

Insurance

Financial Services

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Healthcare Providers

Government

Utility

Resource Center

Customer Resources

Events

News

About us

Partners

Analysts

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SmartIQ

SmartHUB

SmartPath

SmartDX

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Marketing Stops Measuring When an Application is Started

Sales Stops Measuring When a Customer is Approved

Operations and Compliance Partner on Qualification and Fulfillment

Leaders Don’t Stop Measuring When the Card is Activated

When Does the Customer Stop Measuring?

How Can I Ensure Onboarding Success at my Bank?

If you’re interested in learning how these solutions can help your firm take customer onboarding to the next level, get in touch with us today.

Drivers for Digital Accessibility Interest

Who Benefits from Digital Accessibility Initiatives?

How Software Vendors Can Help With Your Digital Accessibility Frameworks

Conclusion

The Need for Integration

Forms Automation in Enterprise Ecosystems

Key Features and Advantages

Empowering Businesses for Success with SmartIQ™ and SmartCOMM™

Conclusion

For more detailed information on the features and benefits of SmartIQ and SmartCOMM, we invite you to download the data sheet or request a demo. Explore the combined capabilities of these solutions in depth and discover how they can drive success for your business.

The Shift Toward E-Forms and Customer Engagement

Advantages of E-Forms

The Importance of Adopting E-Forms in Today’s Digital-first Environment

What are the Typical Use Cases of E-Forms?

Embrace the Future: Implement E-Forms into Your Business’s Processes

Take Customer Engagement to the Next Level

Prediction 1: Global Average CX Will Improve for the First Time in Three Years

Prediction 2: 50% of Large Global Firms Will Experiment with Customer-Facing Generative AI

Prediction 3: 50% of Large Global Firms Will Report CX Metrics; Only 5% Will Link to Financials

Prediction 4: One-Third of Brands Will Launch Experiences That Are Biased, Inaccessible or Harmful

Prediction 5: Two out of Five CX Teams Will Turn Away Work Because Their Remit Exceeds Resources

How to Link Forms and Communications to CX and Financial Metrics

If you’re ready to discover how to accelerate the healthcare customer experience at your organization, click the link to register for the webinar: Register Now!

The Current State of Customer Onboarding

How Does Forms Automation Software Enhance the Customer Onboarding Experience?

What Are the Best Strategies for Creating a Seamless Customer Onboarding Experience?

Maximizing Customer Onboarding Efficiency with Enterprise Forms Management Solutions

Conclusion

For more information on how to enhance the customer onboarding experience at your organization, get in touch.

What are the Key Provisions of Australia's RG271 for Complaints Management?

How to Ensure Compliance with Complaints Management Regulations

Case Study: Digitizing Credit Card Dispute Resolution for Improved Complaints Management

Resolving Customer Complaints Faster Has Long-Term Impact

If you’d like to talk about ways to take your complaints and disputes management process to the next level, reach out and talk with us.

Understanding the Limitations of OCR

Rethinking Data Capture and Digital Transformation

Move Beyond Static Forms with SmartIQ

Why Most Web Form Tools Fall Short in Meeting Enterprises' Needs

Challenges that Enterprises Face with Paper Forms

Impacts to Customer Effort and Experience

Desired State – Creating a Better User Experience

Key Capabilities Needed by Enterprises