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Enhancing Farm Bureau Customer Communications with Smart Communications

Posted on by Eileen Potter

By Eileen Potter, VP of Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications 

Farm Bureau organizations, which play a pivotal role in supporting farmers and rural communities, face the complex task of managing insurance operations efficiently. They hold conferences each year for different business areas, including underwriting, claims, operations, and actuaries, bringing together subject matter experts from all over the country to foster collaboration and exchange experiences and ideas. Smart Communications works with Farm Bureaus throughout the United States, helping these insurers streamline processes and improve customer interactions. 

I recently attended The Farm Bureau Claims & Litigation Conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Our customer, Mountain West Farm Bureau (MWFB), hosted the conference this year. It was a great opportunity to see many of our existing customers and to learn more about what Farm Bureaus are focusing on with respect to improving claims processes.  

I was also honored to participate in a panel discussion, ‘Enabling a Delightful Claims Settlement Experience’, moderated by Tim Hayes, the CIO of MWFB, along with Marc Fredman from CCC and Alicia Purpur from One, Inc. The discussion focused on technology that is driving the future of claims automation – from using data, AI and images to improve the overall process, enabling better communication through customers’ preferred channels, and how insurers can deliver fast, secure, digital settlement payments.  

Delivering Improved Outcomes through Better Customer Experiences

Farm Bureau organizations are dedicated to advocating for agricultural and rural policies, providing insurance products, and offering various services to their policyholders. These services range from crop insurance and property coverage to liability and health insurance. Given the diverse nature of their clientele, from large-scale farmers to small rural households, maintaining clear and effective communication is essential.  

This is where Smart Communications steps in, providing a suite of tools designed to enhance customer communications at every moment in the policy, billing, and claims lifecycles. Smart Communications can benefit insurers through: 

  • Improved Customer Satisfaction. By providing clear, personalized, and timely communications, Farm Bureau organizations can significantly enhance member satisfaction. Policyholders feel valued and informed, which strengthens their loyalty to the organization.  

  • Operational Efficiency. Automation of routine tasks reduces the administrative burden on staff, allowing them to focus on more strategic activities. This efficiency translates into cost savings and improved productivity.  

  • Compliance and Accuracy. Ensuring that all communications are accurate and compliant with regulatory requirements is crucial in the insurance industry. Smart Communications helps Farm Bureau organizations achieve this by standardizing communication templates and automating workflows. 

Driving Business Efficiency and Customer-Centricity   

Streamlined Policy Administration

  • Personalized Communications 
    Smart Communications allows Farm Bureau organizations to tailor their communications to meet the specific needs of their policyholders, creating personalized policy documents that are easy to understand, ensuring that customers are well-informed about their coverage options and any changes to their policies.
  • Efficient Document Management
    Consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable going paperless, and the platform enables the creation, management, and distribution of documents in a digital format, reducing reliance on paper, accelerating delivery, and ensuring quick access to important information.
  • Timely Notifications
    Smart Communications automates the creation of documents throughout the policy lifecycle, including renewal notices, policy updates, and others, enhancing the overall efficiency of the organization. 

Enhanced Billing Processes

  • Clear Billing Statements
    One of the main pain points for customers is understanding their bills. Smart Communications ensures that billing statements are clear, concise, and easy to understand. This transparency helps in reducing disputes and inquiries related to billing.     

  • Multi-Channel Delivery
    Recognizing the diverse preferences of their     customers, Farm Bureau organizations can use Smart Communications to deliver billing information through multiple channels, so policyholders can receive their bills in the format they prefer.     

  • Automated Payment Reminders
    The platform can automate payment reminders, ensuring that     policyholders are notified well in advance of upcoming due dates. This proactive approach helps in reducing late payments and improving the overall cash flow for the organization.     

Simplified Claims Management 

  • Real-Time Communication
    During the claims process,     timely and accurate communication is vital. Smart Communications enables real-time updates to be sent to policyholders, keeping them informed about the status of their claims. This transparency builds trust and reduces anxiety among policyholders.     

  • Streamlined Documentation
    The platform     facilitates the collection and management of required documents for claims processing. Policyholders can submit documents electronically, speeding up the claims process and reducing the burden of paperwork.      

  • Automated Acknowledgements
    When a claim is     submitted, Smart Communications can automatically send an acknowledgment, confirming receipt and providing an overview of the next steps. This immediate feedback reassures policyholders that their claim is being processed.     

I’m already looking forward to attending the Farm Bureau Underwriting Executives Conference, which will be in Albuquerque, NM July 21st-24th. If you’re going to be at the conference, please feel free to set up some time to meet – or come by and see us at the vendor showcase. Smart Communications will also be at the Farm Bureau Operations Conference in Charleston, SC this October.  

We’re proud to partner with the American Farm Bureau Federation to improve insurance operations and customer experience. If your organization is not currently using SmartCOMM or SmartIQ, reach out to me – or set up some time for a demo.  

We welcome the opportunity to show you how Smart Communications has helped other Farm Bureau organizations increase customer satisfaction, streamline operations, and maintain a competitive edge in the dynamic world of insurance – and how we can help you too.  

3 Key Takeaways from Crawford Technologies’ Customer Communications Summit

Posted on by Scott Draeger

By: Scott Draeger, SVP Product Marketing & Vertical Solutions 

In May, Crawford Technologies held its annual Customer Communications Summit. Smart Communications was excited to engage with the Crawford Technologies’ team, and proud to participate by delivering a session. This virtual event had a mix of business, technology, and strategy content. The sessions were delivered by trendsetting analysts, leading software experts, and experienced customers with successes to share. Every track was interesting, and we’re lucky it was recorded so we didn’t have to miss simultaneous sessions. 

My takeaways focused on how big moves today will allow organizations to accelerate the future. Throughout the conference, I captured notes and items that I will reflect upon well after the conference. But the top three takeaways from the Crawford Customer Communications Summit focus on legacy technology retirement, accessibility for the long term, and shifting economics in the channel mix.  

Let’s look at them one by one.  

Takeaway 1: Legacy Retirement

My favorite real–world success session was Lincoln Financials’ Bill Jaworski’s session, “Navigating the Transition: Lincoln Financial Group’s Journey from IBM CMOD to Hyland Alfresco.” During this session, Bill had a conversation with Crawford Technologies’ Allan Ronquillo about how the organization transitioned away from IBM’s CMOD document management system to an optimized document management workflow from Highland. He shared technical considerations, best practices, and even some troubles they encountered along the way. 
 
While the session was valuable on the surface, Bill addressed a common problem. He retired and replaced a long-serving incumbent technology. The amount of force required to displace a long serving, but underperforming, legacy technology component is amazing. Some of the original advocates of legacy technology feel threatened with obsolescence, which feels scary. But Bill was able to navigate the business, technical, and political obstacles in order to deliver an amazing result for Lincoln Financial Group.  

It is always great to hear about successful migrations from legacy technologies. This is helpful, as Smart Communications routinely helps our clients retire legacy communication technology to help organizations improve customer experience, reduce operational costs, and retire technical debt.

Takeaway 2: Accessibility For the Long Term 

Crawford Technologies has always innovated around accessibility to make communications more inclusive in a way that is cost-effective for the enterprise. There were several sessions that covered the topic well. The Crawford Technologies team keeps up with regulations, and rapidly implements solutions that increase inclusivity without re-engineering the collection of core systems that create and store the communications. 

Insights from Denis Quon and Doug Koppenhofer made an impression on me. While Smart Communications creates WCAG compliant and accessible communications, including with a variety of enhancements available when using the Editions capabilities of SmartCOMM, the compliance is conformant to the time the communication was created. 

Regulations are changing quickly, and communications that are pulled from an archive, re-requested, or regenerated may need to be compliant in the future when standards change. Also, individuals’ needs for accessible content may change, and they will need documents from the past remediated to meet their needs in the present. Document accessibility requires conformance to standards in the future, which was an interesting topic at the summit. 

Takeaway 3: Shifting Economics in the Channel Mix

Andrew Young from Treeline Research presented, “Adapting to Digital Preferences: Enhancing Customer Experience in an Era of Paper Suppression” that explored channel choice in some important new, and nuanced, approaches. His research compared consumer responses to questions about channel preference to business issues on the sender side. While customers continue to respond that they want to choose their channels from a wide array of channels, they do not seem to be as disappointed if those choices are reduced.  

Andrew’s research showed a balance of print suppression data that shows how organizations can deliver effective communications while managing costs. His research identified that enterprises will move faster towards print suppression when a first-class letter costs $0.88 to send, which is roughly three rate increases from now. This should challenge every enterprise’s thinking about how they choose to support channels when one channel’s costs increase as another channel’s costs decrease. 

Looking Forward

By the end of the summit, I had a lot of notes from leaders, experts, and visionaries that will impact my thinking going forward. My session focused on how regulations, AI, and legacy technical debt are strong motivational factors to complete digital transformations as soon as possible. I’m already looking forward to the 2025 Crawford Technologies Customer Communication Summit. 

The Era of Smart Forms: Modernizing Data Collection

Posted on by Sally Schulte

By Sally Schulte, Senior Product Marketing Director at Smart Communications 

In today’s data driven world, efficient, accurate data collection allows your business to deliver modern, easy interactions—and faster outcomes—for mission critical business processes. That’s why organizations are turning to forms technology that allow them to approach the data collection process in a more sophisticated, customer-friendly way.  

In this post, we’ll share how businesses like yours are accomplishing this in the healthcare, financial services, and insurance industries. 

What Are Smart Forms? 

Unlike PDFs or paper-based forms, smart forms are dynamic, interactive, intelligent—and highly secure. They go many steps further than basic digital forms, leveraging business rules, data integrations, and approval workflows to build an end-to-end digital data collection process.  Looking at the benefits of this, they are creating internal efficiencies, reducing invalid or incorrect data coming in, and preventing bottlenecks downstream.  

 Learn how you can streamline enterprise data collection and enhance CX. Download the Paper “Next-Gen Enterprise Data Collection: The Role of Forms in Interaction Experience Management (IXM).” 

The Shortcomings of Traditional Forms

Traditional forms are plagued with inherent limitations that hinder effective data collection. These shortcomings include: 

1. Manual Data Entry and Information Security Risks. Conventional forms rely heavily on time-consuming manual data entry into databases and spreadsheets—introducing information security risks, errors, delays, inefficiencies and an inability to validate information as it is collected. 

2. Low Value Interactions. Traditional forms do not offer interactive experiences and often result in follow-up calls or emails for additional information—missing an opportunity to personalize an experience and minimize effort for end users.  

3. Poor Integration. Traditional forms often operate in isolation and are unable to share information with relevant core systems, third-party applications, and enterprise automation technologies. This hinders data processing and downstream decision-making. 

4. Negative User Experience. Cumbersome interfaces and rigid structures contribute to poor user experiences, leading to user frustration and form abandonment. In fact, our latest Benchmark study found that 54% of people will abandon a forms process if it is too difficult to navigate. 

image quote: "Basic web forms often fall short in meeting the complex requirements of enterprise organizations, especially when it comes to versatility, security, and true automation. 

The Advantages of Smart Forms 

Smart forms offer a myriad of benefits that address and eliminate the shortcomings of forms and the manual processes behind them. They include: 

Improved Data Accuracy and Compliance 

Smart forms leverage a wide range of capabilities—from input formatting and mandatory fields to real-time data validation and data transfers—that not only ensure data accuracy and completeness but help contain and protect the data as it comes in, transferring information to other systems with no manual intervention.  

Fewer, More Meaningful Interactions 

The objective in all of this is to get the most value out of every interaction—whether that’s with a customer, an employee, or a third-party agent. Collect all the information that is relevant to the task, ensure it’s accurate and complete, and avoid the time spent chasing someone down for something they thought they already finished. 

Seamless Integration

Information gathered via interactive smart forms is automatically transferred to backend systems, CRM platforms, and other enterprise applications, facilitating efficient data exchange and streamlining business processes. 

Positive Effect on Experience 

Intelligent questioning, prefilled information, and personalized content create Know Your Customer (KYC) experiences that people appreciate and that are reflected in Customer Effort and Customer Experience scores.

See how smart forms can transform your business by optimizing data collection and analysis processes while streamlining customer communications.
Request a Demo of SmartIQ Today

How Smart Forms are Positively Impacting Regulated Industries 

Embracing interactive forms can help you unlock the full potential of your data assets, drive business-led innovation, deliver an enhanced customer experience, and prepare you for the generation of mobile-first, digital-only customers and staff. Here’s how smart forms are having a dramatic effect in three highly-regulated industries, specifically: 

Insurance: Transforming Data Collection 

Today’s insurers are using smart forms to automate applications, renewals, and underwriting processes. Accurate and timely data collection is critical for each of these processes, to ensure new policies get written and existing policies are retained.  

Additionally, insurers can create consistent experiences for everyone involved—whether they self-serve via the website, speak with a Customer Service Agent or broker, or there is a business-triggered event. This ensures information is collected consistently, regardless of how a process is initiated. 

Financial Services: Preparing for the Next Generation of Investors 

Banks and financial institutions are using smart forms to streamline and modernize everything from loan applications and servicing requests to portfolio rebalancing and asset allocation. By digitalizing these traditionally manual processes, they are gaining operational efficiencies and expediting outcomes but also preparing to meet the needs of the next generation of investors and clients.  

Furthermore, leveraging this sophisticated technology allows financial advisors and wealth managers to deliver personalized financial advice and strategies based on their clients’ unique financial profiles, taking the customer experience to a whole new level. 

Learn how to win over the next generation of investors. Read our latest white paper to find out how. 

Healthcare: Enhancing Patient Care 

Smart forms are revolutionizing the way patient data is collected, analyzed, and utilized. Digitizing patient intake forms, medical histories, treatment plans, and automating data capture and validation processes is leading to many positive results. By adopting an innovative approach, healthcare providers are reducing administrative burdens, improving data accuracy, better protecting patient confidentiality, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and making more insightful clinical decisions. 

Conclusion

Enterprise smart forms are not just a technological innovation, they represent a fundamental shift in how organizations collect, manage, and leverage data to drive business outcomes. As a result, companies that integrate smart forms into their processes are not only transforming how they collect and analyze data, but also their overall operations and customer experience. 

Explore more ways smart forms can lead to a paradigm shift in the way you collect and analyze data. Watch our OnDemand webinar “Redefining Data Collection”. 

Analyzing Aragon’s 2024 Workflow and Content Automation Report

Posted on by Scott Draeger

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

The newly released 2024 Aragon Globe for Workflow and Content Automation (WCA) compares vendors in an important space at an important time. It evaluates the state of current enterprise data capture offerings. 2024 should provide a sense of urgency, as the report claims, “large numbers of enterprises have let legacy workflows languish, partially due to the complexity of some of the early products.” The time to transform is now, and the Aragon Globe for WCA offers a blueprint. 

Make Tough Decisions and Implement the Latest WCA 

When describing the enterprise needs and challenges of today, Aragon suggests; “The conclusion is that to fully automate document processes, in many cases, enterprises need to evaluate replacing incumbent providers that have not kept up.” Employees that have to alt-tab between systems, manually search for critical information, or have to make up for technical failings are not going to be able to deliver the experiences your customer demands. Your employees are often forced to ask for the same data multiple times, which damages the credibility of your organization. 

It’s Never Too Late to Start

“While there are still many enterprises that are just beginning their WCA journey, there are others who are now augmenting many of their critical and repeatable document processes to be either semi- or, in some cases, fully automated.” SmartIQ™ clients are leading their industries by controlling operational costs, improving customer experiences, and reducing compliance risk with enterprise forms automation solutions.  

Connect Workflow and Content to the Highest Performance Standards 

In this Aragon Globe, Smart Communications is not only proud to be featured as a Leader for the fifth time, but also especially proud to have SmartIQ technology earn the highest placement for solution performance in this year’s report.  

Smart Communications has leading solutions in the WCA market as well as the Customer Communications Management (CCM) market. “WCA involves complex document processes including, but not limited to, document assembly, routing, integration into other applications, and workflow both upstream and downstream from the decision, approval, or signature.” The Smart Communications portfolio delivers customer facing workflows, internal process automation, and creates communications to the highest standards of compliance, complexity, and risk. 

WCA Is Accelerated by AI 

Aragon sees AI as a critical part of the future of WCA. “Generative AI is causing many business leaders to ask questions and to understand what the current status quo is when it comes to Content Automation.” The Aragon team considered the SmartCOMM™ GenAI Writing Assistant to be an important emerging capability in the WCA market. This early Smart Communications AI development allows business users to improve readability, increase formality, or translate content into other languages. The current incarnation of this feature is available to customers that participate in the early access program. 

Aragon’s Insights on Smart Communications

In a group of high performing vendors, Smart Communications boasts the highest placement for solution performance. The report states, “SmartIQ’s low-code approach to data collection and approval workflows are enabling enterprises (particularly those in heavily regulated industries) to develop new content automation applications in record time.  

SmartIQ uses adaptive interviews to collect information and required documentation that can be automatically routed for approvals, transferred, and stored in other core systems—, and it can be used to automatically generate personalized, digital content and documents on-demand via its intuitive user experience.” 

Of the vendors that offer both WCA and CCM solutions, Smart Communications has the best placement. When navigating Aragon’s 2024 Globe for WCA, consider the placement of vendors that offer both SaaS-based CCM and SaaS-based WCA technology, and you will not find a better positioned vendor across the entire range of analyst reports. Some vendors that offer forms and communication technology did not qualify for an invitation or inclusion in this critical report. 

To read the full report, access a complimentary copy here.

Unlocking Trust and Loyalty: Effective Wealth Management Communication Strategies for Multigenerational Clients

Posted on by Scott Draeger

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

In wealth management, effective communication is the cornerstone of building lasting relationships across generations. As younger demographics increasingly play a role in financial planning, the ability to understand their distinct preferences becomes imperative for firms like yours that are aiming to secure trust and loyalty over the long term.

Different Generations, Different Communication Expectations

Your longest serving clients may associate respect and trust with face-to-face meetings to review custom generated reports. They may want time to review physical documents in larger print, or positively associate a wet signature with the close of an important transaction. These traditional preferences have been emblematic of trust and reliability.

However, as younger generations become involved, the same style of interaction may no longer resonate. In fact, that same treatment may send the opposite message. Printed pitchbooks may be viewed as wasted time as cumbersome reports are not searchable. Instead, interactive, digitally driven communication channels are favored, with a preference for dynamic visuals and streamlined processes. The last thing they want to do is take time out of their day to sign and return a stack of physical documents. As your client base changes, your wealth managers need to deliver the right experiences to the right client at the right time.

Adapting to Multigenerational Expectations

It is possible to deliver a wide range of tailored customer communication experiences without creating a cumbersome technology stack, adding to compliance burdens, or increasing operating costs. With a leading customer communication management (CCM) solution with integrated forms automation technology, you can deliver client experiences that range from high touch to high tech in a way that delights your clients, regardless of their age. When technology is flexible, your wealth managers can provide better experiences in less time, so they can focus more on their clients and less on technology.

Personalized, Compliant, Consistent: The Power of CCM

With a leading CCM solution, wealth managers are empowered to send communications that are personalized across various channels, yet compliant. Communications are consistent, whether they are printed or digital. The same technology creates and delivers prospectus, pitch books, reviews, compliance documents, confirmations, and other critical documents to your customers’ channels of choice. By integrating compliance measures seamlessly, risks are minimized, and valuable time is saved for both clients and wealth managers.

Channel Preferences Across Generations

Smart Communications™ commissioned original customer research on the generational communication preferences of financial services clients. Our 2023 Benchmark study revealed that channel preferences varied with each age group , emphasizing the need for a multichannel approach to effectively serve all clients.

Supporting Diverse Clientele with One Solution

Integrating customer-facing technology with self-service forms automation enables wealth managers to efficiently serve both high-touch and high-tech clients. Whether it’s creating personalized communication or facilitating self-service transactions, seamless integration ensures a cohesive client experience. The same technology serves tech savvy clients who want to check in on their assets, model some transactions, and make changes without interacting with a wealth manager. If the tech savvy client encounters something that needs clarification, that experience is immediately transferrable to a wealth manager that has the full context of the information already entered, respecting the client’s time and delivering the high-end service they deserve.

When situations become highly complicated, Smart Communications’ new feature, Business Events, it becomes easy to create and assemble complex packets of information. When your advisors need copies of some documents, clients’ need copies and summaries, client’s attorneys need to file copies with certain fields redacted, and data needs to be protected; Smart Communications easily assembles complex packages of enclosures, attachments, and carbon copies of critical experiences to make transactions move smoothly while protecting privacy and reducing risk.

Taking Client Service to the Next Level

Preparing for the impending wealth transfer requires a proactive approach to client service. Smart Communications offers insights on crafting a client service that resonates with generational cohorts, setting the stage for lasting trust and loyalty. Explore our white paper to learn how to navigate the evolving expectations of wealth management customers and position your firm for success in the digital age. 

Strategy and Innovation in the Omdia Universe on CCM

Posted on by Scott Draeger

By Scott Draeger, SVP of Product Marketing and Vertical Solutions 

The newly released 2024 Omdia Universe for Customer Communications Management (CCM) offers the CCM market a new perspective. This is Omdia’s first full Universe report on  key vendors in the CCM market. The Omdia Universe is unique as it examines Challenger and Leader vendors across a wide variety of important criteria, including: 

  • Core Capabilities 

  • Advanced Capabilities 

  • Solution Breadth 

  • Strategy & Innovation 

  • Market Momentum 

  • Vendor Execution.  

Smart Communications is proud to be named a Leader in this new report.  

Old CCM Technology Won’t be Back in Style 

The 2024 Universe conveys a sense of urgency for organizations that have limited communication capabilities due to legacy constrained technologies. The report states, “…there may be enterprises that have legacy CCM solutions that would be well-advised to examine the feasibility of migrating to a modern CCM, which would provide a modern platform for sending personalized marketing material as well as bills and statements.” The time is now to consider new technology. 

 

Look for a Vendor that Prioritizes Migration 

This Universe report identifies a key threat to improving customer communications, “Another threat is legacy products and in-house created solutions that may be difficult to replace due to a high level of dependent code. Vendors need to provide a high level of professional services to help these enterprises migrate from these legacy products.” 
 
Smart Communications has addressed this industry challenge with Migration Studio, SmartSTART implementation programs, and migration acceleration technologies for a variety of legacy CCM offerings. Additionally, Smart Communications routinely structures transactions that allow migration and implementation costs to be spread out over multiple years, allowing your returns to match your investments. 

Discover how migrating from manual, legacy customer communications platforms to modern, cloud-based CCM solutions help enterprises become agile and remain compliant. 

Smart Communications’ Vendor Summary: Capabilities and Features

When evaluating CCM technologies, there are market requirements to consider. The Universe identified several, including template creation, content creation, multi-channel batch production, workflow, and cloud capabilities. These capabilities appear in each vendor’s “Omdia Universe Vendor Summary.” In the Advanced Capabilities dimension, features like Ad hoc Communications, Analytics, Security, Compliance, and Governance are evaluated. Smart Communications is proud of our placement in Core Capabilities, Advanced Capabilities, Solution Breadth, and Strategy & Innovation.  

CCM In the Cloud 

As a cloud-first CCM provider, the Smart Communications team paid close attention to mentions of “cloud” in the report. Omdia stated, “While the cloud continues to make inroads as the deployment model of choice for enterprises in the CCM space and some vendors find that virtually all implementations are now cloud-based, the fact that there is a core of enterprises that still want a traditional on-premises implementation means that few vendors have abandoned on-premises deployments completely.“ Smart Communications is proud to be cloud-native, helping leaders implement CCM solutions that look more like the future than the past. 

In the Advanced Capabilities listing, the report listed the specific cloud capabilities that were covered such as, “including the different cloud options available; which public clouds are supported; how the services are licensed and priced; the ease, cost, and speed of migrating content to the cloud; and cloud security.” Smart Communications’ long experience in the SaaS CCM market results in deployments that are secure, efficient, and scalable. 

Covering CCM In a Time of Digital Transformation 

Omdia’s CCM report delves into the current landscape of the CCM market, notably highlighting the strategies adopted by latecomers to cloud adoption. The report appears to assign higher scores to providers offering separate cloud and on-premises solutions, without clearly delineating that they typically fall into one of two categories: 

1. Containerized legacy CCM technologies that essentially repackaged old solutions as containerized offerings without delivering the key advantages of cloud-native technology. 

2. Providing ‘new from scratch’ cloud offerings that are incompatible with existing systems, necessitating a complete overhaul and recreation of integrations. This approach puts the burden of a full migration onto the customer while failing to provide the benefits of best-of-breed technology from a SaaS-focused provider. 

As a cloud-native SaaS offering, Smart Communications does not shift these burdens to clients. While some may perceive providers offering both cloud and on-premises solutions as providing flexibility, the reality often involves carrying over legacy limitations to the cloud or requiring extensive rewriting and reintegration efforts. This falls short of delivering a mutually beneficial solution. You deserve a smoother journey without the hefty price tag and legacy issues that come with being an early adopter of new SaaS CCM solutions. 

Omdia Perspective on Smart Communications’ Strengths

To see the full run down of Smart Communications' strengths, check out the report using the link below. We bet you’ll be as pleased as we are with the Omdia Universe for CCM, especially the Strategy & Innovation area. Make sure to check out the Strategy & Innovation category, as a top score in this category shows the closest alignment with your future direction. 

Ready to learn why Smart Communications is a top CCM vendor choice for enterprises like yours? Download the report for more. 

Onboarding for Credit Card Customers: When Does It End?

Posted on 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 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:  A blue rectangular object with black text Description automatically generated 

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.

Navigating the Regulatory Landscape of Customer Communications in 2024

Posted on by Scott Draeger

By Scott Draeger, SVP of Product Marketing at Smart Communications 

In today’s digital age, customer communications are increasingly reliant on data-driven personalization. With that said, companies face a daunting challenge: how to navigate the evolving regulatory requirements while still delivering tailored experiences to their customers.  

With new regulations and stricter enforcement measures shaping the way businesses interact with their clientele, your company needs the right tools and processes to remain compliant. In this blog, you’ll find insights to empower you as you develop communications that strike the right balance between personalization and privacy. 

The Evolving Regulatory Landscape in 2024 

New regulations and stricter enforcement measures are reshaping how companies like yours handle customer data. From the far-reaching impact of GDPR, CCPA, to the stringent requirements of HIPAA, you’re at the forefront of compliance efforts.  

In our recent report, ‘5 Trends Shaping Customer Conversations in 2024’, Sameer Hajarnis, Senior Vice President & GM of Digital Agreements at OneSpan—and one of the many subject matter experts/thought leaders we interviewed—urges vigilance, stating, “Stricter regulations and enhanced security measures are imperative to safeguard consumer data in today’s digital ecosystem.” 

Striking a Balance in Customer Communications: Personalization vs. Privacy

Your challenge lies in harmonizing personalized experiences with regulatory compliance. Eileen Potter, VP of Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications, underscores the need to prioritize data privacy regulations. Potter emphasized consumer concerns about data misuse. As you strive to strike this balance, remember that respecting privacy is non-negotiable.  

One way you can do so is by investing in pure cloud solutions to help you keep pace with changing regulatory requirements. For example, one Consumer Duty requirement dictates that firms must “provide helpful and accessible customer support.” That means getting consumers answers quickly and not making them wait so long that they give up. Compliance will require centralized processes for collecting information so it’s available to support agents on demand, as well as more robust self-serve options.    

How AI Will Influence New Regulations/Challenges  

If you implement or plan to implement generative AI in your CX strategy or customer communications, proceed with caution and take extra steps to ensure it’s being used only as intended. Kaspar Roos, CEO and Founder at Aspire, details some of the graver concerns, below:  

“We can unfortunately expect to see AI used in an increasing tide of fraudulent and nefarious activities that will range from the criminal, like using deepfake audio or video to lure consumers into scams, to the more broadly destabilizing and anarchistic generation of fake news.”  

The Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI Executive Order 

In October of 2023, the Biden administration issued a landmark executive order on “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence,” which established new standards for AI safety and security as well as privacy protection. Neeraj Gupta, Insurance Consulting Partner at EY, said the order “represents a significant contribution to the subject of accountability in how AI is developed and deployed across organizations.”  

 “Given the breadth of recommendations and actions provided, [the Biden administration’s Executive Order] is likely to have an effect on organizations across all sectors of the economy, from the most mature AI implementers to first-time adopters.” —Neeraj Gupta, Insurance Consulting Partner at EY  

While Gupta noted that the definition of AI systems is broad, it is inclusive of systems which have been built over the last several years. The EU is looking to similarly advance its regulatory standards and requirements around AI, meaning global businesses should plan to keep a close eye on regulatory developments. This includes domestic companies that do business overseas. 

As your business increases its use of AI or other advanced systems, remember that innovation comes with an increased risk. As the regulations continue to evolve in 2024, prepare to adapt your customer communications strategy to balance personalization and privacy while maintaining compliance.  

Conclusion  

In the ever-evolving regulatory landscape of 2024, mastering customer communications requires finesse. Remember, adaptability is your company’s greatest asset. However, without insights and the right solutions/vendor partner on your side, it can be difficult to know where to start. Be sure you’re preparing your business to proactively respond to regulatory bodies rather than waiting for them to come knocking with an expensive lesson. 

Discover how SmartCOMM™ can help you build customer communications journeys that are effective, compliant, and secure.

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

Posted on by Sally Schulte

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.