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Don’t be Fooled: A Guide to Finding Credible Vendor Comparison Reports

Posted on by Stephanie Clarke

The software industry is a complex space, with new solutions and technology emerging faster than ever before. With so many options to choose from, it can be challenging to select the right software solution and vendor partner you can trust. This is where vendor comparison reports from credible analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Celent and Aragon come in handy. However, the reality is that there are now a number of less credible reports out there that can mislead potential software buyers, leaving them with the wrong solution or uninformed guidance. In this article, we’ll discuss how to spot “pay to play” reports and provide some tips on how you can ensure the reports you’re looking at come from a credible source.

Gartner, Forrester and IDC are well-known analyst firms that cover a wide range of technology markets. They provide comprehensive research and analysis on the latest market trends, emerging technologies and vendor landscapes. In addition to these large firms, there are also smaller boutique firms that specialize in specific market segments or industries. For instance, Aspire CCS focuses specifically on Customer Communications Management technology, while Celent and Aite-Novarica specialize in the Financial Services and Insurance space. These smaller firms are able to provide more targeted and detailed analyses of specific markets, and their reports can be invaluable resources for companies looking for solutions in those areas.

How to Identify Credible Analyst Reports

Legitimate analyst firms go through a rigorous process to create vendor reports that are based on valid and credible research. This process generally involves sending a Request for Information (RFI) to all vendors, followed by technology briefings, demos and interviews with customers and technology partners. This process can take several months and ensures that the analyst firms have enough information to make a valid comparison of the technology providers.

The RFI process is essential because it allows analyst firms to gather detailed information about the vendors’ products, services and capabilities. This information is used to create comprehensive vendor profiles that form the basis for the report. The technology briefing process is equally important because it allows the analyst firms to ask specific questions about the vendors’ products and services and gain a deeper understanding of the market trends or challenges. 

Legitimate analyst firms conduct research on their own to supplement the information they receive from the vendors. This research can include surveys, market analysis and interviews with industry experts and technology partners with experience implementing the technology solutions being evaluated. This approach ensures that the report is based on a broad and accurate understanding of the market.

What are “Pay-to-Play" Reports? 

‘”Pay to play”’ reports are created by companies that have a vested interest in promoting specific vendors. These companies may have a financial relationship with the vendors, such as accepting payments to include them in the report or ranking them higher than they may deserve. The goal of these reports is to create a false sense of credibility that leads potential software buyers to believe they are getting objective and impartial information. However, the reality is that these reports are often biased and misleading. They may also contain inaccurate or outdated information.  

How to Spot Them 

  1. No Transparency: If the company producing the report does not disclose the methodology or criteria used to select vendors or rank them, it could be a sign that they are hiding something.
  2. Limited Scope: If the report focuses only on a select group of vendors or fails to explore the entire market, it is likely that it was created to promote a specific vendor rather than provide a comprehensive analysis of the market.
  3. Promotional Language: If the report uses promotional language, it could be a sign that the vendor had a say in the report’s creation.
  4. Duplicate Content: If you observe that the content of this year’s report is almost identical to that of the previous year’s, that’s a clear indication that the analyst firm did not invest much effort in creating the report, which may raise questions about its credibility. 

How to Ensure Reports Come from a Credible Source

  1. Do Your Own Research: It is essential to do your own research and evaluate the vendors’ products and services based on your needs. Don’t rely solely on third-party reports.
  2. Check for Transparency: Always look for transparency in reports. The company producing the report should be open about its methodology and criteria for selecting vendors.
  3. Look for Comprehensive Reports: Credible reports should cover the entire market, not just a select group of vendors. Reports that have a narrow focus or recycle content year after year should raise red flags.
  4. Look for an Independent Voice: Look for reports that are produced by an independent, impartial and respected industry analyst firm with a track record for credibility. Most credible analyst firms are regularly publishing thought leadership on the category being covered, so be sure to do your research. 

Our Top Analyst Picks for Customer Communications Management (CCM) Coverage:

• IDC

• Aspire CCS

• Gartner

• Forrester

• Celent

• Aite-Novarica 

• Aragon

Conclusion

Choosing the right software solution is essential for the success of any business. Vendor comparison reports can be a valuable resource to help companies make informed decisions. However, not all vendor comparison guides are created equal. It is crucial to be aware of the "pay to play" reports that can be misleading. 

Smart Communications is committed to upholding the integrity of vendor comparison reports and, as a matter of policy, does not participate in, promote or publish any "pay to play" reports on our website. By taking this stance, we ensure that our customers and community can trust that our participation or inclusion in a report is based solely on the merits of our products and services. This approach aligns with our commitment to transparency, integrity, and providing our customers with accurate and unbiased information to make informed decisions.

See how Smart Communications stacks up by reading these popular reports. 

How Low-Code Automation from SmartIQ™ Enhances Customer Experiences

Posted on by SmartComm

By: Sally Schulte, Product Marketing Director at Smart Communications 

As enterprises around the world face unprecedented levels of disruption and ever-increasing customer expectations, business leaders are rethinking their customer experience strategies—and speed to market is critical. To meet demand, companies are exploring and implementing secure, low-code solutions that transform one-way, siloed interactions into secure, automated digital processes.  

Customers are interacting with large institutions such as those in financial services, insurance and healthcare at some of the most critical moments in their lives. Significant life events such as an accident, planning for a major life event or navigating an illness, are opportunities for businesses to create meaningful, simple and sensitive experiences.  

Unfortunately, impersonal, and time-consuming, paper-based or PDF forms processes have been the standard way to navigate through these life changes, negatively impacting how customers view the companies that are there to support them. In this post, we will dive into how low-code forms software like SmartIQ™ enables enterprises to exceed customer expectations while also creating more efficient internal processes. We’ll also share how some of the new tools available in SmartIQ empower businesses to work more intelligently, quickly and digitally with their customers.  

Low-Code Forms Solutions for Business Users 

In any industry, having the right software and systems can make a huge difference in the way internal users and external customers interact. Your employees — the people who will use these tools most often — can enhance the customer experience when they have greater ownership over how they communicate with customers.  

By implementing low-code forms solutions, employees across the enterprise can own their business processes directly — allowing them to better serve customers without relying on internal IT teams. With several pre-built, validated connectors and flexible architecture, SmartIQ is easily implemented and automatically updated, bi-weekly. This ensures business users can quickly take advantage of feature enhancements to deliver a seamless customer experience. This also means that previously resource-strained IT teams can focus on larger, more strategic initiatives instead of installing software updates.   

Some additional benefits of the SmartIQ low-code solution include: 

  • Drag-and-drop interfaces make it easy to learn and use while providing specific business units with ownership over projects. 
  • Centralized software application allows for broad use across multiple lines of business without the need for users to obtain added licenses. 
  • Automated approval workflows speed up processing times and allow for real-time status​ updates.  
  • Real-time data verification through core system integrations reduces incomplete or muddled data.​  
  • Analytics to evaluate forms performance help to identify potential areas of confusion, regional trends and additional process statistics. 
  • High security standards ensure compliance with ISO/IEC 27001 certifications, HIPAA and more.  

Optimizing forms processes is just the beginning of creating an easier, more secure experience. Guided, interactive forms can enhance the value of e-signature solutions, for example, and give customers the digital-first, end-to-end experience they expect.  

For more on the powerful pairing of e-signature solutions and sophisticated forms, check out 'Get to eSignature Faster: Maximize the Value of Your eSignature Investment with True Forms Automation' 

Maintaining Brand Standards in a Digital Environment 

There’s a good reason B2B companies devote (at least) 5 percent of their annual revenue to branding every year — it’s integral to creating a consistent experience. That’s why Smart Communications has developed features within SmartIQ that ensure companies can achieve the consistency that wouldn’t otherwise be possible by using paper forms or PDFs. Theme Builder, for example, is a low-code module that allows companies to brand forms based on business unit or the type of project. Business users can control a range of visual elements—from logos and colors to typography and styling—and view them in a live preview that makes it easy to view changes instantly and in context.  

These components allow enterprises to create a responsive, cohesive look and feel that is aligned with the company’s brand standards. This can help build brand awareness, loyalty and trust —important factors in attracting new customers and building and retaining trust among existing ones.  

Global, Cloud Offering Enhances Security and Compliance  

As technology (and the way we all use it) continues to evolve, so does the need to keep information secure across the various platforms and in the different geographies in which data is stored.  Not only do companies face regulatory fines due to non-compliance, they can also damage their reputation due to security breaches or other security-related mishaps. And, while regulatory requirements are on the rise around the world, requirements vary by country—adding complexity to an already challenging landscape for software solutions.  

Let’s look at Canada, as an example. According to PilotCore’s explanation of Canadian Privacy Laws, it can be extremely tricky to navigate how to operate digitally when it comes to data transfers, transparency and levels of protection. That’s why, in 2021, Smart Communications added a data center in Canada— easing the burden of understanding what to do if data travelled outside Canada and subsequently helping Canadian enterprises deliver secure, compliant customer experiences.  

Additional Benefits of Forms Modernization 

Consumers continue to have their attention grabbed by any number of things these days. That’s why requiring people to download additional tools or jump through other hoops to complete a form can quickly turn a customer’s experience into a negative one. However, gathering information is still important for businesses as they must understand customer needs and how to meet them.  

Fortunately, with more resources – like low code forms solutions – at their fingertips, businesses are better equipped to provide exceptional customer experiences from the very first interaction. Software that allows customers to quickly fill out a form, from wherever they are, allows companies to get the necessary information without bogging customers down with static forms or PDFs. When a company is willing to meet its customers (or potential customers) where they are in order to make their lives easier, they become a brand that people trust and want to do business with. 

Learn more about how our low-code forms solution can help your company better serve its customers and enhance the end-to-end customer experience.

Work SMARTER, Not Harder: Enhancing CCM Efforts with Forms Automation

Posted on by SmartComm

image: happy employee sitting at computer in a brightly lit office

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

By: Sally Schulte, Product Marketing Director at Smart Communications

Consumers today expect to do just about everything digitally — from filing an insurance claim and managing personal finances to making medical appointments. That’s why the move to digital-first customer interactions was happening even before the global pandemic, which threw digital transformation initiatives, like forms automation, into overdrive. In fact, a March 2022 IDC survey found that 71% of business are implementing a digital-first strategy due to the pandemic’s lasting impacts.  

As a result of this widespread digitization, enterprises must rethink customer engagement. The days of companies only offering one way for customers to communicate with them, usually involving paper, are long gone. Today, customers expect more. They want to be able to initiate interactions with a business, start and stop at their convenience and even switch between channels and devices without having to start over. That means enterprises need to make interactions two-way, digital and conversational. 

To meet customer expectations, many organizations have already adopted customer communications management (CCM) platforms. But one category of customer “communications” that companies often overlook, and under-optimize, is the form processes required to interact with them. Adding a forms automation solution enhances CCM efforts and fully optimizes the end-to-end customer experience (CX) by turning static, one-way processes into dynamic digital conversations.  

Investing in a smart forms automation solution can make a huge difference to CX. Digitizing forms-based processes is not just converting paper forms to fillable PDFs and putting them on a website.  True form process automation creates interactive, personalized experiences that consider known information, such as the customer’s personal details, medical history, insurance policy information and more. The digital journey should accommodate the end user’s timeline and device preference, letting them start on one device, leave, and pick up right where they left off on another.  

Most importantly, a strong forms automation solution ensures that enterprises collect the most accurate data from every interaction. When paired with a cloud based CCM solution, this allows businesses to deliver the most tailored, personalized interactions in real time. Let’s look at some of the ways web forms automation and forms management software can benefit CCM efforts and the business at large.     

Mitigate Risks for Data Breaches and Errors 

Many industries have long relied on paper forms for key operational processes — things like loan applications, insurance claims documentation and reimbursement for medical expenses. But paper forms bring inherent risks that can be avoided with digitization. Paper forms that are mailed in or scanned and attached to an email are much less secure than digital forms – running the risk of unauthorized access that exposes PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and can result in hefty fines and damage a company’s reputation. Paper forms, or electronic forms that are stored in a database or on a hard drive, can easily become compromised, lost or breached by hackers. And when completing forms manually, even minor clerical errors can significantly slow down customer service processes or, worse, prevent a needed service from being provided to a customer.  

Automated enterprise forms management helps businesses mitigate these risks. The data from digital forms can be easily transferred, stored and managed by existing core systems – aligning with any corporate data strategy. Choosing a cloud-first solution provides the added benefit of scale, reducing ongoing dependencies on internal IT resources. Process automation, including pre-population of forms with personal information pulled from existing core systems, minimizes the risk of errors, accelerating resolution and improving the overall customer experience.  

Regarding risk, it’s also important to discuss compliance regulations. With digital form content, business owned form processes can be quickly and easily updated with content that is impacted by changes to local or federal regulations—securing compliance. And overall efforts related to risk mitigation closely align with broader CCM initiatives by making sure businesses have the data they need to optimize CX, such as customer preferences. Partnering with a vendor that offers both CCM and forms automation software makes it possible to stay one step ahead, especially when regulations vary by region. Again, it’s about working SMARTER — not harder.  

Save Time and Money with Forms Automation 

It’s a simple fact that manual processes can be slow and time-consuming, and can be especially cumbersome when it comes to gathering and acting on customer data. With remote and hybrid work here to stay, digital forms increase workplace efficiency by eliminating the need for employees to re-key information from paper forms or, worse, take data entered in one system and have to manually enter it into another. A fully integrated, cloud-based solution means that team members across departments and locations are all working from the same information — no need to worry about someone making a decision based on outdated information by mistake. 

Automating forms-based processes is a win-win for both customers and business users. Transforming things like intake questionnaires, claims filing or loan applications into intuitive, guided digital experiences is faster, easier and much more secure. And it improves the employee experience because they’re not spending hours on the repeat tasks associated with manual, paper-based processes. Business users can get new projects to market faster and maintain existing projects quickly and easily. With the added flexibility forms automation provides, enterprises can reallocate and reduce the need for IT resources. Increased efficiency can even lower the cost of overtime, additional employees and other expenses related to manual forms management.  

Forms Automation Can Enhance Enterprise Customer Communications

The goal for enterprises today is to deliver digital, omnichannel communications at scale. Customers want to be able to get things done on their own time and their own terms. By combining a cloud-first CCM solution with a sophisticated forms automation solution, enterprises can empower customers to self-serve — when, where and how they prefer. Incorporating data from core systems in real time allows enterprises to deliver communications on the customer’s preferred channel quickly and efficiently. Plus, taking an adaptive interview approach lets businesses confirm previously known information while also collecting new data.  

This type of dynamic, two-way interaction leads to more personalized conversations that can be tailored to individual customer needs, making their lives easier. At the same time, it enables businesses to make data actionable and scalable, enhance communications and support faster resolution and decision making. 

Purpose-Built for Today’s Enterprise Needs 

At Smart Communications, we understand the importance of automating everything from basic tasks to sophisticated and complex processes. Our integrated solutions, including SmartIQ™ forms automation and SmartCOMM™ customer communications management, work together and connect to existing systems to deliver intuitive customer experiences and dynamic communications.  By bringing data together, enterprises can gain a complete, contextual view of customers and remove friction with a single, powerful CX ecosystem.   

Get in touch today to find out how SmartIQ enables enterprises to improve forms-based processes and empower interactive, two-way conversations. 

Enterprises That Benefit Most From Customer Communications Management Software

Posted on by SmartComm

Two hands typing on a laptop with a hologram image of files in front of them

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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

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

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

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

Why is Cloud CCM a Necessity for Highly Regulated Industries?

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

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

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

How Cloud-based CCM Solutions Enhance Business Efficiency

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

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

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

RELATED READING | ‘What’s New in Customer Communications Management (CCM)’

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Healthcare

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

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

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

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

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

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Insurance Providers

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

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

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

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

KEEP READING | ‘Becoming a Digital First Claims Organization’

Customer Communications Management Benefits for Financial Services Institutions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Smart Communications

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

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

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

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

How to Access and Use the 2022 Aspire CCM-CXM Leaderboard

Posted on by SmartComm

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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

Analysts agree that there’s been a major shift to the cloud in the customer communications management (CCM) space – driven by customers’ increasing preference for digital, plus unprecedented levels of innovation in the technology space. As the first CCM provider to fully embrace and harness the benefits of cloud technology, we’re pretty excited (not to mention proud) that the market is following our lead. But this strategic sea-change makes it all the more critical for companies looking to invest in new technology to find resources they can trust to help them make an informed decision. And when it comes to trusted resources in the CCM marketplace, the Aspire CCM-CXM Leaderboard provides in-depth analysis and advice for leading enterprises to make the most informed decisions about their technology investments.

Customer experience (CX) expert, Kaspar Roos, and his global team of market research analysts are highly respected in the CCM and CX industries. Since 2015, the firm has been providing highly specialized independent insights, evaluation and advice to empower enterprises, software providers and business advisories to better understand this evolving market. In fact, Aspire established the Leaderboard to help capture this evolution—and to help businesses understand how various CCM-CXM providers compare on a range of capabilities and strategic direction.

A Dynamic CCM-CXM Assessment Tool that Delivers Deep Insight

The Leaderboard’s interactive capabilities make it easy to visualize where various CCM vendors rank in the market. Users have the added ability to customize that ranking based on a range of factors including business model, CCM maturity, strategic focus, cloud maturity and more. Results can be further filtered based on specific categories and use cases, such as industry, target market and company size, for fine-tuned analysis.

The 2022 Leaderboard has been updated to reflect the changing market. Whereas previous Leaderboards ranked vendors on a single grid, this year’s tool allows users to select from several different grids depending on their organizational needs. In this post, we’ll focus on two of the grids where CCM is the primary focus: AnyPrem and Vendor-hosted SaaS.

At Smart Communications, we believe there is no one-size fits all approach. However, we’ve helped countless customers over the years to evolve from a more traditional, on-premise or hosted model to fully realize and harness the myriad of benefits of a vendor-hosted SaaS CCM solution.

“Cloud is a strong differentiator for Smart Communications. The company was one of the first in the industry to move toward SaaS and it has embraced a cloud-native, DevOps way of working since the mid-2010s” – Aspire Leaderboard 2022

Follow These Steps to Get Started

While the 2022 Aspire CCM-CXM Leaderboard is designed to remove complexity and provide clear analysis to support CCM-CXM decision-making, it does require a few more steps to access than your average static analyst report. Here are some tips to help you navigate the updated Leaderboard and find the optimal CCM solution for your organization.

Step 1: Do Your Homework

The ability to customize this tool is what really sets it apart, so start by getting very clear about what you need. Review any information you’ve already collected in a request for information (RFI). Evaluate all the possible criteria, prioritize feature sets and make sure you have a clear strategic vision so you can look for vendors whose trajectory aligns.

If you’re not sure where to start, ask yourself:

  • What are our key use cases?
  • Which departments will benefit from this investment?
  • What technology will help us focus on what we do best?
  • What does our existing tech ecosystem look like?
  • What core systems are we looking to extend the value of?

With customer expectations changing daily and the digital landscape continuing to expand, cloud is decidedly the way of the future. By adopting a pure cloud solution, companies can deliver seamless customer experiences with dynamic, two-way conversations—at unmatched speed and scale.

What to Look for in an Enterprise CCM Solution

Every organization has unique challenges and goals, and the best solution will align most closely to those needs. However, the things we know are important to end customers today when it comes to communications are often only achievable with cloud—including channel preference, relevance, frequency and timing. A pure cloud CCM solution provides the ability to manage the complexity of omnichannel communications, a holistic view of the customer, rapid response times and seamless integration with core systems, among other capabilities.

Security is always top of mind, particularly for highly-regulated industries such as insurance, financial services and healthcare. Look for a solution with enterprise-grade security and privacy standards such as role-based access, granular permissions and standard certifications. If you’re replacing a home-grown or legacy communications application, it’s also important to choose a vendor that offers migration support to maintain both communications and brand continuity.

The Aspire Leaderboard (and our very own Cloud Buyer’s Guide) include questions you should ask potential vendors. The bottom line is this: legacy on-premise CCM solutions simply cannot meet the moment for enterprises or their customers.

Step 2: Create Your Aspire profile

Now that you know what you’re looking for, you can set up your Aspire profile using our complimentary link. Start by registering to gain access to the Aspire Portal by entering some basic information and choosing a password.

Next, you’ll get an email from Aspire to activate your registration. From there, you can login to the portal and set up your profile. Simply follow the on-screen steps and fill in the requested information about your organization and role. While this takes a couple of minutes, it helps to personalize the experience so you can get the insights you need to make the best investment for your company.

Step 3: Choose Your Own Adventure

Now comes the fun part. Once you’ve completed your profile, you can access the Leaderboard and customize your view. Look for the Segmentation Grid drop-down menu in the top right corner.

For example, if your organization is focused on a cloud-first, SaaS approach, start by selecting Vendor-hosted SaaS CCM from the drop-down menu. This evaluation looks at vendors, like Smart Communications, who have developed cloud-native software offered “as a service,” either using their own data center or by relying on public infrastructure such as Azure or AWS.

One advantage of choosing a SaaS vendor is that they’re responsible for data security, making things like certification, regulatory compliance and privacy-by-design even more essential. In addition, SaaS solutions typically support continuous deployment, also known as evergreen IT, and use agile or DevOps software development methodologies. This makes it easier for companies to spend more time focused on what really matters—engaging meaningfully with customers—and less time on software (and hardware) maintenance.

aspire ccm-cxm leaderboard

For organizations looking to deploy a CCM solution that’s either on-premise or in a hosted, public, virtual private or hybrid cloud configuration due to security requirements, choose AnyPrem CCM Software assessment from the drop-down menu.

Many of the vendors in this grid “have reworked and repackaged their legacy CCM solutions for containerized, serverless environments.” Smart Communications appears in this grid, however, because we have adapted our cloud solution to work in a hybrid fashion – keeping all customer data within an organization’s domain – while still being able to benefit from all that a cloud solution offers. We recognize that customers are all on a cloud journey—and we have multiple options depending on where you are on that journey, and a pathway to get you to the next phase when you’re ready.

“All in all, Smart Communications has had a very good 2021 and continues to align its development with the direction of the market.” – Aspire Leaderboard 2022

As an established thought leader in customer communications, Aspire has identified an additional emerging category that they’re calling Communications Experience Management or Communications Experience Platforms (CXM/CXP). This is another assessment to consider.

According to Aspire, these vendors have combined CCM software with other CX systems—for example, business intelligence dashboards, customer data platforms, marketing automation, journey visualization and orchestration, and multi-variate testing. The CXP grid assesses both technology vendors and service providers who offer these capabilities as part of a single cloud (SaaS or AnyPrem) or hosted managed services platform.

Step 4: Customize. Prioritize. Assess. Repeat.

The best approach for your organization depends entirely on your unique requirements, strategic priorities and cloud maturity. While we’re proud to have paved the way for the shift to cloud in CCM—and that Aspire is recognizing this evolution—the beauty of the Leaderboard is that it dynamically responds to what matters to you.

As a trusted industry advisor, Aspire has analyzed and segmented the capabilities, strategy and market presence of multiple vendors to help you make the best possible decision. You can keep fine-tuning the assessment based on different use cases, priorities and strategies, and then save your filtered view for each grid you create. You can even create customized URLs to share with colleagues and reference as you continue to research technology options. The Leaderboard also includes customer quotes and vendor content, so be sure to check out the vendor profiles as well.

The Power of Dynamic, Specialized Insights for Informed Decisions

Investing in a new technology solution or platform is a big decision—and a challenging one. That’s why we’re excited to share this dynamic tool with organizations at any stage of the CCM journey to help you make an informed decision and achieve your strategic goals.

At Smart Communications, we pride ourselves on delivering business value and innovation to enterprise organizations across industries and borders, so you can have SMARTER two-way conversations with your customers. As the only company enabling enterprises to deliver personalized, omnichannel conversations across the entire customer experience, we believe we are uniquely positioned to help you engage more meaningfully, embrace the digital-first world and achieve your strategic goals. And, we’re thrilled that the most trusted advisor in our industry agrees.

“Smart Communications is an excellent fit for enterprises in the market for a modern and high-quality cloud-based CCM solution, especially for complex interactive use cases in addition to batch.”– Aspire Leaderboard 2022

Ready to Start Assessing?

Register now to access the 2022 Aspire CCM-CXM Leaderboard.

What’s New in Customer Communications Management (CCM)

Posted on by SmartComm

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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

An ever-changing digital landscape, increasingly high customer expectations and more are forcing enterprises around the world to rethink how they interact with customers. In highly regulated industries like insurance, financial services and healthcare – where customer interactions can be stressful and/or high-stakes – the experience enterprises deliver at every touch point is more important than ever. In fact, recent benchmark data from Smart Communications revealed that communications are important to 81% of consumers’ overall experience with a company.

So, what does all of this mean for businesses?

It means that as the market has changed and evolved, so too have the requirements and capabilities that business leaders are seeking in their customer communications technology solutions. And, with an increased focus on the end-to-end customer experience, the strategic importance of communications strategy is rising. As a result, enterprises are seeking modern, cloud-based CCM solutions that provide flexibility while increasing productivity, speed, scale and efficiency.

Recent analysis from IDC and Aspire reflect these changing market conditions – outlining where the customer communications landscape is now, and more importantly, where it’s heading. In this post, we dive into our biggest takeaways from these new reports, highlighting:

  • How (and why) the CCM vendor landscape is evolving
  • What enterprises should look for in a modern CCM solution
  • Why Smart Communications is a CCM leader

RELATED READING | Enjoy complimentary access to the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Customer Communications Management Applications 2022 and the Aspire Leaderboard for Customer Communications Management.

The CCM Marketplace is Evolving to a CX-centric Approach … and It’s Supported by Cloud

Marci Maddox, Research Vice President, Digital Experience Strategies at IDC, shared “In 2020, the focus was on establishing remote work, setting up systems in the cloud, and retaining customers. As companies moved into a more stable environment in 2021, the focus on the customer experience began to take hold and customer satisfaction was the most frequently cited top priority driving customer experience initiatives.”

So, with an increasing number of enterprises prioritizing customer experience as a strategic priority, taking a digital-first, cloud-based approach is the only way to meet customer demands both today and in the future. Cloud-based CCM solutions allow for:

  • Integrations
  • A complete view of the customer
  • Speed and efficiency
  • Omnichannel communications
  • Business user control
  • Optimized customer experiences

What’s more, early adopters of digital transformation are already seeing the benefits. The latest IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Customer Communications Management indicated that “organizations cited a 26% improvement in customer satisfaction as a result of embracing digital transformation.”

“Cloud is a strong differentiator for Smart Communications. The company was one of the first in the industry to move toward SaaS and it has embraced a cloud-native, DevOps way of working since the mid-2010s” – Aspire Leaderboard 2022

What Enterprises Should Look for in a CCM Solution

Just like with any technology investment, the best CCM solution depends on an enterprise’s unique challenges and goals. However, we know what is important to customers – and what frustrates them – when they are interacting with a business. For example, recent research revealed customers’ biggest sources of frustration with communications:

  • Information being provided through the inappropriate channel (61%)
  • Irrelevant messages (58%)
  • Frequency of contact being too high (54%)
  • Poor timing (48%)
  • Lack of personalization (41%)
  • Frequency of contact being too low (36%)

Channel preference, message relevancy, frequency and timing are only achievable with cloud-based technology. Simply put, legacy, on-premise tools cannot meet the demands of today’s customers.

It’s key for enterprises to keep in mind that customers are comparing every interaction they have with a brand to their last best digital experience. Whether that’s with their bank or an Uber Eats delivery, the businesses that choose to take an outdated approach to customer communications will unfortunately be left behind.

INTERACTIVE GUIDE: Looking for a checklist for must-have CCM Software Features & Capabilities? Check out The Ultimate Guide to CCM Software.

Smart Communications is a Leader in Cloud-based CCM

Unlike other providers in the space, Smart Communications has been fully committed to a cloud-first CCM approach for years. We have enabled countless enterprises to shift from delivering one-way, transactional communications, to two-way, interactive conversations. Mature cloud offerings like the Conversation CloudTM offer innovative technology solutions and facilitate personalized, omnichannel interactions.

For these reasons and more, Smart Communications has been named a leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Customer Communications Management Applications 2022 and Aspire’s SaaS Cloud Customer Communications Management Leaderboard.

It’s clear that the future is cloud-based technology, and we are thrilled to once again be named a market leader best equipped to enable enterprises to meet their customer experience goals via a sophisticated CCM solution. In the Aspire leaderboard in particular, vendor-hosted SaaS is viewed as a pivotal strategy due to the benefits that it provides relative to other types of deployment (i.e., scalability, security, agility, business continuity and more).

Additional benefits of Smart Communications, according to the analysts, include:

  • Cloud leadership
  • Fast time-to-value
  • Robust partner ecosystem
  • Increasing focus on AI and Machine Learning
  • Emphasis on the customer experience

As business leaders are challenged with creating exceptional, end-to-end customer experiences having the right CCM solution in place enables businesses to meet the customer needs of today while also laying the foundation for a successful future.

SmartCOMMTM, part of the Smart Communications Conversation Cloud, is a cloud-based CCM solution that enables enterprises to deliver personalized interactions throughout the entire customer experience – enabling enterprises to create and deliver personalized, contextual and compliant communications across customers’ preferred channels and at scale. Businesses who partner with Smart Communications for CCM realize tremendous benefits, including improved business user efficiency, enhanced customer experiences, reduced costs and more.

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To view the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Customer Communications Management Applications 2022, click here. 

To view the Aspire Leaderboard for Customer Communications Management, click here. 

More resources include:

New Research Reveals Which Digital Customer Experience Trends to Watch

Posted on by SmartComm

Image: Hands typing on a laptop with a screen that shows a chatbot asking 'how can we help?'

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

By: Leigh Segall, Chief Strategy Officer at Smart Communications

As customer expectations change faster than ever, it may feel difficult to pin down which key digital customer experience trends should be priorities for businesses. Even in this continuously shifting environment, it’s possible to identify the major forces shaping the customer experience (CX) and establish plans and processes to meet these ever-increasing expectations.  

To better understand customers’ changing preferences, Smart Communications recently surveyed business leaders and consumers from around the globe. As we dug into their thinking about communications practices in the financial services, insurance and healthcare industries, interesting patterns began to emerge. In this post, we highlight a few of the key findings, plus how Smart Communications can help enterprises tackle these digital customer experience trends head-on. 

Trend #1: Businesses Will Try to Close the Communications Satisfaction Gap 

Communications are at the heart of a great digital customer experience. So much so that how enterprises communicate with their customers can determine their level of satisfaction with a business overall. Aside from offering effective products and services, there are few areas of business more essential than customer satisfaction.  

The challenge is that across the financial services, insurance and healthcare industries, there’s a disconnect between how well businesses think they communicate versus how customers feel about it. That gap — up to a 20-percentage points difference — represents a big opportunity to rethink customer engagement.  

By ensuring communications are timely, personalized and digital-first, businesses can ensure the end-to-end customer experience builds trust and loyalty.  

How Smart Communications Can Help 

By investing in a technology platform that empowers interactive, two-way conversations, businesses can ensure an exceptional experience across channels and devices. Businesses who operate across geographies and multiple brands can benefit from the Conversation Cloud™: the only scalable, pure cloud customer communications management platform. It’s specifically designed to take away the pain of template management while enhancing the ability to collect information, all while making it easy for customers to initiate conversations, regardless of channel.  

Trend #2: Businesses Will Take Customer Channel Preferences More Seriously to Avoid Negative Impacts to the Digital Customer Experience 

Today, customers are increasingly willing to speak up and share exactly how they want businesses to interact with them. And for enterprises, it’s more important than ever to ensure customers’ preferences are taken into account.  

According to our research, 61% of consumers said that information being provided through an inappropriate channel was a major source of frustration. And yet unfortunately, our research suggests that on average, only around half of communications are distributed to customers based on the channel they prefer.  

A key digital customer experience trend moving forward will be revamping communications efforts to ensure greater alignment with customer wants and needs. Enterprises must adopt interactive, omnichannel conversations to succeed.  

How Smart Communications Can Help 

It’s one thing to know how customers want to be communicated with – and quite another to deliver on that – especially as the complexity of communications grows just as new channels continue to proliferate. It’s important to partner with a technology provider with the right solutions and real-world expertise to deliver on the “right channel, right place, right time” promise. Our experience working with the world’s most sophisticated businesses across financial services, insurance and healthcare gives us the necessary resources to provide amazing digital customer experiences via orchestrated, omnichannel interactions at scale.  

Trend #3: Businesses Will Continue Migrating to the Cloud 

Customer expectations around digital are greater than ever. And while interactions across healthcare, insurance and financial services are very different from impulse buying on Amazon, consumers are comparing every interaction to their last best digital experience. 

That’s why it’s more important than ever to have the infrastructure in place, allowing enterprises to compete with companies that deliver incredible digital experiences day-in and day-out. Unfortunately, legacy systems simply aren’t built this way and struggle to keep up with the pace of change.  

While not a new trend, leading firms will continue their migration to the cloud. Our research shows that on average, 57% of business’ core systems will be cloud-based within the next 12 months.  

How Smart Communications Can Help 

We get it – the idea of moving systems that serve as the foundation of your business can be scary but  it doesn’t have to be. The benefit of partnering with Smart Communications is that you can quickly go “pure cloud” for your customer conversations – or ease into it over time by starting with our powerful integrations that connect with your legacy systems. The world is moving to cloud – there’s no doubt about that. But, you can control how it happens in your business with tools like Migration Studio. The important thing is to remain focused on the customer – and Smart Communications is the leader in enabling incredible end-to-end customer experiences.  

What’s Next?  

When change is the only constant, it’s nearly impossible to predict what might come next. But, investing in the customer will always pay dividends. We hope that knowing these digital customer experience trends will help your business achieve greater success today and in the days and months that follow. To learn more about each trend, and how you can prepare for it, download the full report, The State of Customer Conversations.