The State of Digital Transformation in 2024: Overcoming Legacy Technology Barriers and Elevating Customer Experience

Posted on September 4, 2025 by Leigh Segall

By Leigh Segall, CEO at Smart Communications

Reflecting on the challenges of the past four years, organizations have faced unprecedented uncertainty and pressure to adapt. In 2023, innovation was stifled as organizations grappled with the looming specter of economic recessions. This led many to shelve critical digital transformation initiatives, putting them on hold as they navigated economic uncertainties. Now, emerging from this hiatus, we see a new chapter swiftly unfolding, marked by renewed momentum and a reinvigorated push towards digital transformation.

Closing the Digital Maturity Gap in 2024

Recent research has uncovered a remarkable surge in IT spending for 2024, with 72% of digital leaders doubling down on investments to propel their digital initiatives forward. This surge reflects a broader trend towards digital transformation, with global spending projected to reach a staggering 3.4 trillion US dollars by 2026—a nearly 3x increase over the last five years.

Yet, despite this momentum, significant challenges remain. According to Forrester, a mere 6% of organizations have attained advanced digital maturity, highlighting the pervasive gap between aspiration and achievement in the digital realm.

Legacy systems continue to consume a substantial portion of the overall IT budget, impeding innovation. In fact, 87% of CIOs cite the complexity of existing systems as a barrier to investing in next-generation services. Additionally, 34% of CIOs have identified replacing legacy technology as a top digital transformation goal for 2024, underscoring the urgency of modernization efforts.

Retiring Legacy Technology for Enhanced Engagement

When it comes to managing customer communications, organizations must address the lingering challenge of legacy communications technology. While many enterprises have made strides in modernizing their customer communications with cloud-based solutions, a significant number still grapple with outdated, on-premise, channel-based systems.

These legacy solutions, acquired over time, pose a multitude of challenges—they are costly to maintain, lead to duplication of efforts, impede business agility, and detract from the customer experience. To truly harness the benefits of a modern CCM platform, we see many organizations looking to retire these outdated systems and transition to a centralized, cloud-based approach. By streamlining and automating customer communications processes across all delivery channels, organizations can deliver a seamless customer experience, maximize their return on investment, and position themselves for success in the digital age.

Rethinking Forms Processes: Digitally Transforming Transactions into Engaging Interactions

This imperative extends beyond customer communications to encompass forms processes—a critical yet often overlooked aspect of the customer experience.

Over the past several years, analysts like Kaspar Roos, the Founder and CEO of Aspire CCS, have been vocal about the evolution of Customer Communications Management (CCM) to Customer Experience Management (CXM).

According to Roos, the forms sector, mirroring the broader CCM market, is undergoing its own transformation. He emphasizes the growing need for dedicated solutions to facilitate interactive data collection, validation, and processing as the market moves towards greater bi-directional interactions.

The combination of customer communications and customer data collection, once modernized and transformed, together play pivotal roles in shaping the omnichannel customer interactions of tomorrow.

Legacy forms processes, characterized by manual, outdated, and disconnected practices, present a significant barrier to delivering seamless and cohesive customer experiences. Forms serve as a vital touchpoint between organizations and their customers, facilitating data collection and driving internal and external processes. Yet, despite their importance, forms processes have been largely neglected in the broader CX strategy, leading to a noticeable gap between digitally transformed customer communications and legacy-style form processes.

According to Forrester, 82% of organizations still use paper-based processes to some extent. The ramifications of this oversight are profound. Customers are confronted with outdated, cumbersome forms processes that fail to meet their expectations for convenience and efficiency. Frustrated by the complexity and repetitive nature of these processes, customers are left feeling dissatisfied—a stark contrast to the seamless experiences they encounter in other digital interactions. In an era where every interaction should leave customers feeling recognized and valued, outdated forms processes fall short of meeting customer expectations for convenience and efficiency.

Transitioning From Static Forms to Smarter Data Collection

However, the tide is turning. By redefining what a “form” entails, organizations can transform static transactions into dynamic, intelligent interactions that leave customers feeling valued and empowered.

Smart forms or data collection solutions leverage automation and intelligence to guide users through complex processes, adapting dynamically based on the information provided. By eliminating unnecessary fields and pre-filling data from existing databases, you will minimize customer effort, improve data accuracy, and enhance overall efficiency.

Moreover, forms of the future facilitate bi-directional communication, simplifying interactions between customers and employees. Whether online or on a mobile device, these digital experiences enable seamless data exchange, leveraging features such as mobile cameras for enhanced functionality. By mimicking a conversation between the customer and the organization, smart data collection solutions foster engagement and reduce the likelihood of customer abandonment.

Recognizing the critical role it plays in the CX landscape, organizations are beginning to integrate intelligent data collection into their broader CCM strategies. Smart Communications™ leads the charge with SmartIQ™—a revolutionary forms management solution designed to automate and transform data collection processes.

Delivering Future-Ready Customer Conversations

SmartIQ empowers organizations to create and manage digital forms with ease, leveraging a low-code web-based design tool that requires minimal IT intervention. By automating data sharing and streamlining business processes, SmartIQ enhances operational efficiency and reduces technical debt.

Furthermore, SmartIQ’s analytics engine provides organizations with invaluable insights into process performance, enabling continuous improvement and optimization. Armed with detailed analysis, organizations can identify bottlenecks, refine processes, and enhance the overall customer experience.

By embracing solutions like SmartIQ, organizations can bridge the gap between customer communications and forms processes, delivering future-ready customer conversations and reducing customer effort.

The synergy between SmartCOMM™ and SmartIQ enables organizations to consolidate, centralize, and automate data collection processes and customer communications across all channels, unlocking a myriad of benefits. From reducing manual work and operating costs to ensuring data security and regulatory compliance, our industry-leading SaaS solutions empower organizations to keep pace with evolving customer expectations and drive sustainable growth.

If you’re interested in learning how you can consolidate and modernize your customer communications solutions, one of our experts would be happy to provide a free consultation. If you’re looking to transform your forms processes with SmartIQ, I encourage you to request a demo, or visit our demo zone to see it in action.

Beyond Integration: How to Achieve CCM Consolidation for Operational Success

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Chris Murphy

By Chris Murphy, VP of Product Marketing at Smart Communications

It’s a typical Monday morning, and you’re gearing up for a new project at the office. The company’s call center phone number is changing, and you’ve been tasked to track down every instance of its existence across all communication technologies, both physical and digital. As you dive into the maze of legacy systems and diverse communication channels, it becomes evident that this won’t be a quick fix; it’ll end up being an initiative that will unfold over the coming weeks and months.

Now, imagine all customer communications are managed – regardless of delivery channel – by one centralized system, allowing you to make those changes in just a few mouse clicks and with the right controls in place to fully understand each instance of where the phone number is used and any dependencies from a single location. With the ease and speed with which you can make these updates, you’ll enhance the customer experience and reduce risks for the company. This might be like scenarios that you’ve experienced in the past, especially when you consider how businesses are ever mindful of increased regulations and improving operational efficiency but can’t quite figure out how to reach those goals with their current legacy customer communications management (CCM) systems.

In this article, we’ll shed light on the downsides of managing customer communications across multiple systems and the benefits of CCM consolidation. First, let’s look at what CCM consolidation means.

What is CCM Consolidation?

CCM consolidation involves unifying disparate customer communication processes and tools into one streamlined, enterprise-grade CCM solution. CCM is the linchpin of meaningful customer interactions, and operational efficiency. Many large organizations have acquired channel-specific tools and solutions for managing customer communications over many years. This approach to creating, delivering, and managing customer communications has proven to be a waste of resources and money, often requiring manual upgrades and maintenance from already stretched departments.

As organizations adopt cloud-based solutions to stay agile and responsive, integrating CCM becomes key to maintaining a unified and effective communication strategy, reducing costs, and increasing efficiency.

The Top 5 Benefits of CCM Consolidation

Here are five benefits to consolidating your customer communications management systems.

1. Enhanced Optimization & Efficiency
Organizations today need to do more with less. CCM consolidation serves as the catalyst for optimizing and streamlining communication processes and driving operational efficiency. By centralizing tools and processes, businesses can reduce redundancies, eliminate silos, and operate with peak efficiency, ultimately delivering a more responsive and agile customer experience.

2. Attract the Right Talent
Candidates in the market who possess the necessary skills to manage and maintain legacy applications is becoming more difficult. In fact, a report from Aspire asserted that 25% of employees with some level of communications responsibility overwhelmingly cite outdated technology as the primary driver behind their efforts to seek new employment. Modern, user-friendly solutions will help your business attract and retain top talent who have the skills to focus on more innovative projects that help your company grow into a future-ready brand.

3. Cost Reduction
Beyond operational efficiency, CCM consolidation brings substantial financial benefits by eliminating the ongoing maintenance costs of having multiple CCM solutions. As we touched on in the point above, doing away with aging platforms means you won’t need to sift through a diminishing group of skilled resources to find someone who knows how to make manual upgrades and/or perform maintenance on legacy systems.

Furthermore, a consolidated approach not only enhances compliance but also reduces the costs associated with managing disparate systems. It’s a strategic move that aligns financial prudence with operational excellence.

4. Improved Customer Experience
In a world where customer experience reigns supreme, a unified and consistent approach is paramount. CCM consolidation plays a pivotal role in crafting a seamless and engaging digital communication experience for customers. By ensuring consistency across all touchpoints, businesses can elevate customer satisfaction, loyalty, and glean invaluable insights for continuous improvement.

5. Empowered Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is no longer a buzzword but a strategic imperative for businesses. CCM consolidation emerges as a linchpin in aligning with broader digital transformation goals. By integrating seamlessly into a single, modern CCM solution, your business can focus on what any modern business needs to do: enhance agility, adapt to shifting consumer demands, launch new products and services, add new channels, and integrate with key technologies.

What’s Your Stake in CCM Consolidation?

Depending on your job role, the stake you place in CCM consolidation and its importance in achieving business priorities/goals, may vary. We’ve taken this into account and compiled job function insights below:

IT Decision Makers
In this role, the weight of strategic technology decisions rests on your shoulders. The alignment of infrastructure with consolidated CCM platforms is more than just a cornerstone—it’s the bedrock of your responsibilities. Consolidation ensures not only the robustness of your technological backbone, it also gears it towards maintaining a tech-savvy and customer-centric environment. Integrating and streamlining communication systems helps you empower your team to navigate the digital landscape with agility, fostering an environment where technology is not just a tool but a strategic asset.

Customer Experience Executives
As a Customer Experience Executive, orchestrating an exceptional care plan and customer journey is your mission. With consolidated communication platforms, you can ensure that every communication touchpoint contributes to a cohesive narrative, elevating customer satisfaction and loyalty. Your pursuit of excellence in CX finds its perfect partner in CCM consolidation.

Digital Transformation Leads
If you’re at the helm of digital transformation initiatives, you undoubtedly recognize the pivotal role of CCM consolidation in shaping the future. Making CCM consolidation a big part of your strategic digital plans is super important for accomplishing a transformation. When you blend consolidation into your existing projects, you’re setting your company up to not just keep up with tech changes, but to use them for long-term success.

Operational Heads
Operational efficiency is your domain, and as a leader in this space, CCM consolidation will help you enhance processes across the business. It’s more than streamlining communication processes; it’s about enhancing workflow management and contributing to overall operational efficiency. Consolidating your communication platforms will lead to cost-effectiveness and a more efficient, responsive operational landscape.

Line of Business Users
Line of Business Users need the ability to take ownership over certain aspects of customer communications. As subject matter experts, they understand the impact of being able to make changes quickly and without the reliance on IT. This is made possible by consolidating to a cloud based CCM solution that empowers users to make updates easily and efficiently.

Recognizing and addressing these challenges is not just a hurdle; it’s a strategic maneuver towards ensuring a successful implementation. It’s a proactive stance that prepares you for the process of CCM consolidation.

Conclusion

In short, CCM consolidation streamlines operations, amplifies customer engagement, and ensures a future-ready approach to communication.

As your business stands at the crossroads of digital evolution, the call to action is clear: embrace CCM consolidation to achieve operational efficiency and elevated customer experiences.

If you’re ready to take the first step into a transformative journey, visit our CCM consolidation webpage to learn more. Or, get in touch with one of our experts today to begin the process of seamless CCM migration.

Outsourcing Communications: Can Non-Core Activity Cause a Meltdown? Yes.

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Scott Draeger

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

Many banks, building societies, insurers, and government agencies routinely outsource customer communications. These organizations consider the production of customer communications to be a “non-core” business activity. But when a service bureau experiences financial difficulties, these organizations scramble to contain the damage of a communication meltdown. Recent developments at Communisis, as covered by Printweek, are a cautionary tale for organizations that outsource too much of the valuable part of their voice to a third party.

Suddenly, many leading organizations learned that lawyers, businesspeople, and consultants in other countries are important stakeholders in their customer communication supply chain. “More broadly, we [Communisis] have been working closely with our advisors, customers and stakeholders over the past few months to explore a number of strategic options which will enable Communisis to move forward independently on a positive and sustainable footing,” per a Communisis spokesperson as quoted by Printweek.

For organizations outsourcing communications, chaos at a key supplier throws leadership teams into crisis mode for a supposedly low-risk “non-core” activity. We have evidence that has firmly established that communication is a core business activity. At a minimum, impacted organizations have been forced into wasting months of effort in crisis management activities, massively increasing the cost of a “non-core” activity.

Organizations that internally manage the design, content, rules, and other IP associated with their customer communications are immune to situations like this. The design, content, rules, and other IP that form the customer experience layer of your business should be entirely within your control. Smart Communications' clients using SmartCOMM™ and/or SmartIQ™ have total control over their voice across all channels and interactions while retaining the flexibility to manage the truly non-core production process in any way they choose.

Leaders have already been moving in this direction by shifting to digital communications. According to the Printweek article, “Its [Communisis’] transactional print business took a big hit with sales down 20% as banking customers accelerated their migration to digital comms.” This demonstrates the degree to which banks, and other industries, are regaining control over their digital communications.

Take notice of this situation, as hundreds of millions of communications in the UK will experience a change in the supply chain. Hopefully, it will be invisible to the customers and recipients due to the heroic efforts of reactive leadership teams. For you, it is far better to avoid the chance of a “non-core” meltdown by retaining control of the design, rules, content, and other IP that support your customer relationships. Learn why Smart Communications has earned the only “Customer First” award for Customer Communications Management from Gartner.

Discover how The Conversation Cloud makes it easy for highly regulated industries to maintain compliance and mitigate risk, or get in touch for a CCM Migration Consultation.

How Enterprise Risk Management Helps Enterprises Safeguard Their Reputation

Posted on October 24, 2023 by SmartComm

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

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

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

Shifting Regulations Present New Opportunities for Risk Management and Compliance Management

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

Insurance: Evolving requirements

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

Financial Services: Under the microscope

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

Healthcare: Privacy law updates

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

WCAG Driving Change Across Enterprises

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

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

Reducing Risk for Highly Regulated Industries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on September 25, 2023 by SmartComm

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

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

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

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

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

Key Challenges Accelerating the Pace of Communication Transformation

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

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

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

Creating SMARTER Member Conversations

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

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

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

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

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

Collecting Open Enrollment Choices Digitally

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

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

Streamline the Contract Generation Process

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

Globalization and Optimization Across the Enterprise – at Scale

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

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

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

How Banks Are Transforming CX in a Volatile Credit Market With Digital Lending Technology

Posted on August 1, 2023 by SmartComm

Times are certainly strange for lenders and credit servicing businesses. Economic data is telling competing stories about the health of the global economy and overall lending trends. Either way, consumers are still requesting new loans or lines of credit and manual processing isn’t cutting it. Could digital lending technology be a catalyst for lenders to future-proof?

In some markets, demand for credit has continued to increase. For example, Ally Bank reports a “25% jump since 2019 in [auto] loan applications from people with incomes above $50,000.” The Los Angeles Times reports that American consumers currently have auto loans totaling $1.4 trillion, double the amount from 10 years ago and now larger than credit card debt, citing the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. College loans have grown so fast that one in seven Americans carry student loan debt.

Yet historically high inflation and recession fears are denting demand in other areas, as some borrowers pull back. Auto loan delinquencies are on the rise, particularly for young and subprime debtors, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Auto loans more than 60 days late were up 30% in May from a year earlier, although defaults so far remain below pre-pandemic levels, Cox Automotive said.” This means loan servicing and collections staffs are under more pressure than ever.

What’s Driving Lending Demand Now?

On the consumer side, many people have spent the savings they accumulated during the pandemic. This has driven an increase in credit card loans, with JP Morgan and Wells Fargo both reporting a 17% jump. This seems to be offsetting in some ways the weakening home mortgage demand brought about by higher interest rates. Further evidence of this trend: “Average loans for Citi’s personal banking and wealth management division, which includes cards, rose roughly 4% from a year ago.”

On the commercial side, the war in Ukraine and the need to cover costs due to rising inflation seem to be driving the need for financing. In 2Q22, “JPMorgan, for example, saw strong growth in corporate and industrial loans, which grew 6% on higher use of revolving facilities and new accounts opened.”

Shifting Regulations Put Pressure on Lenders to Stay Agile

Additionally, changing government regulations are keeping lenders on their toes. For example, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is launching a new Consumer Duty. It’s designed to improve the customer experience but will inevitably put extra pressure on lenders to ensure compliance. It calls out clear and understandable communications as a requirement, meaning that lenders must have robust content review policies and have technology capable of rapid changes at scale. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is also increasing scrutiny in the U.S., especially in the area of debt collections.

Now’s The Time for Consumer Lenders to Invest in Digital-First Customer Experiences

So, at the end of the day, what are lenders to do with so much curious, conflicting data and a rapidly shifting regulatory environment? What they should do regardless of external circumstances: focus on the customer and their evolving needs. Specifically, this means investing in creating fast, easy, digital-first lending experiences.

In fact, banks are investing in improving digital lending as a key priority, according to analyst firm Celent. In its IT Strategy and Priorities for Retail Banking 2022 survey, Celent reports 56% of banks are investing in improving the digital lending experience — the single biggest product priority.

We’re seeing this in our conversations with banks and lenders as well, speaking with transformation leaders who are finding a return on the investments that modernize the way they engage and communicate with borrowers as well as front office customer service staff and internal back office loan operations teams.

Here are a few things consumer lenders can do to take advantage of this unique environment, while setting themselves up for success regardless of what the future holds.

Double down on digital customer experience. As we revealed in our ebook, 5 Trends Shaping the Next Generation of Client Reporting, research from EY suggests that clients are willing to pay more for better digital experiences. You can grow rapidly and avoid price sensitivity by boosting your digital lending technology, particularly ensuring that mobile experiences are just as excellent as desktop.
Automate as many processes as possible. As The Bancorp and many other leading financial services firms (who also happen to be Smart Communications customers) can attest, the more you automate the lending journey, the faster and easier it is for customers to work with you. That translates into big gains in terms of more originations and higher margins, while reducing costs like manually rekeying data, postage and printing, and other relics of the time before digital.
Increase agility to navigate regulatory changes. For customers in collections, or in areas like student loans, make sure you have the business agility to make changes to your communications and forms processes quickly. For example, the UK’s FCA, US CFPB, or Australia’s APRA regularly issue new guidance that must be complied with, but it doesn’t have to derail your operations. The right technology gives you the power to quickly modify your communications at scale, even analyzing tone and readability scores.

What’s Next for Lending?

While everyone’s crystal ball is cloudier than usual, experts are making some predictions on what’s ahead. Though Morgan Stanley said it grew its loans by $7 billion year over year in 2Q22, their CFO still predicts consumer demand will soften as central banks around the world raise rates to ease inflation. Similarly, the research director at CFRA Research predicts “commercial loan growth would be flat in the second half” of 2022.

Another major trend we expect to intensify is more focus on embedded finance and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) credit, with banks partnering with non-finance entities closer to the point of sale. Even if consumers don’t pursue large loan amounts, many will still take advantage of BNPL financing options on purchases big and small. The appeal of getting what you want now and dealing with the consequences later may rule the day as bank balances shrink due to higher costs of all types of goods and services. [We’re currently partnering with OneSpan on a survey around Embedded Lending trends. Contact us for details on the results.]

How Can Digital Lending Technology Help Lenders Prepare for Uncertain Times Ahead?

Though no one really knows what the future may hold, if you’re responsible for growing your loan portfolio, building loyalty or reducing credit default risks, here are some steps you can take to futureproof your business, come what may.

Make the right technology investments now so you’re ready for what’s next. Don’t wait for a rainy day (or an invitation from angry shareholders) to invest in improving your lending customer experiences. Modernize every aspect of your digital lending journey, improving integration and agility with flexible cloud-based solutions wherever possible. Expand your use of digital channels such as SMS, chatbots, virtual meeting rooms or even home devices to communicate with customers. Don’t let your competitors leave you in the digital dust.
Reduce inefficiencies and go lean. The tighter your operations are now, the better positioned you’ll be no matter what happens. Investing in digital lending technology that eliminates manual processes while delighting customers is a win for everyone. Reducing friction for the customer means improved conversion rates – and more revenue.
Improve the personalization and consistency of your communications. Customers want communications that are relevant, timely and available on the channel and device they prefer. They expect you to know who they are and what other financial products they have with your institution, across every interaction. By choosing a robust customer communications platform, integrated with your core systems and e-signature platform, you’ll be able to orchestrate a truly omnichannel experience that puts the customer in the center of the lending journey.

We hope this advice is helpful, but we’re just scratching the surface of digital lending technology. For a deep dive into the many ways lenders can modernize their digital lending experiences, check out our new white paper, 6 Ways to Change the Conversation in Lending.

About the Author
Karen Oakland is Vice President of Vertical Marketing, Financial Services for Smart Communications, focusing on thought leadership and solutions development for banking, investment advisory firms, and other financial services institutions. For more than 20 years she has been dedicated to helping enterprises transform the way they communicate and engage with their customers, partners, advisors, and other stakeholders, driving revenue and profitability. Karen previously held leadership roles with content and business intelligence software providers including Intelledox, dunnhumby, Thunderhead, FileNet and Epicor.

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

Posted on July 11, 2023 by SmartComm

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

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

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

Business Drivers for CCM Migration from Legacy to Cloud

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

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

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

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

RELATED READING TO DOWNLOAD | ‘A CCM Migration Roadmap’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Future of Personalization in Insurance Claims

Posted on July 10, 2023 by SmartComm

By: Ruth Fisk, VP Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications

Customers today have sky-high expectations. They expect to be able to do whatever they need digitally and expect around-the-clock access to services from any device. And they expect ease, speed and personalization in every digital experience—not just when it comes to online shopping or ordering food. Now more than ever, consumers want the same simplicity and on-demand availability they’ve become accustomed to with delivery services and similar apps in all aspects of their lives.

For insurers, this means radically transforming processes that have traditionally been manual and paper-based. As new players enter the field, providers need to catch up to the latest digital capabilities or risk losing market share. That’s why insurers are prioritizing overall efficiency, faster settlements and reduced policyholder effort. As part of this effort to become more efficient and effective, insurance leaders are focusing on one of the most common pain points: claims management.

Smart Communications, in partnership with Salesforce and Insurance Innovators, recently conducted a survey of more than 150 insurance executives and found that 95% agree that the claims experience is where insurers have the greatest opportunity to win loyalty—but also the greatest risk of losing it. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into this new research and look at how insurers can:

Use personalization to reimagine the claims process for today’s consumer needs and priorities
Build brand trust and loyalty
Get to know their customers better
Drive long-term growth

All of the information below is from the report Hyper-personalization in Claims: Streamlining Processes to Build Loyalty and Trust, produced in partnership with Salesforce and Insurance Innovators.

The Current State of Personalization in Insurance Claims

Previously, filing an insurance claim meant a lot of forms and hassle. While the insurance industry has been on a somewhat slower digital transformation trajectory compared to other industries like retail or banking, recent world events threw that arc into overdrive.

When the global pandemic struck, sweeping stay-at-home orders brought about transformative change to countless activities, from how we work to how we get food. Suddenly, people were doing everything digitally — holding virtual meetings, doing mobile banking, even ordering groceries online and having them delivered right to their door.

Meeting consumer expectations is at the forefront of every claims manager’s mind, especially while insurers seek to exceed their claimants’ expectations — while still balancing the need to effectively investigate and settle claims. To do so, the claims experience requires digital solutions to support hyper-personalization and two-way customer conversations, while also providing easy-to-use interfaces and seamlessly delivering information across customers’ preferred channels and devices.

The increased exposure to digital services in the past two years has broadly impacted consumer expectations. And insurers recognize this—85% believe that the level of live interaction customers experience with home deliveries has set a new benchmark for the insurance claims experience. Poor experiences include paper-based forms, tedious processes and having to repeatedly enter the same information. In a highly competitive market, just one bad experience can cost the loss of that customer’s business for life.

Insurers need to level up to meet these new expectations. Keep in mind, insurance interactions will be measured against the customer’s last best digital experience. That means insurers are being compared with big brands such as Amazon, Netflix and Instacart which calls for radical change. The good news is that change is definitely possible through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which can enable insurers to better align their processes and software to meet customers’ growing expectations. Even better, the data below shows that (at least some) insurers are catching on:

Insurer AI expectations by end of 2023:

88% will pre-populate FNOL forms
83% will tailor scripts
70% will adapt forms in real time
67% will allow channel shifting
43% will use AI for omnichannel orchestration

There’s a real opportunity for insurers to meet the moment and rethink outdated processes. In addition to simplifying claims, protecting valuable customer data is also critical in today’s digital world. Not only are paper forms inefficient, but they also put sensitive data at risk. Digitizing forms helps improve processes and protect customer data, which enables straight-through processing to allow for faster claims.

Hyper-personalization: The Future of Insurance

According to our survey, insurers currently have three top claim-related priorities: significantly reducing time-to-decision, building trust with claimants and improving customer loyalty.

The industry believes hyper-personalization will result in:

Increased efficiency (89%)
Faster settlement times (84%)
Deeper trust and loyalty (94%)

To deliver on all three goals, insurers will need to adopt modern technology platforms that can help them personalize customer conversations. This means pulling customer data into digital forms to save time and hassle and making the relevant forms, processes and information available around the clock.

It’s no longer enough to add digital experiences to a website. Today’s customers expect to engage across channels—from mobile apps to social media. And to switch channels when needed, without having to start over. Taking advantage of sophisticated technology solutions allows insurers to meet customers where they are.

The research found that 83% of insurers agree that their ability to shift channels with customer needs and circumstances is a key factor in deepening trust and loyalty. Insurers can exceed expectations by providing seamless cross-channel experiences, which allow policyholders to fit interactions into their day without disruption. For example, they should be able to start a claim on a mobile app and follow up via web chat without losing the thread or having to answer the same questions again.

How Automation Can Help Insurers Meet the Moment

To meet today’s customer expectations, insurers need to focus on creating the kind of digital interactions that build trust and loyalty. They need to simplify and streamline processes, reducing the hassle factor when it comes to filing and managing claims. To drive the kind of customer satisfaction and retention that leads to long-term revenue growth, it’s time to bring hyper-personalization into the picture.

Hyper-personalization is about pairing customer data with automation to tailor communications and experiences individually, and at scale. Pulling existing customer data into AI-powered smart forms reduces customer effort—a common claims pain point. And by streamlining FNOL interactions as well as status updates, decisions and settlements can be made faster.

Where claims handlers have traditionally spent significant time asking questions and collecting information, automation can now do the work instead. This saves time on both sides and frees up staff to provide personal support for the more complex, high-value cases when a human touch is really needed. Plus, customizing conversations makes the whole experience more personal, so customers feel seen and appreciated—a key component of building brand loyalty.

In the realm of insurance claims, hyper-personalizing customer conversations significantly increases end-to-end efficiency, resulting in a higher quality and more satisfying experience for the claimant.

Change the Conversation with Cloud Technology

The best way to deliver hyper-personalization in claims is for insurers to invest in and adopt a cloud-first strategy that focuses on optimizing the end-to-end customer experience. The Conversation Cloud helps insurers move beyond paper-based processes to implement a digital-first strategy at scale, optimize the end-to-end customer experience and make every interaction SMARTER.

The right digital platform works seamlessly with core systems including claims management tools — giving insurers a way to turn one-way, transactional messages into two-way, interactive conversations. Insurers can then put existing customer data to use and enjoy frictionless experiences when collecting new data. And with an omnichannel approach, it’s easy to meet customers where they are on their preferred channels and devices — bringing the convenience they expect into the insurance experience, too.

Investing in a solution that enables insurers to provide personalized claims experiences yields measurable returns, including:

89% increased efficiency
74% reduction in settlement time
74% reduction in customer effort

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To take a deeper dive into the information shared in this blog post, check out Hyper-personalization in Claims: Streamlining Processes to Build Loyalty and Trust, an infographic produced in collaboration with Salesforce and Insurance Innovators.

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

Posted on July 10, 2023 by Stephanie Clarke

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

Understanding the Limitations of OCR

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

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

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

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

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

Rethinking Data Capture and Digital Transformation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Move Beyond Static Forms with SmartIQ

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

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

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

Posted on June 20, 2023 by SmartComm

By Eileen Potter, VP Insurance Marketing at Smart Communications

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

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

Focus Areas for Insurers to Remain Customer-Centric

Build Greater Trust

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

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

Communicate Clearly

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

Deliver More Human Experiences

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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Closing the Digital Maturity Gap in 2024

Retiring Legacy Technology for Enhanced Engagement

Rethinking Forms Processes: Digitally Transforming Transactions into Engaging Interactions

Transitioning From Static Forms to Smarter Data Collection

Delivering Future-Ready Customer Conversations

What is CCM Consolidation?

The Top 5 Benefits of CCM Consolidation

What’s Your Stake in CCM Consolidation?

Conclusion

If you’re ready to take the first step into a transformative journey, visit our CCM consolidation webpage to learn more. Or, get in touch with one of our experts today to begin the process of seamless CCM migration.

Discover how The Conversation Cloud makes it easy for highly regulated industries to maintain compliance and mitigate risk, or get in touch for a CCM Migration Consultation.

Shifting Regulations Present New Opportunities for Risk Management and Compliance Management

WCAG Driving Change Across Enterprises

Reducing Risk for Highly Regulated Industries

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

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

What’s Driving Lending Demand Now?

Shifting Regulations Put Pressure on Lenders to Stay Agile

Now’s The Time for Consumer Lenders to Invest in Digital-First Customer Experiences

What’s Next for Lending?

How Can Digital Lending Technology Help Lenders Prepare for Uncertain Times Ahead?

We hope this advice is helpful, but we’re just scratching the surface of digital lending technology. For a deep dive into the many ways lenders can modernize their digital lending experiences, check out our new white paper, 6 Ways to Change the Conversation in Lending.

Business Drivers for CCM Migration from Legacy to Cloud

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

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

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

The Current State of Personalization in Insurance Claims

Hyper-personalization: The Future of Insurance

How Automation Can Help Insurers Meet the Moment

Change the Conversation with Cloud Technology

Understanding the Limitations of OCR

Rethinking Data Capture and Digital Transformation

Move Beyond Static Forms with SmartIQ

Focus Areas for Insurers to Remain Customer-Centric

Conclusion

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