Enabling Growth At C2C Organisations With Customer Communication Mgmt

The world over, C2C organisations like Banks, Insurance Companies and Financial institutions are facing a tough economic climate. It is only natural that IT departments are being asked by the business heads, to provide solutions which align with the business priorities. For example, can IT help businesses increase their top-line, and also reduce costs at the same time? One of the ways to retain customers and generate more business is to have targeted and personalised communications with customers, based on their profiles and status. In this light, maximising the effectiveness of daily communications such as bills, statements and correspondence is becoming a top priority. For retaining customers, standardising customer experience, with consistent and updated information across a wide spectrum of customer touch points and media channels is essential. Ability to reduce communications cost by automation and monitoring of customer communications processes can also be the reason for IT to suggest such a solution to the Chief Marketing Officer.

On one hand, supporting “Green IT Initiatives” could be aligned with broader CSR initiatives, compliance to regulatory mandates and ability to empower the business users to participate in and quickly design their customer communications process could be significant drivers for IT to champion the CCM solution within their organisation on the other hand, the mandate for the CEOs and business heads, that IT be more aligned to Business can be fulfilled.

Using Customer Related Insights For Growth

The 21st century is being annunciated as the information economy, wherein knowledge is power. Let us take the example of banks. The more knowledge and information banks have at their disposal, better prepared and equipped will they be to handle the complexities and uncertainties of the economic ecosystem. So how is this unassailable knowledge extracted?

From customers of course!

The easier banks make it for customers to do business with them, the better it is, to gain an understanding of customer needs and the easier it becomes to enhance their relationship with them. The challenges that retail banks face today will not evaporate overnight. Banks will continue to face reduced marketing budgets, increased regulatory and compliance issues, ever demanding consumers and a diffident economy.

It is natural, in volatile times, for businesses to undertake serious self-introspection. The current economic gloom therefore throws up some intimidating questions:

• With budgets shrinking, how do banks and FIs meet all their regulatory obligations for communicating with customers and still improve and grow their customer relationships?

• How do banks capitalise on each opportunity to communicate while satisfying their customers’ needs to be acknowledged and valued?

• How can the wide assortment of data about customers be leveraged so as to provide a personalised, compelling and consistent series of communications that benefit the customer and at the same time, grow the revenue derived from them?

• How can banks improve the effectiveness of their communication channels and also propagate more environmentally friendly ways of communicating and fulfill their corporate social responsibility?

The questions are compelling but their answer lies in one comprehensive solution. The answer is Customer Communication Management (CCM). CCM simply means enhancing customer experience in a cost-effective manner by communicating and engaging with customers through a multitude of channels and mediums. CCM enables banks to connect with their customers by providing them with personal and immediate attention. CCM also ensures that banks have better control over their communications, provide an opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell their services while also keeping their operations profitable.

Enabling Cross-selling And Up-selling Through Personalised Communication

A customer in hand is better than two in the bush. I have already discussed the technique of using monthly bills and statements for cross selling purposes. Now the rationale here is that the cost of additional investment on an existing customer relationship is much lower than the cost of acquiring a new customer. The premise of reaching out to customers has already been established with existing customers, it is simply a matter of showing them relevant offers based on their preferences that encourage them to sign up for more of the bank’s products or services.

Additional sales bring extra knowledge about the customer. Every up-sell transacted with an existing customer gives a higher and deeper level of understanding about him. It enables banks to further enhance their offers. By integrating customer communication techniques with data modeling and advanced data management like in the case of CCM, it has become possible for banks to personalise offers on a person to person basis.

Cultivating Evangelists And Advocates Of Your Products

The most pivotal and long-term benefit of developing the relationship of such a sophisticated nature is that each time the customers extend their relationship with the bank, they move a step closer to the bank and one step away from its competitors. This philosophy fosters long standing relationships with customers and therefore every bank should strive to gain further insight and knowledge about customers, as each interaction will bear additional fruits of opportunity and sustained prosperity.

CCM - Enabling Compliance

Banks and FIs today generate thousands of documents every day. Documents are in the form of statements, policies, invoices, notifications, reports and other business-critical documents. The marketing departments are witnessing an exponential increase in the volume of correspondence, both physical and electronic. In the face of this challenge they are faced with the real challenge of managing, storing and archiving these documents. To compound this problem, organisations have to meet various compliance norms when it comes to storing and archiving business documents. Failure to do so can lead to penalties, financial loss, negative publicity and even criminal charges being levied against the company.

A CCM solution assists the company to respond to regulatory requirements more easily and cost effectively by ensuring timely communication, standardisation of document templates, forms, paragraphs, images and content across communication vehicles. The solution enables the company to verify the entire life cycle of a document that flows through the system, this is particularly vital incase of legal disputes or arbitrations.

CCM – Driving A Greener Tomorrow

In recent years, both the environmental rights groups and regulatory authorities have been equivocal in their efforts to sensitise the corporate world and push for greener technologies. Like all business sectors, banks and financial institutions will also need to deliver more environmentally friendly ways of communicating with prospects and customers. This is where a long term and sustained solution like a fully loaded customer communications management suite would be indispensible. With a host of solutions available in the market, banks have innovative means at their disposal to reach out and nurture their relationships with customers.

According to analysts, the greatest challenge will lie in cultivating and establishing the right balance between the different mediums of communication, i.e. integrating the print and digital media channels. The right mix should ensure maximum reach with maximum effectiveness and minimum cost. With the rise of social networking and social media on the internet, these avenues will also become an important marketing tool for banks in the years to come.

CCM – The New Age Enterprise Solution

According to Gartner, Global spending on enterprise software grew 8.5 percent in 2010 to US$245 billion following a 2.5 percent drop-off in 2009. This revival holds immense significance considering the economic despair of the past few years. It also means that corporations are again ready to invest, but as money has become dearer, organisations are approaching enterprise level investments with more responsibility, a clear eye on ROI, optimal utilisation of resources and goal oriented results.
CCM therefore embodies all the characteristics mentioned above. CCM allows business users to communicate with all parties in their preferred medium, whether it be email, voice, video, social media, or other traditional channels. The primary aim of CCM is to ensure consistency through easy management of content, augment customer experience, and respond instantly to external drivers like regulatory and market alterations.

Major benefits that a business enterprise will reap:

• Empower business users by providing them a structured, templatised and intuitive solution to share content with customers along with meeting a broader range of document creations requirements.

• CCM will support multi-channel, multi-format output that can be exported to a wide range of storage options.

• Ensure effective personalisation of all communication material

• Build a deeper and more intimate relationship with customers

• CCM will provide significant return on investment (ROI) and save companies from hours of creation and rework and result in a marked savings in FTE costs.

• Be more proactive towards external drivers like regulatory and market changes.

Conclusion

I sincerely feel that these are early days for Customer Communication Management. It is an enterprise solution that is in its nascent form but in ascendancy. The digital and traditional communication channels are in a state of premature convergence. With the unpredictable nature of tomorrow, there is a need to bring these mediums together and create a robust, intelligent, dynamic and quick communication platform to engage with customers.

In the end, it is simply a case of evolution in resource planning and management, the archaic systems are being phased out and the paradigm is gradually shifting towards CCM. The potential here is considerable; organisations that capitalise early on put themselves at an advantage and are more likely to reap rewards in terms of retrenchment, ROI and customer retention. It is after all the early bird that gets the worm.

The author is Vice President – Marketing, Newgen Software Technologies Limited.