customer communications trends to watch in …...top 12 customer communications trends to watch in...

Customer Communications Trends to Watch in 2019 and Beyond

Top 12 Customer Communications Trends to Watch in 2019 and Beyond | 2


INTRODUCTIONAt the rate technology evolves, five years from now, we might expect thousands of contextually-driven, ultra-personalized messages to reach our customers at exactly the time they are needed. Certainly, they will be delivered through all sorts of new devices, many integrated into cars, clothes, glasses, appliances and other interesting places.

How will new technology shape the future of customer communications?

We went straight to the source and asked hundreds of your peers which trends they believe will have a meaningful impact on customer communications over the next five years.

The results are compelling.

Through our research, we were able to uncover 12 pivotal customer communications trends to watch in 2019 and beyond. This eBook features thoughtful perspectives from our customers, partners, industry experts and employees about how they see the customer communications management (CCM) industry evolving over the next five years, and what companies must do today in order to adequately prepare.

In 2019, customers expect every company they do business with to act and interact like their favorite technology brands. Today’s hyper-connected consumers are using mobile technology to research, shop and make purchases and they expect the organizations they do business with to communicate with them on a personalized, relevant and contextual basis.

In many cases, consumer expectations far surpass an enterprises’ ability to deliver. If consumer expectations are high now, what will their demands be five years from now? How will they want to interact with brands in 2019 and beyond? What foundations must be put in place today in order for organizations to be ready (and able) to engage with customers in 2024?

Today, people in your company are considering investments in technology that will affect your ability to communicate with your customers for years to come. Some of these choices will improve your communications in the future. Others will not. The decisions you make today are critical.

We went straight to the source and asked hundreds of your peers which trends they believe will have a meaningful impact on customer communications over the next five years.


TREND #1: CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WILL REMAIN A TOP PRIORITY

We all know the importance of customer experience in the business world today – it is key for maintaining customer loyalty, continued growth, and staying competitive in the business world. Enterprises will continue to prioritize customer experience as one of several key strategic objectives for 2019 and beyond. In addition to customer experience, digital transformation initiatives will remain high on the priority list since it is a key link that binds together both CCM and customer experience management (CXM).

For the second year in a row, CIOs reported that they most often lead digital transformation initiatives within their organizations (28%). Next are CEOs, coming in at 23%, followed by boards (14%), CDO (11%), chief innovation officers (11%), CMOs (5%; down from 19% in 2017), and CXOs (5%).

Altimeter: The State of Digital Transformation 2018-2019

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Gina Ferrara, Senior Analyst, Madison Advisors


I believe that in 2019 the CCM market will continue its evolution towards Customer Experience (CX). This does not mean that the more traditional customer communications will go away - the need for bank statements, insurance policies and business correspondence will remain, but they will be embedded in digital applications and become part of an overall CX strategy that optimizes customer interaction for enterprises.

“ This means that more thought will need to be given to the consistency of communications (in tone-of-voice and look-and-feel, for instance); how it fits into the overall customer journey; how further interactions are being driven; and how the information captured can be conveyed in easier and better ways. When shifting those communications to digital and interactive formats, emerging technology such as big data analytics, machine learning, and chat bots can be leveraged to turn communication end-points into mid-points that drive further interaction. This will help businesses reduce cost and improve the effectiveness of communications, as well as to create an easier and more relevant communication experience for the recipient.

Kaspar Roos, Founder & Principal Analyst, Aspire


TREND #2: BI-DIRECTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS

Relationships are built on communication which puts CCM front and center, but more and more emphasis will be placed on bi-directional communications vs. just outbound communications. This means that data from inbound communications will be extracted and incorporated for data analytics purposes to use data more “intelligently” for personalization and for what I call delivery of “just in time” communications.

CCM is evolving from unidirectional to bidirectional communications. Digital channels make it possible for CCM vendors to provide features for the customer to communicate back to the sending organization. Examples include, pursuing an advertisement, paying a bill, checking the status of a shipment, or providing product review feedback. This two-way communication reflects the growing emphasis in customer relationship management on conversation and interaction.

Forrester Report: Predicts 2019: Technological Convergence of Content Services, January 2019

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We will see organizations finally linking engagement to communication, and understanding that a communication is the mid-point in a customer’s journey, not an isolated one-way transferal of information about a single item for a single internal process.

With this, companies will begin to see communications as the opening of a conversation and we will see a marked increase in the amount of interactivity available within each communication sent, to allow the customer to begin as many conversations as they need.

Those that deliver this transformation first will be in prime position to reap the financial rewards that come with engaging with and understanding the customers’ needs.

“Andrew Stevens,

Product Marketing Manager/Global Banking

Specialist, Quadient


TREND #3: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & DATA ANALYTICS

. . . communications will utilize artificial intelligence and data analytics tools to predict customer needs and their next action. Intelligent use of data will be key for companies to demonstrate that they know their customers, understand their needs and are willing to provide the best experience possible – no matter the channel the customer prefers.

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I see CCM becoming more interactive with advancement in AI technology. An actual conversation will take place across different touch points.


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Mike Zink, Marketing – Partner Software Solutions, Canon Solutions America


TREND #4: TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS & API’S

From a technology perspective, I envision more partnerships between companies to create robust solutions that in the end, allows the enterprise to easily integrate their point solutions together through open APIs. On the enterprise side, those burdened with legacy systems and unable to optimize their customer communications platform may fall behind their competitors unless drastic changes are made, which could potentially include outsourcing CCM altogether to a service provider or by investing in cloud solutions, which were previously restricted due to security concerns.

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We continue to hear from customers that they want to extend data-driven, just-in-time marketing offers to their customers/account holders across all channels (particularly e-mail). They want to follow up on those offers consistently ensuring that no lead is left behind, sending additional e-mails, text messages, mail pieces, etc.

At the same time, clients want to know all of the different communications being sent out on their behalf. They want to be able to review the current versions of all documents and emails and know where the data comes from that personalizes these documents and the conditions that trigger them. They are asking for Quadient’s Customer Journey Mapping without knowing that a potential solution like that is even available.

“Sid Haas, Vice

President of Business Development, LKCS

A lot of self-service applications will open up in the coming years. And blockchain will also play a role in shaping the CCM of the future.

“Amit Sawhney, CEO, FCI


TREND 5#: CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING & ANALYTICS

Customer experience is not just about the ability to provide a digital experience – it is about providing easy experiences. I envision even more emphasis being placed not only on customer journey mapping exercises, but on journey analytics to understand the complete lifecycle of particular interactions and communications exchanged along the way. It will also heighten awareness of supporting processes that may still be paper intensive, thus highlighting areas of opportunity for digital transformation and use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology.

For years, CCM has managed service communications between companies and customers, delivering correspondence and recurring statements based on data stored in systems of record.

But today, Infrastructure and Operations (I&O’s) ability to link CCM to all points in the customer journey is gaining ground with stronger mobile support and integration with marketing automation and digital experience delivery platforms.

Forrester Report: Now Tech – Customer Communications Management, Q1 2019


“Gina Ferrara, Senior Analyst, Madison Advisors


Even though businesses must communicate with their customers across a higher number of channels than ever before, today’s consumers expect a single and consistent experience that is personalized and relevant regardless of the channel—or more likely channels—in use. The focus on creating a positive customer journey that encourages an ongoing dialogue will only increase over time. The role of customer communications is shifting from delivering these communications to facilitating the customer dialogue across channels, organizational units, and technological boundaries.

“David Stabel, Director, Customer Communications Advisory Services, Keypoint Intelligence


TREND #6: CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS AS A STRATEGIC PRIORITY

Today’s industry is driven by digital technology, and digital communications continue to change the way that businesses and brands interact with their customers. In concert with this trend, enterprises understand that a consistent and relevant customer journey is more important now than it has ever been before. As a result, many companies are prioritizing customer communications as they develop their strategic roadmaps for the future.

“ Customer experience (CX) has become a primary competitive lever for many of today’s companies. According to Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends’ most recent Customer Communications Enterprise research, 65% of enterprises in North America and Western Europe had a CX strategy in place. For many firms, CX has become a key component of their overall strategy. This shift toward a CX-centric strategy is being fueled by a number of factors, including consumer empowerment, the increasing proliferation of mobile

technology, and an expanding range of customers with access to the internet.

Because the majority of business-to-consumer touchpoints are driven by customer communications-related processes and supported by related technology, customer communications play a fundamental role in the execution of a CX strategy.”


David Stabel, Director, Customer Communications Advisory Services, Keypoint Intelligence


“The demands of digital business are driving organizations to look beyond traditional Customer Communications Management (CCM).

There are numerous existing and emerging digital engagement channels, including web, mobile, email, conversational AI chatbots and others. CCM, when properly understood, is one of these engagement channels.

However, its history as a purely operational activity has kept CCM tools sidelined in customer experience initiatives.

It doesn’t belong on the sideline.

The information curated via CCM platforms should be a vital part of the customer relationship.

Forward-thinking application leaders are bringing CCM into a broader coordinated strategy that spans all customer engagement touchpoints. By doing so, they can begin to leverage CCM for marketing, CRM and new customer engagement services based on a two-way interactive relationship model.”

Gartner: Adapt Customer Communications to the Demands of the Digital Customer Experience, 7 November 2018, Gene Phifer



I hope that we as an industry can help enterprises understand that having a good CCM strategy is essential for doing digital transformation well. CCM should not be seen as another digital transformation project, but rather as a strategy that supports the digital transformation project thanks to its ability to optimize the last-mile of delivery. Businesses that enable the CX teams to own and understand CCM are in a great position to thrive with their communications, and we at Aspire are committed to helping them to achieve that.

“Kaspar Roos, Founder & Principal Analyst, Aspire


Customer communications will continue in the direction of travel that it has been on for a while, of evolving into the customer experience element of an organisations digital transformation journey.

“Steve Narancic, BDM, IM Outbound, Canon Europe Ltd


TREND #7: CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION UNIFICATION

While customer communications were once very channel-focused, this is no longer the case. Customer communications are now becoming channel-agnostic, and enterprises require communication hubs to manage the volume of customer communications sent through a variety of channels and to support all of the interactions a business has with its customers.

In addition to managing communications, these hubs also help break down organizational silos as they act as a gateway for all type of customer communications, whether they are transactional or related to marketing campaigns. Perhaps the latter will be the next big shift in customer communications as the industry experiences a converge of transactional and marketing communication technologies.”

“David Stabel, Director, Customer

Communications Advisory Services,

Keypoint Intelligence

Top 12 Customer Communications Trends to Watch in 2019 and Beyond | 19What do I need to look for in a unified communications platform? A Communication Unification mindset enables organizations to: • approach communication as a function of corporate strategy • actively manage a contemporary communication platform • strategically insource and/or outsource communications and content • repurpose legacy data and content • expand current communications and content into digital channels

A unified communications platform makes it possible for every team to improve the way they communicate with their customers; no matter where they are in their customer journey or what department issues the communication. Unified user interfaces facilitate collaboration, integration, and connections that aren’t possible when using disconnected project-based approaches.

Quadient: Customer Communication Unification, Quadient, 2019


Because customer journeys can be very industry-specific, customer communications technology is increasingly being subordinated to existing IT landscapes, which can vary significantly by industry. As a result, we are seeing a greater “platformization” of customer communications solutions in the market. A platform in which the key capabilities of a solution are broken down to independent services (micro-services) will provide the necessary flexibility to easily integrate customer communications technologies. Deploying these solutions as cloud-native services will provide an additional level of flexibility, making it possible to scale up when demand rises and offering the ability to continuously deploy new versions so updates can be brought to market faster.

“David Stabel, Director,

Customer Communications Advisory Services,

Keypoint Intelligence


TREND #8: THE ‘CONNECTED CUSTOMER’

The ‘connected customer’ is all the rage at the moment. And with that comes the need for brands to be (more) connected, as well. “

Organizations with a cross-team approach with a customer at the heart of all initiatives are nearly twice as likely to exceed their business goal by a significant margin.

Econsultancy, 2018

Annette Franz, Founder and Chief Experience Officer

at CX Journey


Customers’ expectations are that brands know them, anticipate their next moves, and communicate in real-time with content that is relevant and timely for the journey they are on.

‘Instant gratification’ is a phrase that’s used a lot to describe what connected customers are looking for. Marketers must constantly and continuously use the data crumbs that customers leave behind as they interact with the brand to really get to know their customers, to understand their needs and expectations, and then to deliver that personalized and relevant messaging and experience in a way that is authentic and trustworthy, not creepy.

Personalized and proactive communications are the key in 2019 and beyond!

“Annette Franz, Founder and Chief Experience Officer at CX Journey


TREND #9: OUTSIDE-IN AND INSIDE-OUT THINKING

CCM has already evolved into Omni-Channel Communication & Customer Experience Management (CXM) due to the demands of their customers, and the customer’s customer. The convergence of ‘inside-out’ thinking (CCM) and ‘outside-In’ demands (CXM) drive richer customer engagement across all communication channels. People forget that paper-based communications are still an “experience”.

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Dean Heckman, VP of Global Presales, Quadient


Customer Communications are experiencing pressure from both the outside and the inside. From the outside, increased attention to customer experience (CX) is highlighting the poor design quality of many of today’s communications. Customers are seeing communication as a differentiator and they’re voting with their wallets.

I predict that companies will improve communications design to match their better-looking competitive peers. We will see more people with design backgrounds join our ranks. This is overdue.

From the inside, enterprise architects are getting more nervous about the cost of adhering to regulations that govern security and privacy. As a result, IT organizations are starting to eliminate redundant systems and implement as few technologies as possible to support a robust communication strategy.

Bringing together both the ‘outside-in’ and ‘inside-out’ approaches, an increased focus on design pairs nicely with a simplified technical infrastructure. So, more people can collaborate to create better looking communications with less risk and lower costs.

“Scott Draeger, VP Customer Transformation, Quadient


Companies in regulated industries will experience more difficulty keeping up with non-regulated B2C experiences and will open themselves up to being displaced by digital upstarts whose businesses are not based on legacy processes.

Businesses will also have to deal with more data from many different devices as the Internet of Things continues to expand - from how much people exercise, to what food they keep in their fridge, companies will have access to a vast collection of data. They will be forced to deal with more regulations as a result - to ensure that data is only used for intended purposes and is kept secure.

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TREND #10: REGULATIONS AND DATA SECURITY


Rob Daleman, VP Corporate Marketing, Quadient


Over the last few years we have seen a clear shift from IT buyers to marketers and the LOB. The challenge here is that CCM technology is now starting to compete with marketing technology, alongside the fact that CCM is not always well understood by marketing buyers. We’ve come across scenarios in which digital regulatory communications are created and managed in digital marketing tools, such as campaign management or CRM systems, which are not specifically built for that. The risk here is that new digital silos are created, which in a few years result in the same challenges that we see with the move away from legacy systems.

“Kaspar Roos, Founder & Principal Analyst, Aspire


I think we’ll continue to see the same trends. Clients want to reduce the number of vendors they are working with to control where their data is residing. Data security and integrity is critical to every organization. As our customers focus on the customer experience at all stages, CCM is an important part of that which has been historically difficult for them to manage. Marketing, IT, and compliance teams are now working together to improve omnichannel customer communication to meet the organization’s objectives while benefiting their customer and elevating the overall experience for all parties.

“Sid Haas, Vice President of Business Development, LKCS


Vertical markets will continue to be challenged by compliance requirements, while they strive to be more effective in their communications strategy, retaining and attracting customers in marketplaces where communication is regulated to a greater extent.- Scott Scheidenhelm, Channel, Senior Manager, Ricoh

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TREND #11: HYBRID CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES

Today, many companies are accelerating digital-first projects in order to engage with customers on emerging channels. While servicing customers through new digital and mobile channels often delivers lower costs and higher customer satisfaction, it also comes with risk. The danger in this approach is the potential to lose sight of the needs of the customer and over-rotate into digital only channels.

“Hybrid CX now has, on average, a two-point lead over purely digital and purely physical CX. Even a single point in CX improvement can yield hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue growth.”

Forrester Research: Customers Prefer Hybrid Digital/Physical Experiences, Forrester’s Customer Experience Index, 2018


I think a major challenge is that many CX professionals don’t take physical communications into account when examining and optimizing the customer journey. In many cases, physical communications have minimal visibility in the digital realm.

Post transformation, CCM touchpoints emerge as part of the CX landscape. You can see customer behaviour in real

“ time, optimise it, aggregate it with the behavioural data you already hold around acquisition and retention and assign a revenue value to it.

Paper-based communications remain a cost to be minimised, a risk to be mitigated. The experience impact is at best secondary, if not tertiary. The irony is that failure in the paper channel results in huge costs

in the contact centre – with potentially disastrous impacts on the customer experience.

The question for 2019 and beyond is: how can we elevate this conversation outside of the operational or IT realm and better engage with a wider set of stakeholders who might better understand the potential value-add of CCM structures that deliver improved lifetime value.”


Adrian Odds, Director of Strategy & Market Propositions, Communisis


Customer Communications will continue to evolve, becoming more complex as CX grows as a focal point for organizations looking to continually enhance their customers experiences. Customers and competition will drive higher demand for mobility, yet at the same time there appears to be a resurgence in the demand for printed documents, so what was old is new again. Organizations will need to remain flexible and nimble as they anticipate and plan for trends and react to those changes that were unforeseen.- Scott Scheidenhelm, Channel, Senior Manager, Ricoh

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Over the next five years I imagine that our Direct Mail quantities will remain the same, but with a substantial increase in versioning and variable content as data analysis increases our targeting capabilities for more individualized marketing.

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Technology companies that are consumers’ favorite brands not only have best-in-class digital capabilities; they also do a superior job integrating digital and physical environments and integrating both strategically to foster an emotional connection.

Deloitte: Accelerating digital transformation in banking, October 2018

“Some might predict that print media will die out, but I believe the combination of print and digital media is going to shine in coming years.

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Jasjeet Mavi, Senior Programmer, DCM

Bob Karpel, Programming Specialist


TREND #12: PERSONALIZATION & CUSTOMER EMPOWERMENT

Customer communication needs to enable true personalization and empowerment of the customer. The ability for customers to receive more than just a communication is important, but I envision a future where personalised ‘vaults’ with enriched data will allow the recipient to view, search and consolidate all their communication in one place, thus enabling them to take true ownership of their own ‘data’. The software that we develop and deploy for our clients, must make it easy for their customers to do business with them, in so doing, enhancing the whole customer experience and ensuring customer loyalty. Communication across any channel is important if the above is to be achieved.

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Reg Bath, Managing Director,

Beehive Online Solutions


Our customers will continue to want hassle-free purchasing options for insurance products, including online buying with little or no direct interaction from brokers or insurance carrier representatives. Customers will expect carriers to provide personalized, relevant information without face-to-face contact.- Kirk Spellman, Manager of Integrated Media

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Conclusion

Today, organizations are working hard to coordinate their communication designs, collaborate effectively, and deliver their message confidently through multiple channels. Organizations that are successful in their communications strategy usually have one thing in common: they have a unifying approach.

A unified communications platform makes it possible for every team to improve the way they communicate with their customers; no matter where they are in their customer journey or what department issues the communication. Unified user interfaces facilitate collaboration, integration, and connections that aren’t possible when using disconnected project-based approaches. Think of what you can do when you unify your communication strategy- connecting marketing to IT, operations to sales, and compliance to line of business. In order to thrive in 2024, businesses will have to approach communication as an interdisciplinary competence.

Five years from now, the possibilities will expand, and successful communicators will learn their customers’ preferences and act accordingly. Individual consumers have wildly different

expectations for communications. Some telecom consumers (especially parents of teenagers) want to see a record of all text messages sent each month. Others are happy with a summary statement. And others prefer a single tweet, SMS or smart watch notification with just the amount and date of a deduction. As you build your business to communicate five, or even ten years down the road, consider how you will manage to communicate with the right frequency, intensity, and style.

The technology choices you make today should be considered in the light of the future of communication from many perspectives.

As you move forward into 2019 and beyond, some questions to consider include:• Has your organization prioritized customer

communications as an integral part of your overall CX strategy?

• Are you leveraging a unified communications platform to deliver a channel-agnostic experience?

• How will you facilitate customer dialogue across channels, organizational units, and technological boundaries?

• How will your technological and organizational infrastructure facilitate and support bi-directional communications?

• How will you link customer communications across the customer journey, and analyze those experiences?

• How will your organization adapt to new regulations as they relate to customer communications?

• How will you integrate digital and physical communications to foster an emotional connection and deliver an exceptional hybrid CX?

Quadient believes communications are at the heart of customer experience. Having good control over customer communications enables businesses to have consistent, relevant, and bi-directional conversations with customers through their channels of choice, which is beneficial to serve them better, or to sell more. To create meaningful interactions that improve the customer experience, it is important to fully understand the customer, as well as the context in which the conversation takes place.

We’re here to help – in 2019 and beyond.


© Quadient. All rights reserved.

... The winner of the 2019 Xplor Technology of the Year is being awarded to Quadient for their Omnichannel Coordination. Omnichannel Coordination breaks through the barriers of managing the distribution of regulated, as well as promotional documents, across the entire range of delivery channels. Each installation replaces several single-channel document delivery systems with a single system that coordinates the delivery of documents across the entire suite of communication channels. ....- Xplor Announces 2019 Technology and Application of the Year Award Winners. February 20,2019/by Chad Henk

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