In Forrester’s latest report “Brief: Ten Trends Will Reshape Customer Communications Management,” Vice President and Principal Analyst Craig Le Clair writes, “Enterprise architects face unprecedented pressure from the business to secure technology to help reduce print costs, prepare for mobile payment growth and revise language used in customer communications. Enterprise architecture (EA) pros are not sure where to look and are being forced to view customer communications management (CCM) in a new light, as a tool they can use to not only help them support the print channel but also help them address the broader goals of the advancing digital customer journey. CCM vendors are revising their platforms to include mobile, align with emerging marketing clouds and digital experience delivery (DXD) platforms, create shared services and create interactive applications that reduce print.”
Forrester’s 10 critical trends that should shape the CCM process and platform strategy are:
1. Businesses to revise communications to align with the customer journey.
2. Continued rapid growth of on-demand and interactive use cases.
3. A determined but glacial move toward shared CCM services.
4. Businesses to move CCM to cloud ecosystems.
5. Interactive statements that drive electronic adoption.
6. Exploding mobile bill payment needs.
7. Mobile CCM that creates content on the fly.
8. Move toward DXD platforms and complete customer engagement.
9. Pursue linkage with marketing clouds and real-time interaction management.
10. Slowly escape their print roots, led by category leaders.
What it all means
Many of you who regularly read our publication know that we have been covering the significant changes in the CCM landscape. We’ve even gone so far as to call it a paradigm shift. Why? Technology advancements and changing customer needs has thrust CCM, formerly viewed as a back-office, support mechanism for overall corporate goals, into the spotlight. Corporate boardrooms across all industries understand that customer engagement is a competitive differentiator, of which customer communications is an integral vehicle for continuous and consistent customer experiences.
However, as more C-suite focus lands on the digital customer journey and engagement, increased regulatory changes and scrutiny and greater demand for relevant, consistent messaging, pressure is mounting for organizations to keep up. We see an increased focus on an emerging, but key, role in CCM to do with communications analytics, which analyze the effectiveness of all communications sent out and then measures customer response to messaging. We expect to see this role become a vital organizational pillar for businesses. In addition, the drive to electronic communications, adoption of cloud technologies, system capacity limitations, internal collaboration or siloed business processes and regulatory transparency—underlined by limited information technology budgets—demand an enterprise-wide strategy that balances all the goals an organization wants to achieve against what is realistically possible.
We will address how to build these strategies at the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum, to be held on May 12-14 in Greenwich, CT. Mr. Le Clair will also share his latest findings on the CCM industry at the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum on Wednesday, May 13. Visit www.documentstrategyforum.com for more information.
Allison Lloyd serves as the editor of DOCUMENT Strategy Media, a management publication for executives, directors and managers involved with enterprise document, content and information strategies. Follow her on Twitter @DOCUMENTmedia.
Many of you who regularly read our publication know that we have been covering the significant changes in the CCM landscape. We’ve even gone so far as to call it a paradigm shift. Why? Technology advancements and changing customer needs has thrust CCM, formerly viewed as a back-office, support mechanism for overall corporate goals, into the spotlight. Corporate boardrooms across all industries understand that customer engagement is a competitive differentiator, of which customer communications is an integral vehicle for continuous and consistent customer experiences.
However, as more C-suite focus lands on the digital customer journey and engagement, increased regulatory changes and scrutiny and greater demand for relevant, consistent messaging, pressure is mounting for organizations to keep up. We see an increased focus on an emerging, but key, role in CCM to do with communications analytics, which analyze the effectiveness of all communications sent out and then measures customer response to messaging. We expect to see this role become a vital organizational pillar for businesses. In addition, the drive to electronic communications, adoption of cloud technologies, system capacity limitations, internal collaboration or siloed business processes and regulatory transparency—underlined by limited information technology budgets—demand an enterprise-wide strategy that balances all the goals an organization wants to achieve against what is realistically possible.
We will address how to build these strategies at the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum, to be held on May 12-14 in Greenwich, CT. Mr. Le Clair will also share his latest findings on the CCM industry at the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum on Wednesday, May 13. Visit www.documentstrategyforum.com for more information.
Allison Lloyd serves as the editor of DOCUMENT Strategy Media, a management publication for executives, directors and managers involved with enterprise document, content and information strategies. Follow her on Twitter @DOCUMENTmedia.
