Image by: artiemedvedev, ©2019 Getty Images
In a sneak peek of its latest version 16.6, enterprise information management leader OpenText offered a preview of the latest self-service innovations to its market-leading customer communications management (CCM) solution OpenText Exstream at the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum (DSF ’19) in Anaheim, CA.
Unveiling their highly anticipated new web-based designer, billed as the Exstream Communications Designer, the thin-client design allows business users and content creators to build responsive, customized customer communications (including HTML5 emails) from scratch or from an existing template using a drag-and-drop interface without technical assistance or additional coding.
This latest addition advances born-digital design functionalities, including built-in preview simulations to test communications for any channel, and can be deployed on cloud and on-premises installations through a browser-based environment, according to OpenText. Communications Designer comes with Content Author integrations, allowing other customer-facing representatives to edit and update content on the fly in “controlled authoring areas” using the Content Author interface to support one-on-one interactions with the customer.
OpenText Exstream 16.6 also goes further with omni-channel orchestration with new customer journey modeling capabilities. Process owners can control and view end-to-end communication flows using an intuitive, web-based drag-and-drop visual interface to graphically map out all possible creation and delivery steps for communications. With Communications Orchestrator, the process owner can define what type of outputs to produce, how to deliver those outputs across all channels, and what to do if delivery fails.
“Journeys are basically a combination of rules, recommendations, and automation-driven outcomes,” says Guy Hellier, Vice President of Product Management for Customer Experience Management (CEM) at OpenText. “What we tried to do with OpenText Exstream 16.6 is extend our communications service with orchestration of communication journeys, including two-way conversations, integration with the message delivery system to deliver and sense the next customer interaction, and accept customer feedback.”
Activities around tracking content that a customer has interacted with and measuring all communication steps in the journey will result in datasets that lend themselves to anticipating or predicting the next best action at every touchpoint. It’s not a far leap to assume that this kind of insight technology, which might be able to recommend the next best message or outcome, isn’t too far behind in the product pipeline at OpenText.
The latest enhancements in OpenText Exstream 16.6 is expected to be launched in July. With a reported 5,000 enterprises currently using Exstream, it is a part of the OpenText Experience Suite Platform, which enables 360-degree customer experience across all interaction points of the customer journey. In 2018, OpenText Exstream was recognized as a Leader in the Aspire Leaderboard for Customer Communications. Combined with OpenText LiquidOffice and latest advances in Content Services, OpenText Exstream seems to be positioned at the very heart of the digital experience revolution.
Allison Lloyd serves as the Editor of DOCUMENT Strategy Media. She delivers thought leadership on strategic and plan-based solutions for managing the entire document, communication, and information process. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonYLloyd.
