The Customer Communications Management (CCM) market is constantly evolving (see Figure 1) as result of technological development, changing consumer behaviour and an evolving business landscape. In fact, recent research from Aspire (published in September 2019) shows that most UK companies identify “improving customer experience” (64%) as their top corporate priority, followed by “digital transformation” (51%) and “omni-channel communications” (41%).

Over the years we’ve seen many businesses, particularly those operating in highly regulated industries such as telecom, utilities and insurance turn to customer experience (CX) as the primary way to provide a competitive differentiation. We know that for them, changing products or lowering prices not always possible due to regulations or the competitive nature of their industries.

In our experience, evolving customer communications in order to deliver a better CX requires companies to have a good understanding of (at least) the following three aspects:

1. Understanding the shifting needs of the business
Traditionally, CCM was the domain of the IT department who invested in CCM from a compliance or risk-reduction perspective. Most companies nowadays have the Line-of-business (LOB) in control, with support from IT, whose goals are often to bring more agility to the process and support digital and mobile communications.

In the future, CCM investments will be more and more determined by the CX or digital transformation change agents in the organisation who work with different operating models (more cloud-based, subscription-driven, agile with business and IT working closer together). Their primary goals will be to improve the CX, increase customer satisfaction/retention and develop more up-sell/cross-sell communications. We firmly believe that this profound shift impacts how communications are deployed, developed and managed.

2. Emerging technologies
Traditionally, CCM was the domain of the IT department who invested in CCM from a compliance or risk-reduction perspective. Most companies nowadays have the Line-of-business (LOB) in control, with support from IT, whose goals are often to bring more agility to the process and support digital and mobile communications.

3. Evolving consumer behaviour
Traditionally, CCM was the domain of the IT department who invested in CCM from a compliance or risk-reduction perspective. Most companies nowadays have the Line-of-business (LOB) in control, with support from IT, whose goals are often to bring more agility to the process and support digital and mobile communications.

Choosing the right services provider
Given the complexities in the market, it’s no surprise to us that most enterprises prefer to buy CCM solutions either from a services provider or direct from the vendor, once help has been sought from a trusted advisor. When choosing the right services provider, we advise all enterprises to ask themselves the following three questions:

1. Does my services provider have the expertise I’m looking for?
Ideally you want to find a services provider that has long-standing expertise in the traditional CCM industry but which also has a strong vision on where the market is heading. Having a trusted advisor that helps you to formulate a vision and can align internal stakeholders is extremely valuable.

2. Is my services provider the right fit for my organisation?
The CCM services market consists of large and very small players with a varying range of expertise and service delivery capabilities. Flexibility and agility are more important in the CX world now than ever before.

3. Is my services provider capable of delivering modern solutions?
The evolving CCM space is a niche and complex area that requires services providers to have deep domain knowledge and be on the forefront of the latest developments in terms of mobile, cloud and smart technologies.

Taking the right action
With recent industry changes in mind, we’re seeing a stronger desire among enterprises to have their services providers help them with formulating strategy and evolving their communications. While some organisations may start by looking to insource certain technological capabilities, often related to digital communications, they still may have a need for specialist providers for implementation or specialist labour services. While the road to choosing the right services provider can seem daunting, it can be travelled well with a few key considerations at hand. It is crucial to gain a thorough understanding of the shifting CCM market and asking the right questions when considering the services provider landscape.  From this we believe that all enterprises can confidently and successfully evolve their customer communications in order to deliver a smarter customer experience.

If you’d like to continue the conversation with one of our Customer Communications experts, we’d love to hear from you here.