Customer Communication Management: The Essentials

Customer communication management should be high on any company’s agenda – and yet, 88 percent of organizations aren’t satisfied with how they manage customer-facing communications across the customer journey. 

That’s a worry, because how you go about communicating with your customers is one of the biggest factors in creating outstanding customer experience. And that’s something all businesses should aim for: no less than 64 percent of people believe customer experience is more important than price in their choice of brand, after all. 

But what exactly is customer communication management? And how can it help your business?

Let’s take a look. 

Defining customer communication management

According to Gartner, “Customer communications management (CCM) is defined as the strategy to improve the creation, delivery, storage and retrieval of outbound communications, including those for marketing, new product introductions, renewal notifications, claims correspondence and documentation, and bill and payment notifications.” 

A core part of CCM is analyzing the success of each type of communication through data. This involves looking at factors such as open rates and click-through rates of emails, communication marked as spam, number of responses from customers, unsubscribes, and post-communications surveys results. 

Companies can then use this information to improve their communication strategy, helping nurture and improve on relationships with their customers.  

3 customer communication trends that are here to stay

Although the concept of customer communication management has been around for a while, it’s now vastly more complex than ever before – largely due to the shift towards digital communication, rather than through other means. 

Digitization has led to certain trends, including: 

• The rise of omnichannel communication. The digital revolution has caused a proliferation of communication channels. In fact, the average customer says they use 10 different channels to communicate with companies. Chatbots, email (often automated), live chats, SMS, phone, printed documents, social media, and web pages (including links to interactive documents and information) are all commonplace.
• Pressure to respond quickly. The pace of life, and business, is always increasing. This trend has bled through to customer expectations when it comes to communication: 90 percent of customers now expect an immediate response – with 60 percent defining “immediate” as less than 10 minutes.
• The rise of the voice of the customer. Communication used to be largely one-way: from company to customer. But no longer. Now customers have a myriad of options to get their message across to companies, too. Platforms such as social media and review sites have given them a vehicle to get their voices heard. Experiences customers have with your company, whether good or bad, can be shared far and wide at the click of a button – and even if you choose not to listen, their fellow customers certainly will.

So, effective customer communication management should aim to offer quick, two-way, omnichannel interactions to customers, otherwise your brand (and its growth) may suffer.

Tech to the rescue

In an omnichannel world, keeping a handle on all this complexity and open fronts requires good tech. And that’s where customer communication management solutions come in.

CCM software helps companies create, deliver, organize and retrieve customer communications by allowing them to compose, personalize, format, and deliver content from a variety of sources to their customers. These communications can be distributed through a number of media formats, including mobile, email, SMS, web pages, social media, and print. 

Learn more about how Acquire can help you better communicate with customers.

The functions of customer communication management solutions bring positive benefits to your business. And that’s because they can help you: 

• Enhance the customer experience. Bringing consistency into communication helps create a single voice – one that represents the brand, regardless of the channel it’s being delivered through. This, in turn, helps decrease confusion among both customers and employees, and helps solidify a brand identity. Targeting and personalization also increases the relevance of communication.
• Create more efficient workflows. Customer communication management software allows you to create, edit, and manage content so there’s no need to always rely on IT to make those changes. 
• Mitigate risk. Improved regulation and control in the communication process gives multiple departments and teams the ability to collaborate from the get-go, providing a holistic and centralized view throughout the whole development process – great news for compliance.
• Achieve digital transformation. Many traditional industries, such as banking and insurance, rely on existing infrastructures that have been in place for decades and are geared towards print-based communications. Customer communication management software instead aims to break down boundaries and provide a seamless omnichannel customer experience from a centralized platform. 
• Track customer responses. Software helps you gain insight into what is working and why. This is fundamental to allowing you to improve on existing communication and create even better results in the future. 

So, if you want a truly comprehensive solution that can help you achieve all these goals, keep an eye out for software that can:

• Track inbound and outbound communications
• Analyze and report on communications
• Manage contact information
• Provide communications workflows
• Integrate with CRM
• Keep documents secure
• Personalize communications
• Manage templates 
• Format and produce documents
• Automate communications

CCM software into the future

As the digital revolution changes what’s possible in the world of communication, so customer communication management software is advancing its own capabilities to keep up. Two things in particular to look out for in future are:

• More cloud-based technology. Although customer communication management software is predominantly on-premises at the moment, the movement towards cloud-based solutions looks set to accelerate – and fast.
• More AI. In some cases, the explosion in customer communication on the back of COVID-19 has overwhelmed businesses. Expect to see AI aid businesses in further automating customer communication going forward.

Getting customer communication right

Software is a great help in improving communication with your customers, but getting there doesn’t happen overnight – it’s part of a longer journey. And different companies are at different stages of this journey. Knowing where you sit can help you understand what you need to do to move your company towards the end goal.

The “The State of CCM-to-CXM Transformation” report, breaks down this journey into three specific parts:

1. CCM is led by IT departments. Often characterized by a focus on print and documents and lacking a consistency of voice across all channels. Tends to be reactive rather than proactive. Around 30 percent of companies sit in this category.
2. CCM is led by organizational departments. Focus is on the relevance of customer communication, interest in data analytics and new communication channels, and how to create cohesive customer messaging across them. The needs of the organization are the primary motivation. Around 60 percent of companies are at this stage. 
3. CX-led Organizations. Business growth is achieved through focusing on CX, placing customer needs at the forefront. Looking to create a customer-centric approach across the customer journey delivering consistent personalized messaging via a variety of channels and devices. Around 10 percent of companies have reached this stage.

Even with CCM software at your fingertips, moving through this journey still means getting your strategy spot on. Here are a few important things to remember:

• Be omnichannel. Communication with customers should happen in a coordinated manner across a range of different channels.
• Be relevant. Maintaining context through historical conversations and remembering previous interactions is a great way to deliver on customer experience. (See more about unified view).
• Be clear. Any content you create must be as easy as possible for your customers to take on board. 
• Be personal. Different customers may respond in different ways to different things so always keep communication personalized without seeming invasive (for example, imagine being told your exact movements yesterday – creepy, right?).
• Be understanding. Explicitly ask your customers how they would like to be communicated with and then base your interactions on their preferences.
• Be real time. Customers want answers and they want them fast. Train your team to be quick and provide them with the tools they need to succeed.

Build a communication culture 

Even with watertight processes in place, and the best software at your disposal, ultimately, communication is a human thing. Your team should be ready to go the extra mile to offer the best communication experience to customers – whether that means quickly jumping on a Zoom call, connecting through Skype, or sending a follow up email. Cultivate this open culture and your customers will thank you for it.

Benedict Clark

Content Editor

Benedict Clark is a psychologist and writer, having previously spent 8 years in the digital marketing industry. With a master's degree in Business and Occupational Psychology from Kingston University, he writes about the interplay between customer experience and psychology for Acquire.