Last month I celebrated my 22nd anniversary working in the Customer Communications Management (CCM) industry. In this time, I’ve seen customer communications evolve from batch-oriented, enterprise push events to consumer-driven, on-demand interactions to today’s multi-faceted journeys orchestrated using AI that trigger two-way conversations. Strong showing for a business priority that was once on the endangered species list.
The CCM world then
My first job post-university was as a project manager and programmer on income tax projects for a big U.S.-based print service provider. Fresh out of school, I was excited to make my way in the real world. My excitement was short-lived.
Within weeks of starting my first real job, experts and pundents decried my “poor career choice.” The industry, built on obsolete technology, was dying. The mainframe I was getting familiar with was destined for a Jell-O Pudding Pops fate. Printing was only slightly more technologically advanced than cave drawings and would be “completely replaced within 5 years” by digital communications. And COBOL, well…DOA!
Four nearly-adult children and five jobs later, mainframes still abound, billions of lines of COBOL code keep the financial industry in motion and print – while gradually declining – lives on as a $75B industry. But, much has changed since typing out my first JCL script to insert DJDE commands into a data stream to print income tax forms. Mostly, it got more complicated.
The CCM world now
Now, CCM is the absolute bedrock of good customer experience. Tight integration between enterprise systems and CCM solutions went from nonexistent to table stakes. Print was supplemented by multiple output channels that enterprises MUST service simultaneously. Hybrid communication strategies combining print and digital touchpoints – email, texts, mobile push notifications and content, What’s App and social channels – have proven critical in driving customer engagement.
Additionally, the global health crisis permanently reshaped the workplace and changed how companies need to do business. Companies adopted completely remote or hybrid workforces (Salesforce, Nationwide, Slack and Spotify to name a few) practically overnight. It’s an accelerated evolution that brings with it the challenge of streamlining complex customer communications workflows across remote teams. Digital transformation, employee enablement, and exceptional customer experience are the new differentiators. More than ever, it’s crucial that employees have access to the tools and technology that foster productivity to capitalize on competitive opportunities.
CRM and CCM: simple integration with a big benefit
As a result of the pandemic, many organizations have reported a significant increase in not only the number of new communications being generated and delivered but also an increase in the frequency of customer touchpoints. A recent Forrester report stated that in 2020 there were 3 million call center agents that had to mobilize in the U.S. and a 40% increase in digital interactions.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems bring significant value to centrally managed customer data in a single, core business system. Often, these systems optimize key business processes actioned by sales teams, customer service reps and support agents.
One way to ensure employee productivity and deliver a better customer experience is combining your enterprise-grade CCM and Salesforce® CRM systems into a single solution accessible by your line of business employees. This puts relevant customer messaging into the hands of your front-line subject matter experts – insurance agents, brokers, customer service and sales representatives – working within the context of CRM-based business workflows they are comfortable navigating. The direct integration of CRM and CCM solutions for the generation and delivery of business-critical communications enables quick, easy deployment of timely, meaningful, consistent and brand-compliant customer communications across your customer’s preferred channels.
The Inspire Plug-in for Salesforce®
Combining Salesforce® with a proven, market-leading CCM system like Quadient Inspire allows organizations to eliminate manual, low-value, error-prone data entry and document generation tasks. Connecting these two powerful CX solutions with the Inspire Plug-in for Salesforce® extends your organization's ability to craft wonderfully consistent yet individualized communications. No more wondering if your employees are using the latest version of a document or template, or wasting time cutting and pasting content and customer data from the CRM system - and hoping you don’t make a mistake in your customer communications.
In a recent survey of 2000 office workers, 54% of users have more than five different computer programs running at once, and 59% feel they’re wasting time switching between apps. The Inspire Plug-in for Salesforce® seamlessly integrates Salesforce Sales and Service Clouds with Inspire, empowering business users to leverage customer data in Salesforce through Salesforce ETL processes to generate, personalize, deliver, and store communications directly within their Salesforce instance.
Users can choose from pre-defined Inspire communication templates from within any Salesforce record. When selected, the personalized template is automatically displayed within the same browser, prepopulated with data from Salesforce and any other enterprise system, and can be personalized through a guided editing experience. Once ready, the finalized communication is delivered to any customer channel immediately by Inspire, and a copy of the communication attaches directly to the customer’s Salesforce record. A full history of Inspire communications activities is logged on the Salesforce record.
Within the Salesforce AppExchange customer communication-related solutions are referred to as a “Document Generation” category applications. Along with E-signature, Document Generation apps are among the most popular solutions. Find the Quadient Inspire Plug-in for Salesforce on the Salesforce AppExchange and give your customer-facing staff more time to focus on delighting your customers.
Learn more about the plugin here.
