Best Customer Communications Management (CCM) Solutions

Although both CCM and CRM are both technologies that are used to improve customer communications and the overall customer experience, they are different from one another. CRM, or customer relationship management, is a software system that allows businesses to nurture their relationships with their customers. CRMs do this by managing customer interactions through data analysis in an attempt to increase sales and improve retention rates. CCM, however, is focused on supporting customer interactions by using different tools geared more toward creating customer engagement.

CCM tools are software programs that help organizations manage business communications across a variety of platforms. These tools aim to improve customer satisfaction and increase the success of your business. With many different tool options available, it is important to choose one that will advance your company’s performance levels, but also one that will provide your customers with a better experience.

• Electronic forms: Providing electronic forms to fill out can be helpful in improving customer experiences. Whether they are interactive or not, they can assist in streamlining orders, identifying problems, resolving questions, allowing you to see order history, and also helping with communications between departments. Overall, electronic forms make the process quick and simple for customers.
• Chatbots: For customers that have simple questions, chatbots that use automation services can help. Chatbots provide customers with immediate answers and are efficient at screening for when a call needs to be routed elsewhere. With chatbots, the need for call centers is eliminated, and customers can reach a chatbot at any hour.
• Real-time updates: Automation provides updates in real time, which helps gain insight into inventory, predict customer trends, track communications, learn details about the customer experience process, and much more.

Customer communication can occur through a range of channels, including:

• Social media
• Email
• Phone
• Live chats (this can be with customer service representatives on a company’s website)
• SMS (short message service) texts
• Chatbots
• Printed documents
• Web pages (this may include links to interactive documents and information)
• Video (Zoom or Skype communications)

1. Structured Documents: Structured documents, sometimes referred to as batch documents, are the most common type of communications organizations send to customers. This category of documents might include financial statements or bills, and rarely requires changes.
2. On-demand documents: These are communications created for a particular reason, that are meant to be sent to a specific group of customers. These on-demand documents come in the form of special offers, proposals, or promotions.
3. Interactive documents: This type of communication refers to documents that require a typical back-and-forth interaction and has far more personalization than the above-mentioned categories. Interactive documents can range from negotiated contracts to specific complaints and/or responses to claims.

Some of the advantages of using customer communications management tools include:

• Easy integration: Customer communication management tools can be easily integrated with other IT systems, such as web content management, campaign management, or others. Integration also helps centralize communications into one location.
• Automation: The benefits of automation can save your organization time and money by decreasing the hours spent engaging with customers, who can many times obtain the information they are looking for through a self-service tool or an automated reply. A live customer service representative is often unnecessary when it comes to things like frequently asked questions, booking requests, answering simple product questions via a chatbot, or confirmation messages.
• More effective communication: Customer communication management allows you to have more control over communications and managing customer interactions. As a result, your organization will be able to deliver consistent results, decrease the chance of human errors from occurring, and strengthen your customer relationships.
• Personalized and targeted messaging: Communication management will provide your organization with the ability to improve your customer experience and will enable you to have more personalized interactions in order to increase customer value.
• Strengthened brand: Consistent communications helps improve the customer experience by establishing a voice that represents the company brand no matter which channel the communications are being delivered through.
• More efficient workflows: Customer communication management tools help you rely less on IT teams in the case that you need to create, edit, or manage content.
• Digital transformation: CCM provides a seamless omnichannel customer experience all from a centralized platform. CCM tools make digital transformation easy, especially for organizations that rely on existing infrastructures.
• Customer response tracking: Communication management software aims to provide insight into what things are working, which things are not working, and the reasons why. With this information, you can improve existing communications in order to obtain better results in the future.
• Improved speed: CCM tools with automation help improve the speed of customer care, allowing you to provide immediate responses so customers receive immediate assistance and aren’t tempted to go elsewhere.

CCM software offers some of the features listed below:

• Tracking of inbound and outbound communications
• CRM integration
• Automation of distributed communications
• Document template management
• Document formatting and production
• Communications analytics and reporting
• Managing of contact information
• Personalized outbound correspondence and targeted messaging
• Communications workflows
• Document security