As the dynamo of digital and technological development drives the wheels of change faster than ever before, organisations across all sectors are having to adapt. Changes in consumer attitudes and behaviours, the effects of technology on customer experience (CX) and the progressive innovations that are transforming markets are all having an impact. Here, Ross Kittlety, Head of CCM at Paragon Customer Communications (PCC), discusses how companies can best manage change, transform communications and deliver superior CX in the digital age.
Change in people
Technological advancement and wider accessibility have led to significant changes in consumer behaviour and attitudes. Today, not only are more people connected; they spend more time online and do so using a greater range of devices, platforms and channels. Companies that wish to keep pace and stay relevant will need to take advantage of the opportunities that digital adoption affords to ensure they travel on the same digital highways as their customers.
Behaviours and attitudes are not just shaped by the availability of technology, however, but also by the enhancements they bring to the customer experience. The modern consumer is increasingly experience-led and has high expectations about how brands will deliver personal choice, personalisation and transparency. Enterprises wanting to enhance CX by delivering more positive and meaningful experiences will need to adapt communication systems that facilitate digital transformation in order to build richer and stronger relationships with their customers.
Change in technology
Regardless of the constant evolution and developments, the key change in technology is choice. The market is awash with digital technologies that consumers can choose to engage and communicate: websites, apps, voice assistants, chatbots, emails, virtual and augmented reality, text messaging and more. Many consumers, of course, also still prefer printed communications.
With so many options, the consumer’s preferred channel may differ depending on circumstance – who they are engaging with and why, on what device, where they are and what they are doing at the time. To communicate effectively and deliver enhanced CX, companies will need to both understand customer preferences and have the means to deliver communication via those channels.
The leading-edge technologies provided by the latest customer communications management (CCM) solutions can play a vital role in shaping CX and consumer engagement, helping companies connect with their customers across a range of channels in deeper, more meaningful ways.
One solution that empowers companies to enhance CX in such a complex, omnichannel landscape is the Paragon Customer Communications One Platform solution. By providing a delivery infrastructure that supports truly frictionless customer communications across the range of both digital and traditional channels, it enables communications strategies to be run using a single, centralised, customer communications management delivery model.
What’s more, by centralising control, companies can dramatically reduce inconsistency and off-brand messaging, improve compliance and efficiency, and reduce risk by implementing changes swiftly across all channels.
Change in innovation
A critical advantage of the One Platform approach is that it allows companies to adapt to new innovations. The deployment of its enabling technologies facilitates rapid transformation, providing the agility to seize new opportunities and adapt to ongoing changes in consumer behaviour.
Should new communications channels evolve, for example, they can easily be added and, should messaging need to be changed, it can be done simultaneously across all channels. The rapidity at which these can be deployed also enables organisations to improve speed to market, helping them keep pace with disruptors, such as those in traditional sectors like utilities and financial services, who are forcing competitors to transform.
Beyond helping companies adapt to innovation, the latest CCM solutions enable companies to be innovative. Using innovative digital conversion techniques and technologies, for example, they can create electronic versions of their paper documents and store them in the cloud or on servers to improve document management and security and deliver a CX that better meets the needs and expectations of consumers.
Underpinning innovation across all sectors today is data. This is an integral feature of the PCC One Platform solution, which uses technology to unify data across all touchpoints. In this way, organisations can map customer journeys end to end and provide customers with solutions that are suited to their circumstances, needs and preferences.
Using data, PCC’s intuitive CCM solution is able to provide individual customer profiles, giving organisations critical insights into consumer behaviours that enable them to develop innovative new products and services that hold real value for their customers and improve CX. From a communications perspective, these insights also help companies accommodate customers’ channel preferences, the types of messages they receive and when they like to receive them.
In this way, technologies like PCC’s One Platform solution present organisations with the unique opportunity to deliver enhanced CX and to ensure communications are relevant, timely and cognizant of the circumstances and preferences of individual customers.
Of course, having the appropriate technology in place is only part of the solution. By working alongside an experienced communications partner, like PCC, organisations will be able to maintain visibility of all communications, while also having the expertise on hand to drive their digital transformation and empower CX managers to capitalise on new opportunities.
Through a collaborative approach, PCC works as an extension of their customer’s teams and help them clarify, prioritise, evolve and deliver against their business goals, guiding them every step of the way with technical solutions and sector expertise.
To find out more, visit the Paragon Customer Communications website today: https://www.paragon-cc.com/en-gb/solutions/One-Platform