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10th November – First in a two week series about Customer Communications Process Management October 20, 2008

Posted by Julian Bradder in cross selling, customer relationship management, document management, etl software, Uncategorized.
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There is a lot of talk about technology in Customer Communications Management. I want to talk about the process side of CCM. How does it all glue together. What’s involved?

document projects starts its first series article on 10th November. From setting campaign objectives, to making sure that inserters finish every envelope to getting your promotion and message buzzing in cyberspace.

Process Description

Process Description

Each day, I’ll be looking at key process steps and the controls and discipline needed around them to ensure that the overall customer communications management process functions.

I’m not promising anything definitive here but do hope that it will provide guidance as to the areas that your company will need to think about in updating its customer communications management approach.

Let’s throw this one up for discussion. Starting Monday, 10th November 2008.

I would be delighted if you bookmarked document projects, subscribe and make a note in your diary.

Document Projects – Transactional Documents represent Customer Relationship Value October 7, 2008

Posted by Julian Bradder in call centre document creation, crm, cross selling, customer relationship management.
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Too often, I have seen companies who see the sending of documents to customers as a task that is borne of necessity. It is a background task, costs money but is essential. So we do it. We print documents and send them to customers.

Except in the most enlightened companies, rarely are these customer communications seen as a business opportunity. However those same companies may often spend very large somes of money on direct marketing as part of the sales & marketing process.

One of the things that we know is that for most businesses, it is far more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a customer. It is a more cost effective exercise to increase share of wallet with a existing customer than is the expense of acquiring a new one.

Too often, we hear end consumers saying how good the sales experience was, the promises that were made and expectations set. However once bought, the experience of working with the supplier becomes so-so and very me-to.

One thing that research tells us is that customers will spend far more time looking at a bill, statement or other important and essential communication than they ever will a direct mail item. I call these document types transactional documents. And it is here there lies one of the biggest opportunities for organisations. (more…)

White Space Management September 24, 2008

Posted by Julian Bradder in accelerate cash collection, billing processes, cross selling, customer relationship management, document management, White Space Management.
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Transactional documents such as bills and statements are the one document that you can rely on your customers giving some consideration. On average, people will spend less than 10 seconds reading direct mail pieces. Your customers will spend between 30 seconds and one and a half minutes studying their bill.

This is significant. It is an important part of you relationship with the customer. The opportunity is to not only tell your customers about your bill but to do much more with it.

A typical billing document will contain the customers address, some basic contact information and the core of the statement bill.

However, this renders much of the page unused and it is in these unused areas that opportunity exists. Here you can give customers options to pay, with the potential to accelerate cash collection processes. You can also utilise these areas of white space to promote with relevance. Thus, a customer in her late 50’s might be interested in Pension products and insurance products. A customer in their 30’s may be more interested in Child Trust Funds or College Savings schemes.

By effectively using data within your organisation, this white space can be utilised to best enhance the customer relationship and, ‘share of wallet’.

Document Management Consultancy. See site for contact information.

The Customer Relationship and Document Management September 24, 2008

Posted by Julian Bradder in call centre, crm, cross selling, customer relationship management, document management, invoice.
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For many service oriented businesses, the opportunity to interact with its customers are limited to perhaps a couple of calls a year to a service centre and communications that are sent via the mail.

For companies with multiple service/product offerings the opportunity is to cross-sell additional products to the customer. The premise is that it costs far more to acquire a customer than to sell new products to an existing customer. It is also understood that losing a customer is perhaps the most costly activity of all.

With such limited opportunity to communicate with customers, it can be difficult to achieve the cross-selling goal. Document Management presents organisations with an opportunity. Probably the most frequent customer interaction is, the customer bill. Usually sent monthly, this is the possibly the most common point of customer interactivity.

However, too many companies see this as just a billing process rather than an opportunity. Bills will be studied and analysed in far more detail than a direct mail item whilst customers are becoming increasingly resistant to sales calls to their home.

By using the bill as a relationship opportunity, organisations can improve their overall customer relationship and cross selling performance. Thus in this context, Document Management is a key component of the Customer Relationship Management process. It is strategically important and should be considered by senior executives in this light.