jump to navigation

The evolution of Document Creation October 24, 2008

Posted by Julian Bradder in Uncategorized.
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

Document creation software has been evolving since the 1970’s. Originally document creation or composition software was essentially a piece of code that sat upon a mainframe and attached to transactional business applications on the mainframe.

The documents that these systems produced were functional, that is probably all you can say about them. Developing document creation applications within these systems was time consuming and demanded an awful lot of code. However what may surprise you is the number of applications out there still running on these systems!

During the 1980’s, we started to see an advance in the document creation arena. Systems became easier to work with and the notion of bringing some variable data in for select marketing messages began to appear. The advent of the PC began to bring software tools in the document management arena. Notably, imaging and work flow and letter creation tools.

However compared to today, computing power was still relatively low, Windows had not really emerged as a dominant operating system and the tools that companies were using to generate documents remained fairly rigid and certainly demanded a heavy skill set to create new document creation applications.

With these tools, the process of getting a new document to market was long and fairly arduous requiring much IT input and much liaison and dialogue between the business and IT. Thus once an application was built, it was likely to remain fairly static.

Then came the 1990’s. Windows was in ascendancy and the concept of GUI (Graphical User Interface) tools began to emerge. WYSIWIG (What you see is what you get) began to make an entrance into the field of document creation and composition. Now, users of moderate skill and IT literacy could begin to take some control over the look and feel of the documents.

A large portion of the scripting has now been removed from the document application development process. The scripting that was required now was related to document business rules – what salutation to use, if variable x on the document equals y then show this wording etc.

Whilst this advance was significant, we certainly couldn’t call the document creation process dynamic. There is still a lot of need for IT Project Management discipline and a document could not  simply be turned around in a day. Thus, customer communications management projects remained fairly un-dynamic and a sudden change in market conditions might induce a delayed reaction in customer communications documents.

What did begin to emerge towards the end of the 1990’s was the advent of business user messaging software. Now, a user in marketing could add a marketing message hours before a statement run was due to be produced and that message would hit customer letter boxes the next morning.

From 2000 on, things really began to take off. More and more control was pushed in the users direction. The ability to drive communications to customers became a task of the business. Convergence of other document management tools such as archival and retrieval tools meant that the business of creating documents was moving from being a service function to an active, live and dynamic value provider.

Customer service functions began to notice benefits. Higher quality documents mean fewer calls into the call centre. The ability to view customer documents online through web browsers meant that customers were served more effectively and quickly. Call centre productivity was rising.

In the last 5 years, the push to be able to communicate via any channel with relevant content has grown significantly. Today, document creation is the means that a company communicates with its customers, prospects and suppliers.

The ability to deliver documents as paper, email, sms, web, to social media, using XML documents to interface with suppliers efficiently, to be able to communicate customers on a one to one basis means that document creation starts involves advanced data management, marketing process and input, sophisticated distribution and technology explotation.

Today, Document Creation drives sales, improves company efficiency, increases customer loyalty, share of wallet and numerous other key performance indicators. Document creation can live and breathe with an organisation and gives organisations a competitive advantage that competitors not equipped with the right technology simply can’t succeed against.

Document Creation is about knowing your customers. It is about setting up an ongoing dialogue with those customers, tempting them to tell you a little more about themselves each time they interact with you. It is about developing a focus, about creating individual customer value.

The need for a “Customer Communications Director” Role October 12, 2008

Posted by Julian Bradder in Uncategorized.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

It’s the old case of silo’s merging into one. As happened with ERP which was largely about a companies ability to transact data, communications are needing the same overhaul.

We now have a situation where the convergence of call centres and customer service centres, traditionally led by company sales, marketing and customer service teams, with document processing and printing, traditionally led by IT and operations functions renders a need for cohesion between the two groups.

A key measure of differentiation between companies offering very similar services is through the way in which they communicate with their customers. In order for this to work, I can’t help but feel that the care and value that customer communications management brings should be driven with the view of one who understands both arenas.

In some ways, it brings two very different cultures together. But the role would bring clear benefits to companies. The ability to drive up cross selling activities, accelerate deal closure at point of sale, to enhance the customer experience and take load off call centre’s and improve the efficiency of enquiries means much to a business in competitive markets.

In any competitive market where product differentiation is difficult – Financial Services and Telecoms being notable – the ability to give the customer that little bit extra can make all the difference.

E-Mail Marketing – Just another channel for Customer Communications Management? October 12, 2008

Posted by Julian Bradder in Uncategorized.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

In a complete Customer Communications Management approach, we would not be ignoring the role of email in communications. Email has the ability to allow organisations to cost effectively serve messages upon its customers and suppliers.

I have previously discussed the way in which physical documents can serve customer relationship management objectives but this also applies to email.

The challenge that email has is that it is a casualty of what some writers call ‘The Attention Economy’. There is so much of it and it has a relatively low share in the mind of the average user. Scams, a poor internet reputation and so on mean that messages seen on email are quickly forgotten.

The answer is to ensure that your emails add value. The infrastructure that advises your customer about the best tariff for them on their physical documents can also deliver similar information to your email messages. Perhaps the topics may be different or may be about reinforcement of proposals made in physical communications.

This all points towards the fundamental importance of data, not channel in this brave new world of customer communications management. Understanding and being able to deliver value to your customers through the use of the data that you have.