Effective communication is the foundation of any solid customer experience initiative. But with a plethora of communication avenues available to insurers and customers, it can feel impossible to effectively manage all customer touchpoints.
Unless you have a customer communications management system.
Customer communications management software, otherwise known as CCM, leverages the best of digital insurance functions to improve all aspects of the customer experience. And when integrated with other SaaS insurance solutions, CCM can take insurance operations — both internal and customer facing — to the next level.
Duck Creek Solutions works with an entire ecosystem of System Integrators, Solution Partners, and Consulting Partners to enhance the functionality of our core system. For this article, we consulted the customer communications management experts at Quadient, a Duck Creek partner, to gain insight into this important topic.
What is CCM?
Gartner defines customer communications management as “the strategy to improve the creation, delivery, storage and retrieval of outbound communications, including those for marketing, new product introductions, renewal notifications, claims correspondence and documentation, and bill and payment notifications… CCM solutions support these objectives, providing companies with an application to improve outbound communications with their distributors, partners, regulatory bodies and customers.”
In simpler terms, CCM software is a way for organizations to create, manage, and deliver customer communications across multiple channels such as mail, emails, SMS text, web pages, fax and more, all of which ensures a consistent, personalized customer experience. The main objective is to have a periodic connection with customers to deliver business critical information and transactional data such as invoices, statements, new product offers, claims correspondences and renewal notices, as well as all other direct communication.
Why is CCM So Important?
There are four primary reasons why having a top-quality CCM software program should be priority number one for carriers.
- Customer communication management solutions help companies design and deliver mission-critical documents and communications, such as credit card statements, utility bills, insurance policies, account opening documents and so on from a single, centralized system.
- They enable insurers to communicate with policyholders in their preferred channels, including digital channels such SMS and email — channels which, during the pandemic, were oftentimes the only touchpoint carriers had with their customer.
- CCM is evolving into the foundation of customer experience management (CXM), as it expands into adjacent areas like customer journey mapping, archiving and more.
- Today’s customers expect organizations to be ready to respond to their needs at all times. That means, day or night, weekday, or weekend, you must provide that service to ensure all needs are met, and a CCM helps insurers do that.
What Should a CCM Solution Include?
Benefits of CCM & How It Improves the Customer Experience
Having a customer communications management system will benefit insurers immediately and in the long-term, especially when it comes to their customers. From a business perspective first, CCMs help insurers:
- Create a cohesive/seamless communication infrastructure
- Improve customer loyalty
- Reduce total cost of ownership
- Ensure communication compliance with all government regulations
Customers will also benefit from working with a carrier that utilizes CCM solutions. Overall, customers expect to receive only the most relevant information instead of overwhelming them with disjointed communications. CCMs helps organizations get the right information to their customers at the right time and in the right delivery channel, which results in:
- Fewer expensive contact center inquiries and reduced time calling customer service due to timely, easier to understand, more relevant communications.
- Improved customer loyalty/satisfaction with delivery through preferred channel(s), meeting customers where they are.
Faster time to settlement and closing a claim. - Improved brand equity with higher quality, customer focused communications and consistent look and feel across all channels.
- Increased revenue with targeted, dynamically inserted cross-sell promotions.
However, it is not enough to just have a customer communications management solution. Insurers should aim to create engaging and personalized communication that is easy to understand, directly addresses their pain points, and ultimately improves overall CX. Using customer communication management tools, carriers become capable of transforming any interaction into an opportunity to provide a memorable experience and improve customer loyalty.
Duck Creek & Quadient for Better Policyholder Experiences
Duck Creek’s core system provides the perfect foundation for P&C insurers looking to replace legacy systems with modern, SaaS-based solutions and rapidly adapt to changes in the marketplace. Through our partner ecosystem integrations, carriers are able to build custom solutions on top of this platform — solutions that extend the value of our core system and enable them to execute their unique market strategies.
Quadient, the leading provider of customer communications management solutions, is an integral member of that ecosystem. Working together, Duck Creek and Quadient are able to empower our customers to create the world’s most meaningful customer experiences by:
- Customizing every customer interaction
- Optimizing enterprise customer communications objectives and CX strategy
- Extending omnichannel communication distribution capabilities
Quadient’s CCM Inspire portfolio not only improves the customer experience, it also helps address compliance. Many companies have been fined for not being compliant with communications. This product makes sure carriers are using the right content for the right jurisdiction, while also ensuring they can access content when they need it. Essentially, the Duck Creek and Quadient Inspire integration creates a single, centralized source of truth.
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