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By Richard Huff
Document accessibility was a hot topic of conversation at Madison Advisors’ 2023 CCM/CX Executive Roundtable in March. At the Roundtable, digital document access was identified as a top priority for improved customer experiences. Accessibility refers to features that enable recipients with disabilities to read a document. For digital documents, accessibility can range from large print to full tagging of all text, tables and objects.
As enterprises deliver more communications through digital channels, they must remain in compliance with federal requirements and provide a positive customer experience by ensuring that digital documents are accessible. Enterprises are at risk of losing customers with poorly designed customer communications that result in a poor customer experience. While customer acquisition costs vary by industry, they can range in the hundreds of dollars.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 61 million U.S. adults—one in five—live with a disability. Roughly 4.9% of the U.S. population is blind or as has low vision, meaning they experience serious difficulty with eyesight even while wearing glasses. People with vision-related disabilities often use screen readers, alternate text and other accessibility features to consume digital documents. Enterprises are increasingly expected to meet these varied ways of receiving information to provide their customers with full access to both personalized and non-personalized information.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III requires many enterprises to provide full and equal access to people with disabilities. This portion of the legislation covers websites, internet portals and digital documents, all of which impact the relationship between enterprises and their customers.
Due to the sensitive nature of customer communications and the importance of making them accessible to the customer, a significant number of lawsuits have been filed to ensure compliance with the regulations. The number of Title lll ADA lawsuits has climbed nearly every year since 2013, with at least 11,452 federal filings documented in 2021 alone. Overall, accessibility lawsuits have seen a 320% increase over the past eight years.
The standards for an accessible document are complex and best handled by experts. A variety of factors need to be considered when creating accessible documents including, but not limited to, text alternatives for graphics, robust color contrast and support for keyboard navigation. A number of software companies and service providers offer accessibility solutions and work with enterprises to develop templates for the organization’s document types and a cloud-based solution to create and return accessible PDF documents, conforming to industry standards. The PDF format ensures accessibility for individuals using assistive technology to access digital content.
In an increasingly digital world, customers expect personalized, relevant communications delivered via their preferred channels and devices. The demand for well-designed communications has a direct impact on loyalty with over 50% of customers indicating they would abandon a brand after only one or two negative interactions. Enterprises must find ways to meet this demand, while also providing accessible communications to the millions of adults in the U.S. with disabilities.
By Kemal Carr
We held our 10th CCM/CX Executive Roundtable this March 6-9 in Fort Lauderdale. It is always an exciting time for me to connect again with those who have attended in the past and those who are new to the Roundtable experience. Participants at the Roundtable come from a variety of industries (and a variety of departments within those companies) involved in various stages of customer communications management (CCM). The Roundtable is designed to give them (and us) the opportunity to share and learn from each other. We all learn, too, what is new or on the horizon when it comes to CCM and the transactional document industry from our sponsor partners that give such informative presentations.
There is always an immediate benefit from time spent in thought provoking peer-to-peer discussions about how others are successfully establishing their CCM journeys. There is also huge value in what you can gain from candid information about how companies are working to effectively engage customers throughout the entire communications lifecycle.
There were recurring topics on what we have discussed at other Roundtable events, such as how businesses in these different sectors are implementing their CCM strategies. But there were some new and interesting topics of discussions as well—all relevant to what every company is experiencing today. For example, with the plethora of channels available to reach customers today, how do you address customers’ consent and preferences while ensuring the protection of their personal data based on their rights that the law requires when it comes to their data? There was a lot of talk around that. Laws, too, are now in place when it comes to document accessibility, requiring that documents are accessible to individuals who are blind, partially sighted or cognitively impaired. Complying with document accessibility guidelines can be challenging without the right strategy, so, as you can imagine, every participant in the room was interested in exploring solutions to this challenge.
We learned that digital transformation is still an ongoing journey for most companies. Establishing a digital mindset was mandated during the pandemic, causing many businesses to scramble to keep connected with customers. Everyone was interested in hearing how companies are handling the digital landscape, what technology investments are being made in this area and how customers are being helped to navigate these changes.
Of course, all these discussion topics come down to a focus on one thing: the customer experience (CX). Today, CX drives most everything companies do, so how to expand on CCM to create the CX needed to ensure the optimum health and success of a business is of interest to us all.
This is why this Roundtable is simply not like “your grandfathers conference.” It is an amazingly open forum that makes peer-to-peer sharing safe and extremely valuable. It is an opportunity like no other to collaborate with peers, share insights and take part in invigorating discussions that lead to new ways to unlock the power of CX within your company.
We want to give a big thanks to our sponsors:
Broadridge, Canon, Crawford Technologies, CSG, FIS, Fiserv, Messagepoint, NEPS, PossibleNOW, Precisely, Solimar Systems
Your support and your awesome presentations on what you are doing to advance the CX helped to make this the best Roundtable ever! For the participants that joined us this year, thank you! Your willingness to share your journey openly in all these discussions makes the Roundtable what it is: an event like no other. And if you are reading this and didn’t make it, be sure to join us next year. You will be glad you did!
By Kemal Carr
Finding the right print service provider (PSP) is key to delivering the consistent, personalized communication that promotes consumer loyalty. For many companies, a request for proposals (RFP) is often a flawed, outdated, go-to process for evaluating these third-party vendors. An RFP on its own may not be enough to determine whether a prospective partner is the optimal fit.
Identifying a reliable PSP that can deliver consistent, high-volume and on-brand customer communications can be a daunting task for even the most seasoned of decision makers, which is why over the past 20 years Madison Advisors has developed its own methodology for evaluating prospective partners. In our most recent Emerging Trends Brief, “Mastering RFP Vendor Selection,” we draw on data gleaned from more than 100 Best Practices Assessments (BPAs) and present our tools for comparing prospective PSPs during the RFP process.
Even using the most comprehensive and well-executed RFP, decision makers may not possess the print industry knowledge required to ask the right questions of prospective vendors, which can ultimately lead to missed deadlines, communication lapses and a lack of contract clarity. For this reason, a comprehensive market analysis is the cornerstone of our PSP assessment methodology. Beginning with an onsite review and interview sessions, we measure the quality of each vendor’s customer communications practices, document production capabilities and ancillary processes. We then compile that data on confidential scorecards, which allow us a vendor-neutral data set from which to assess each PSP’s capabilities. As we often tell our clients, it’s the questions they don’t ask are what get them in trouble.
With this objective basis for evaluation, each vendor’s operational site is assigned an aggregate score, which we plot on a chart alongside those of direct competitors. Vendors are also sorted into three tiers—national, regional and local—based on their production site distribution and monthly page production. The tier system and BPA scores allow enterprise firms to compare and differentiate between various comparable vendors, ultimately deciding on the vendor whose capabilities align most closely with their needs. We often find large clients like to work with partners of comparable size, while mid-sized firms might better fit with a regional or mid-tier vendor.
One of the most significant RFP pitfalls is when a high-volume enterprise selects a vendor that lacks the capacity to keep up with their customer communication needs. This applies to both the physical mail manufacturing and the equally important omni-channel delivery channels. To address this, another one of our tools plots aggregate scores against the vendor’s average monthly envelope volume, enabling clients to identify providers that can accommodate their print and mail volumes, as well as e-delivery capacity.
Another important attribute assessed by our BPAs is a vendor’s ability to leverage leading-edge technology to help enterprises increase the scope and scale of their customer communications. Our vetting process involves examining each vendor’s portfolio of software and solutions, assigning the highest scores to those with the capacity to accommodate a shift from paper-based to digital delivery.
Asking the right questions of a prospective PSP can be an intimidating task, even for those who are well-versed in crafting a successful RFP. With our research and consulting experience—and with the tools we’ve developed through objective analysis—Madison Advisors can support your enterprise in finding a partner that not only meets your baseline needs, but ultimately helps you grow your business.
The complimentary brief can be downloaded here.
By Kemal Carr
Around 2018 it seemed tradeshows had lost their luster. Exhibitors were downsizing their booth space or thinking about doing so. Customers often didn’t feel the need to travel to a show when they could learn about new products on websites. Just two years later, in 2020, tradeshows came to a complete halt as we all grappled with a pandemic. While many vendors put on virtual events in the hopes of nurturing (and keeping) customers, that, plus constant Teams and Zoom meetings, led to what might be called digital fatigue. As the pandemic began to wind down, things began to change.
Last year, Deloitte predicted business travel would return to nearly pre-COVID-19 levels during 2022 and other experts predicted a resurgence of domestic conferences, events and tradeshows in 2022. It appears that both predictions are coming to fruition because, as we get ready to close 2022, tradeshows appear to be coming back. Nothing validates that more in the print industry than the recent PRINTING United Expo held October 19-21 in Las Vegas. PRINTING United was the only all-segment expo in the Western Hemisphere in 2022.
Initial marketing for the show promised product launches, live demonstrations, powerful keynote education, networking opportunities and the chance to reconnect under one roof. The show management didn’t disappoint. With 700 exhibitors on the floor, for many of us who have been in the industry a while, it felt like Graph Expo used to feel. The booths were always busy and the layout was great with two halls supporting commercial, digital, apparel, digital textile, packaging, mailing and fulfillment and graphics/wide-format spaces.
I went to PRINTING United to observe the health of this show and there is no doubt, it was extremely healthy. At first, I was a little surprised at the turnout, the enthusiasm and the energy that seemed to reverberate from the walls. However, as I think about it, business relationships have always thrived on face-to-face connections. We need the energy of being together and the ideas that are generated when we meet in person. The activity at PRINTING United reminded me of all this, along with the lyrics of a once-popular song: “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” I doubt we will ever again take for granted the importance, the value and the inspiration that occurs by seeing products up close and doing business in person. It is easy to see why PRINTING United Expo 2022 was such a success.
By Kemal Carr
There has been a great deal of discussion both from us at Madison Advisors and the industry in general around the pros and cons of in-house print and mail operations vs. outsourcing this function. Pushed by the ever-present need to reduce expenditures while retaining operational efficiencies, the success of an in-house operation ultimately depends on being able to compete with the value an outsourced operation brings. Too many times, in our experience, an in-house operation assumes they're doing well. Then they get the tap on the shoulder from upper management saying this department is too expensive, and its gone. It is gone because there was no concrete data to determine the value of the operation to use to push back. All that is visible to senior leadership are the costs.
To keep a sustainable in-house print/mail operation that meets or exceeds industry standards, you need firm data to prove that it is. That can only be achieved by having a baseline that gives your operation something to measure itself against. At Madison Advisors, we offer a Best Practices Assessment (BPA), a comprehensive study designed to examine best practices across the converging markets of high-volume output, print on demand (POD) and electronic delivery operations, including those of captive or internal document services operations and for-profit service providers. Throughout the BPA, a rigorous methodology designed to analyze critical aspects of production output processes and practices is executed to review:
During the assessment, we capture more than 700 data points to quantitatively rate an operation’s strategies, its processes and application of technology in support of the output objectives. Data collected from each on-site review and interview session is then aggregated as a set of confidential scorecards, each of which measures the quality of customer communications practices, document production capabilities and ancillary processes. Compilation of data across scorecards yields blinded, aggregated data, representing conditions as a set.
We then prepare a customized analysis of the operation’s key areas of strength and weakness to determine where it ranks above or below average. If it is within the industry standard norm and doing well, we generally recommend you keep doing it. If it is outside those norms, the report highlights strategic and tactical recommendations on how to improve, or logical alternatives.
When engaging outside assistance in this type of assessment, is important to work with a firm that has a thorough and tested understanding of today’s print and mail services market. Madison Advisors has benchmarked more than 100 print and mail operations, both in-house and print service providers, as it’s important to understand the differences, since developing this process in 2001 with great success for those who have participated in this process. It always surprises us that we still run across situations where operations struggle with taking the time to know how their operation stacks up against the competition, and how good their operation really is. We know from experience that it is worth the time because, if you get that tap on the shoulder because your company is deciding whether they want to outsource the work or stay in house (and we have seen this happen more than once), you have the data to show your value and you have a plan underway.
Madison Advisors conducts BPAs on an ongoing basis and updates the criteria frequently to reflect industry advancements. If you are ready to gain an objective insight into how your operations and practices compare to those of the industry at large and have that data and a plan to execute, take a look at our BPA process here. Then contact us for more information on how we can help ensure your print and mail organization is sustainable and is meeting—or exceeding—industry standards.
By Richard Huff
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the transition from paper-based customer communications to digital channels, making cross-channel management of customer communications crucial. While digital channels, such as email and text messages, have grown significantly in the past few years, Madison Advisors has found that customers continue to prefer different channels for different types of communications. As a result, organizations need to be able to support a customer’s interaction moving across channels with minimal friction for high customer satisfaction.
Today, a customer interaction with the enterprise often extends beyond one channel. A sales inquiry may start with an email, a paper contract may be generated for signatures, and the interaction may be concluded with a text notification. Customers expect a seamless interaction to extend across channels. Enterprise organizations need interconnected solutions capable of generating each customer communication, automating the processing of each communication, and tracking them to ensure that a customer interaction is not lost and that the status in one channel transfers to another channel.
The cross-channel management of customer communications enables organizations to reduce the amount of friction experienced by customers, improving the overall customer experience. For example, a text notification to a customer saying their bill is ready for viewing reminds customers to check their email and reduces the payment cycle time. Allowing customers to choose preferred methods of communication depending on the type of communication improves the overall customer experience.
The traditional automated document factory (ADF) is a collection of software modules integrated and configured to support print production. The ADF manages production with automated workflows triggered by the receipt of a file or a timer. For regulated industries, such as insurance and healthcare, the ADF retains proof that a document was mailed to a specific customer on a specific day. However, these solutions do not support digital channels to the same extent.
The changing paradigm with an emphasis on the customer experience requires new solutions capable of managing the process for both physical and digital communications. To meet the new demands, enterprise organizations need to assemble a digital ADF capable of integration with line of business applications, as well as newer customer data repositories, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and consent management applications.
The digital ADF supports all communications and, more importantly, automates the processes when the appropriate channel changes between channels. The new solution monitors communications as they relate to the customer lifecycle, triggering processes to automate customer interaction and eliminate as many manual steps as possible. In addition, the digital ADF links the various communications and documents together.
For example, a claims process generates a number of back-and-forth communications, including digital photos, documents from third parties, and a payment. From the insured’s perspective, it should not matter if the information is shared through an online form, a text message with attached photos, or a paper check, all these documents are part of the same incident. The insured would not expect to have to re-enter personal information repeatedly at each stage.
Ideally, the digital ADF supports a broad range of communications, including sales and marketing, and it leverages a centralized data repository for a 360-degree view of the customer and a record of all associated customer interactions. The solution also includes or has access to a content repository capable of storing different types of content and delivering it in a channel-appropriate format.
Most enterprises are still in the early stages of digital transformation initiatives and CCM systems remain fragmented. As a first step, it is vital that organizations evaluate their own business goals and properly assess their customers’ expectations to ensure that the solution aligns with both. The organization should identify which channels customers are asking for most often, as well as which channels best support the various business processes.
The future state for a digitally transformed environment will reveal business, functional, and technical requirements that must be met to support the transformation. Madison Advisors works with its clients to identify the appropriate business goals and requirements and then select the right solutions to meet these goals.
The current state of the ADF market is explored in more detail in Madison Advisors’ Brief “Automated Document Factory Solutions Enter the Digital Age,” October 2022.
By Amber Knight, Senior Project Manager and Analyst
There are many roles that require both science and art and I view project management as one of them. The science is the methodology used to manage projects. These methodologies are well documented and provide tools to assist a project manager (PM) throughout the different phases of a project. Most PMs have mastered the science of project management; however, the top performers have also mastered the art of project management.
What is this mysterious art? The answer to that isn’t cut and dried. Possibly, it can be described as a set of characteristics or traits. I like to describe PMs who have mastered the art of project management as “outside the checkbox” PMs because these PMs push beyond familiar methods to add a new dimension to project leadership. They use their experience to expand their peripheral vision, which allows them to recognize threats and opportunities that will define project success. They envision more comprehensive and adaptive solutions. They are customer-centric and outcome-focused with a concrete understanding of the big picture. Lastly, and possibly one of the most important characteristics, they understand the importance of practicing servant leadership.
As a PM, below are some of the ways I support projects throughout each phase of Madison Advisors’ optiMA lifecycle, tapping into the art of project management, as needed.
Optimization Strategy
Working with the project team consisting of client stakeholders and Madison Advisors subject matter experts (SMEs), customer communications goals are documented and organized to reflect revenue enhancement, cost and risk reduction, technology requirements and the customer experience. These critical success factors (CSF) result in an actionable customer communications management (CCM) strategy.
Discovery and Analysis & Target Operating Model
During the optiMA Discovery and Analysis exploratory phase, current processes are reviewed for cost inefficiencies, increased exposure to risk or negative impact on customer experience and retention.
A target operating model (TOM) is developed by identifying gaps in business processes, technology and staffing. Additionally, areas of strength and those that need improvement are identified. In addition to the traditional PM role, I sometimes wear my business analyst (BA) hat during this phase. Process improvement is a passion of mine and, when possible, I enjoy contributing to the process workflow documentation.
Strategic Roadmap
Utilizing the TOM, a customized and comprehensive strategic CCM roadmap is developed. In my opinion, this is both an exciting and critical phase of the optiMA methodology! As a PM, I view the Strategic Roadmap as the master plan. Once completed, the roadmap serves as the foundation for the next three phases.
Partner & Technology Selection
Project management is critical during Partner & Technology Selection. Creating selection metrics, managing responses and developing a realistic timeline can be challenging. Many organizations opt to leverage Madison Advisors’ experience and unbiased approach to the selection process. Our proven tools and techniques are specific to the CCM industry and are customized to match technical requirements that are aligned with strategic goals.
Business Case Support & Transformation Strategy
Change management provides the ability to take preemptive steps that build commitment to and adoption of change. It is my belief that at its core, change management requires the voice of the customer (VoC) and understanding the desired impact(s) to stakeholders within an organization. Our team works closely with project sponsors and key stakeholders to help steer the transition and support the business case for change.
Partner Integration Management
This is when the strategy is executed!
While projects may follow the same general phases, each project has its own unique circumstances that require solutions specific to that engagement. Having experience and the right set of tools in your toolbox not only saves time, but can also reduce risk.
Whether you are considering a new CCM strategy or embarking on a change, selecting the right project manager is essential. At Madison Advisors, our goal is to ensure that what is being delivered is right for your specific environment and brings real value to supporting your business strategy.
By Kemal Carr, President, Madison Advisors
So much about DSF ’22 made it a positive event. The first being that it was an in-person conference. DSF ’22 and Xplor were the first to exit the virtual world and gamble that an in-person event would be well received. And it was. The conference garnered a good mix of enterprise organizations, print service providers, vendors, analysts and end users that made a variety of lively discussions possible.
The overall theme was consistent with the message Madison Advisors has been delivering for some time now: What does it take to move in the direction of ensuring the delivery of the whole customer experience? Many presentations and vendors talked about customer experience in one way, shape or form, but overall that conversation has shifted. Consistent with our market research, there is more focus on using CCM as a jump-off point to drive a better customer experience (CX) and, ultimately, have customer experience management (CXM) as second nature to the business strategy. The desired outcome is to retain clients longer, attract a better audience and drive revenue. However, the question becomes how do you get there—and more importantly, how do you measure whether or not you are achieving those goals?
It was interesting that the conversation centered a great deal on the road to a better CX, not as much about how to treat CX as a measurable quantity. To attach any ROI to your efforts, in addition to qualifying it, it is important to look at how you can quantify a successful customer experience. I think that while there's progress, and certainly a great deal of activity around CX, there's still quite a bit of work to be done. We have seen firsthand, like anything new or different entering an organization, it takes time to incorporate.
In my opinion, as a company, you must have continued discussion about what CX means to your organization and bounce around ideas in order to be clear on your definition of CX before you can start to measure it. Once you get to a general consensus on what CX means to your business, only then can you determine how to measure it. What DSF ’22 proved is that we now have a large enough base of people talking about CX, looking for ways to implement it and the tools that are needed to continue to build it. Hence, it is time to make sure we can measure it.
To start, it is critical to have a digital infrastructure that gives you a consolidated view of how your customer base is interacting with your digital tools. The different technology vendors at the conference shared how their solutions can provide this type of dashboard, some being able to see performance at a glance, others having the capability to dive deeper. Having a dashboard that aligns with your goals makes it possible to measure the customer experience by digging into the data points that customers provide every day, even simple ones, such as how many opened the email, how many watched the video or, more importantly, how many clicked on the button to get more information or buy.
Using the best platform to support your CX is also important in this customer journey, which is why our interactive personalized video market study, presented by our senior analyst Rich Huff at the event, tied nicely into the customer experience conversation. It is CX that is driving the need to communicate and educate customers about complex topics, such as defined contributions or healthcare benefits, with alternatives to bulky mailings with pages of fine print. Interactive personalized video (IPV) enables organizations to leverage customer data to create customized content that suggests a course of action and transmits the customers’ responses back to corporate administration systems. The presentation was well attended with many questions, mostly around how to implement it. It is true that IPV production and distribution remains an emerging market, but we see it as one that is intimately connected to the broader customer communications/customer experience market.
It will be interesting to watch how the excitement we experienced at DSF ’22 around CX plays into the year. Again, there are challenges, first in defining what CX means to your organization, then developing an ROI to the efforts of continual improvements. However, there is no doubt that the CCM conversation is moving in a new direction—and we all need to listen.
By Dan Chevalier, VP of Business Development and Senior Analyst
Nine out of the top ten P&C insurance organizations continue to print and mail internally. Madison Advisors recently put out a call for participation for P&C companies to participate in a multi-client best practices assessment (BPA). Why? To answer the following critical-to-success questions:
1. As a company are we implementing the best go-forward print and mail customer communications management strategy?
2. How does our P&C organization compare to others in the P&C segment and to their internal processing peers and to print service providers (PSP)?
3. Is our P&C organization on par or behind in operational efficiency?
The customer communications management (CCM)/customer experience management (CXM) industry is evolving at a rapid pace. The objective of Madison Advisors’ CCM/CXM Best Practices Assessment (BPA) is to benchmark this evolution. Through in-depth examination and industry expertise, the team at Madison Advisors compares and contrasts those in the industry being studied, benchmarking and comparing them across a variety of different attributes, taking into account their capabilities against their peer group and industry best practices.
This P&C multi-client BPA study will investigate and quantify the best practices of CCM/CXM physical delivery and digital transformation and corporate functions that evaluate whether to keep print and mail internally versus alternatives available in the market.
To be considered a leader in your industry, it is important to anticipate industry trends in order to gain a competitive advantage. There is a clear trend that, since the pandemic, outsourcing print/mail production to a reliable, knowledgeable print and communications partner makes business sense to many enterprises. Many companies no longer want to invest in the capital expenditure, but still recognize the critical need to meet customer preferences in a timely manner. However, it will require a strong assessment of your operation to ensure it is firing on all cylinders and primed to capitalize on this trend with a solid strategy that ensures success.
At Madison Advisors, we have a strong history of supporting enterprises as they meet today’s challenges and ensuring they are implementing best practices across the converging markets of high-volume outbound and inbound communications. While no transition from an enterprise to a print/mail and communications provider is perfect (or the other way around), having a solid strategy around the use of technology, efficient workflow processes and in-depth knowledge of your industry will put you at ease as to what is the best decision for your company.
We invite P&C insurers of all sizes to join us. Throughout the study, your organization will benefit from the real-time analysis and expert opinions of Madison Advisors’ analysts. In addition, your organization will receive a customized analysis and recommendations from Madison Advisors’ team through a customized BPA report and a Q&A conference session.
For information on the benefits of participating in this BPA and how to sign up to participate, click here.
By Rich Huff, Senior Analyst, Madison Advisors
Madison Advisors has just completed a market study exploring the emerging interactive personalized video (IPV) landscape. Dynamic video represents the latest expansion in customer communications and should now be considered an important element in any organization’s customer communications management (CCM) strategy.
The five participants in this study included BlueRush, Doxee, Idomoo, O’Neil Data Systems (ODS) and Precisely.
With the increased adoption of mobile communications and broadband access, streaming video has entered the mainstream and offers a compelling new channel for customer communications. Video enables organizations the opportunity to guide customers through complex processes, such as healthcare enrollment and retirement contribution onboarding, providing a more enticing mechanism to present rich data and keep customers engaged.
IPV solutions generate unique videos customized to each recipient with live data, such as account balances, purchase histories and selection options. The interactive aspect of IPV distinguishes these solutions from traditional creative packages that offer static or personalized videos. IPV solutions connect to corporate data sources in real time in order to present the most current account information to a customer and utilize that data to present different content and selections to the viewer.
In addition, IPV solutions enable organizations to collect data from the viewer. During the video, viewers can make choices regarding the content, update contact information or request changes to their accounts. The IPV solutions track user selections and pass updates directly to the corporate data sources. These solutions present viewers with a call to action – update personal information, sign up for a new service or make a purchase – and direct the viewer to engage immediately.
During the Madison Advisors assessment, each participant provided several strong use cases for IPV. The most compelling use cases involve complex documents and complex customer relationships. The visual medium enables organizations to guide customers through a renewal or onboarding process. The experience is personalized for each customer and easily engages customers in the process.
All of these companies ranked well in Madison Advisors’ Vista analysis, which involved assessing both functionality and corporate strategy. Each company takes a different approach to IPV and it is important for organizations to find a good match. One important thing for organizations to consider in selecting a vendor is how much help they will need developing and maintaining CCM campaigns using IPV.
As the market matures, IPV will become an integral element of CCM. IPV enables organizations to deliver timely and relevant video content to customers, leveraging customer data to control the presentation of various options to customers. The technology also gathers feedback on the choices customers make within the dynamic video stream. These systems track changes requested by customers, as well as choices customers make regarding which parts of the overall video they decide to view. This feedback enables organizations to change the presentation and make changes to future communications throughout the customer lifecycle.
Since the IPV vendors offer differing approaches to implementation, it is wise to engage a trusted advisor that understands the capabilities and landscape related to your CCM strategy and can assist in aligning your business priorities to the appropriate vendor relationship. This helps you effectively improve your customers’ experience with your organization. Madison Advisors works with clients to understand their specific internal business requirements and utilizes market intelligence to align best-of-breed solutions providers to those requirements. We also assist in guiding you through an informed decision-making process that maximizes return on investment, creating real, tangible business value.
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