The Future of Digital Transformation in Customer Communications

This is a guest article from Racami, a valued BCC Software partner.

We are only halfway through 2020 and we can say it’s been one of the most transformational years the world has experienced. The coronavirus pandemic has brought on major challenges and changes to the economy, corporations and society as a whole. This crisis has also left a huge mark on consumers, who’s interests and communications preferences changed as they exercise caution while they navigate the “new normal”. The effects of COVID-19 in the customer communications world has largely contributed to the incorporation of remote working policies to support business continuity, the rapid adoption of digital transformation in organizations, and pressure to provide exceptional multichannel customer experiences to keep customers happy and surviving this upheaval.

Remote Monitoring Solutions Support Business Continuity

In a matter of weeks many employees had to shift the way they work and move their offices to their homes. People working in the print and mail industry were not spared. Facilities that depended on operators to keep printers and other equipment running had to make changes fast to significantly minimize exposure to COVID-19 on the production floor and guarantee the safety of the employees. Some changes involved moving equipment further apart, staggering shifts, requiring employees to follow a sanitizing protocol after using the machines. They have also involved providing managers with software technology that enables them to remotely monitor the production facility, track performance, review dashboards with production metrics, automate tasks, secure data, optimize work and provide mail piece intelligence, visibility and reporting.

Racami and BCC Software offer such software solutions. For example, in a matter of days service bureaus and in-plant facilities that use customer communications management software systems like Racami’s Alchem-e™ enjoyed a smooth transition from physical to remote monitoring of the operation in real-time. These organizations have gained a competitive advantage by investing in technology that not only supports business continuity today but helps them become more resilient to battle future challenges.

Embracing Digital Transformation Amidst and Post COVID-19

There’s no doubt that digital transformation has been intensifying and developing for a couple of decades now. The trend is clear: digitization enables organizations to accelerate their growth through the implementation of digital activities that foster innovation and diminish manual work. This led to fundamental improvements in the way businesses leveraged data, information, and analytics as well as connectivity to boost automation, security, and productivity in their operations.

However, digital transformation efforts in traditional industries like print and mail are not always successful due to the wide array of multiple legacy or home-grown systems and hardware from different suppliers. This issue not only affects the advancements of print operations but creates the perfect recipe for drawbacks, errors, and process silos that heavily impact the quality of the output documents. These organizations need an end-to-end integration system that connects and communicates with all the software and hardware they already have to track operation efficiency, provide a real-time unified view of all processes, automate actions, and present the needed information to expand print production volumes and revenues at scale.

Now imagine what these companies without a smart end-to-end integration system had to go through once the government advised businesses to adopt work from home and social distancing measures? The answer is absolute chaos and many mistakes. They were forced overnight to find integration solutions like Alchem-e™ to get their work done from their home offices and transform their offerings to abide by increasing customer demands for digital communications.

Importantly, even though some countries and cities are planning to reopen and return to normality soon, digitally transformed print and mail facilities won’t go back to the old ways of doing work. Essentially, these printing operations will see their companies’ roles evolve from manual and labor-intensive tasks to more data and technology-driven positions. This is due to the incorporation of technology that will boost employee innovation, improve decision-making, and catalyze the organization for growth.

Revamp Your Communications Strategy with a Holistic Multichannel Approach

The multichannel communications concept is simple: reach customers wherever they prefer. Nonetheless, the workflow behind it is quite complex. A successful multichannel communications and distribution strategy creates value by transforming the customer experience and improving communications across different channels.

The majority of businesses in the customer communications space believe they are implementing multichannel strategies when they are really just sending emails independently of print. A holistic multichannel strategy involves a complex workflow system that handles customer channel preferences, creates jobs that are compatible with the destined channel, tracks document delivery, and understands the touchpoints consumers are having with your brand. A smart CCM tool like Alchem-e™ realizes that multichannel is about ensuring the delivery of the communication and facilitating the customer experience at every touchpoint.

A great deal of transactional communications such as letters, statements, EOBs and bills are still generated and distributed using primarily manual work or siloed systems that don’t talk to each other and that don’t have a comprehensive multichannel strategy in place.  Today, more important than ever, transactional communications and customer care professionals need to focus on listening to customer problems, delivering their documents to their preferred channel, giving hope with their messaging, communicating with empathy, and building a sense of community.

The truth is after COVID-19 passes things will not go back to the way they once were. This new normal will continue to be massively dependent on software solutions to connect employees, customers, suppliers, and technology. Racami’s Alchem-e™ Dashboard and Alchem-e™ FLOW coupled with BCC Software’s Mail Manager™ and Track N Trace® provide production managers with valuable tools to increase their operational performance, provide metrics visibility, automate processes, enrich the customer experience throughout the customer journey, and support their remote teams during these uncertain times.

If you’d like to learn more about our Alchem-e™ system and how it can support your operation’s growth, schedule a demo with our team here: https://lnkd.in/eiisFVE