Great CX is a race, but to win you need more than CCM speed

Andrea Haughton | Tuesday, Jun 28th 2022
blurred race car leaving the pit after tire change and service

CX excellence is the Formula One of today’s enterprises. Your ability to compete hinges upon creating meaningful, personalized interactions across all channels. A powerful customer communications management (CCM) engine is a critical piece of that puzzle, but are you powering your operation with a weak four-cylinder engine? 

According to Forrester, “Over one-third of CCM inquiries concern end-of-life or migration challenges due to aging on-premises systems. The time is ripe to make digital output the default and preferred option, unify channels, and get the mobile experience right.”

With many organizations now looking to overhaul their customer communications approach – and the supporting technology – there are several things to consider. Here, we’ll explore the importance of examining ‘what’s under the hood’ when evaluating a next-gen CCM solution.

More than a need for CCM speed

Speed is only one of the many “capabilities” needed to win at races like 24 hours of Le Mans.

Speed and power are not synonymous when it comes to CCM technology. Nor is “scalability” and power. Even if an engine was manufactured to be hit infinitely scalable speeds, the fuel tank still needs more frequent refueling.

A winner’s power is the perfect combination of performance, handling, style, teamwork, and endurance all performing at sustained high speed. It also needs to be prepared for all weather conditions on twisty-turny, crowded racecourses with expert pit crews waiting to troubleshoot on the sidelines. 

This sophistication develops via constant iteration. Porsche is the most winning car in Le Mans history because their R&D builds from the ground up, no outsourcing, intensely committed to tiny tweaks that drive race-over-race improvement. 

The same goes for CCM technology. 

Like race cars, the top solutions have R&D teams iterating owned technology from the ground up. No shortcuts, no outsourcing. Regardless of how scalable it claims to be, a solution built via a hodgepodge network of outsourced integrations – data work, rendering engines, and so on - lacks efficiency. The result is slow speeds, poor performance, and unpredictable costs. Often, one complex project deployed on an outsourced engine can blow your annual budget. Sometimes, you realize too late that the engine is not capable of completing the project and you’re left scrambling for a backup to avoid regulatory violations.

Today’s customers are as savvy as they are demanding. They expect sophisticated, polished and highly personalized customer communications in the moment that they need them. If you fail to provide the customer experience they want, they will go elsewhere (even if that means paying more.) 

But enterprise CCM is complicated. Like the best-performing race cars, powerful CCM solutions are not defined by one trait. It takes an intentional combination of performance, endurance, speed, durability, and support team to win – and keep – that customer. 

That’s why it's no coincidence that when they look under the hood, our competitors have engine envy. After all, the Ferrari Dino of communication engines is powering the most intelligent customer communications in the world.   

Quadient’s winning CXM solution suite

Over three decades, we've tasked the world's largest customer communications-focused R&D team on the planet with building the market's highest-rated, most innovative rendering engine. 

(Fun fact:  Quadient Inspire’s rendering engine scored a 99 out of 100 in the 2021 Aspire Leaderboard for CCM.)  

That means customer communications aren’t bloated, load faster and don’t time out for the customer. It means that you’re producing more cost-effective communications - even for your most complex jobs.   

And we’ve built the world’s only any prem CCM engine with deployments available on-premise, in the cloud, or a hybrid of the two. So, your organization can be prepared for the most important race of all – driving value by connecting with customers anywhere, at any time. 

And, CCM is even more powerful when combined with CX tools like customer journey management and omnichannel capabilities to enable connection in every critical moment of the customer lifecycle. (By the way, this is what we call CXM – this powerful intersection of CX tools and powerful CCM solutions to drive exceptional customer experience.) Learn more about how Quadient’s high-performance solution (with a winning track record) with Aspire’s Kaspar Roos

Check under the hood 

So, before you invest in the CX race, check under the hood – can the engine power winning customer communications? Does the solution have exceptional omnichannel performance, speed and durability to help you win? Answering these questions can help you see what you are really working with.