The power of communication unification

In today’s fast-changing business landscape, enterprises often find themselves tangled in a web of communication systems. What seemed to be a series of simple solutions to isolated problems has morphed into a complex network of technologies that negatively impact the customer experience.

That’s why you may want to consider consolidating communication management platforms, otherwise known as customer communication unification.

Simply put, customer communication unification is about taking control of every communication that you send to your customers, irrespective of the channel. It involves collaboration among various teams within your business to design, create, and deliver communications consistently across all channels.

By connecting all customer-facing communications to a customer journey map, communication unification ensures that each communication is consistent with your brand promise. This approach also holds every communication project accountable to your enterprise customer experience (CX) strategy. 

Unifying your communication strategy enables connections between marketing and IT, operations and sales, and compliance and line of business. Customer communication unification is at the intersection of two crucial CX trends:

1. omnichannel communication
2. platform consolidation

1.     Technology overload

Many organisations accumulate a variety of technologies over time, leading to:

• the duplication of efforts across departments,
• business/technology silos,
• increased compliance risks,
• brand inconsistency,
• high upgrading and maintenance costs, and
• a poor customer experience.

Your tech stack may include unsupported legacy systems, homegrown solutions, and cloud-based single-task applications, creating a convoluted and inefficient communication process.

2.     Regulatory challenges

Navigating shifts in the regulatory landscape is complex. With frameworks such as the UK Data Protection Act, GDPR, the FCA’s Consumer Duty, and accessibility requirements under the Equality Act, organisations must continuously adapt to ensure compliance. Many are also aligning to security standards such as ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus to protect customer data and maintain trust.

3.     Infrastructure complexity 

The introduction of new teams and initiatives increases infrastructure complexity, resulting in silos, duplicated efforts, and inconsistent customer experiences.

The benefits of communication consolidation include:

1. Improved efficiency: It streamlines communication processes, reduces redundancy, and saves time and resources.
2. Cost savings: It eliminates the costs associated with maintaining multiple communication platforms.
3. Better collaboration: It facilitates better collaboration among team members by providing a central hub for communication.
4. Boosts security: It enhances security with a single entry point for access control and monitoring.
5. Improved customer experience: It improves the customer experience with a seamless and integrated communication experience.
6. Enhanced data analysis: It provides better data analysis capabilities, allowing organisations to gain insights into communication patterns and optimise communication strategies.

Streamlining your communications through a single enterprise-grade CCM solution streamlines communications, reducing costs and enhancing efficiency for a more cohesive experience.

Quadient Inspire, the leading global CCM platform, empowers your business users to generate and send personalised communications through multiple channels from a single centralised platform. It promotes teamwork, integration, and connections that are unattainable through fragmented project, line-of-business, or channel-based methods.

Our powerful migration technology, Inspire Xpress, is equipped with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. It simplifies the arduous process of retiring legacy CCM software, saving thousands of hours on migration projects.

If your CCM provider(s) have not updated their software in the last two, three, or four years, your current return on maintenance is low. At Quadient, we prioritise providing our customers with a high return on maintenance. With significant product releases every 20 months and the largest R&D team of CCM providers worldwide, we consistently deliver notable innovations that allow you to meet evolving customer needs and achieve your CX and digital transformation objectives.

Simplicity is the key to achieving more with less. When communication systems work together, organisations can deliver a clearer, more consistent customer experience. Customer communication unification empowers teams to streamline processes, strengthen collaboration, and enhance every customer interaction. Migration may feel challenging, but the greater risk lies in allowing outdated technology to hold your customer experience back.