Where we were (CCM), where we’re going (CXM)
We’ve talked a lot recently about CCM’s evolution to CXM.
Mature CCM platforms streamline production of customer communications like bills, statements, notifications, and policies. But focus has shifted from operational and financial document communications to comprehensive marketing and transactional customer experience management (CXM) strategies designed to manage communications and interactions at every moment that matters in the customer lifecycle.
This customer-centric CXM vision is interconnected with the future of CCM and will rapidly become table stakes for driving brand value. But many businesses are still struggling to transform. So today we’re talking about the secret to success in a customer-centric world.
It’s Communications-as-a-Service, also known as CaaS. And it’s here to stay.
Why CaaS?
In recent years, and even more so as a result of the pandemic, technological advancements and changing customer expectations and business needs have altered the playing field.
The competitive landscape is rapidly consolidating as traditional service providers become more technologically driven. A key driver behind the evolution from CCM to Customer Experience Management (CXM) has been the shift from on-premise software installation to cloud-based solutions. Early on, several offerings started to move in this direction, but they stopped short, never supporting the full requirements of complex regulated communications.
As technology advances, Quadient evolves – iterating and investing in our commitment to drive the world's most meaningful customer communications. Today’s best in class tools offer fundamental benefits like:
Agility | Your teams can communicate efficiently from anywhere in the world to streamline the creation of an excellent customer experience via secure customer communications where and how they demand.
Increase value fast | Cloud-based solutions are capable of transforming the customer experience in days, so you don’t have to wait 12 to 18 months to get to value.
Infinitely scalable | Managed services in the cloud are often simple, flexible solutions capable of powering businesses of any size with infinite scaling ability.
Reduce IT overhead | Unlike on-prem deployments, enterprises’ cloud-native environments are installed and managed by the service provider, dramatically reducing the need to commit your often over-extended IT resources. Managed services also offer regular maintenance, bug fixes, and automatic platform updates freeing up your IT department for high-value projects and larger transformation initiatives.
Why now?
There is a general consensus by CCM industry followers that we've reached a tipping point and that cloud adoption will now overtake on-prem deployments going forward.
Why? Not only is the CCM market amid transformation, but that transformation was accelerated by five to ten years as a result of the pandemic. Since March 2020, businesses of all sizes have been forced to enhance both employee and customer experience across digital channels – and enable remote workforces.
“By shifting to CaaS, enterprises can quickly and easily build new customer experience solutions. For enterprises accelerating digital transformation in response to post-COVID-19 market conditions, CaaS provides a faster and more agile way to deliver innovation and better customer value.” Source: Aspire, The State of CCM-to-CXM Transformation, 2019
Whereas a land-and-expand model – one that experiments with and expands upon a CCM platform once success is realized – can take 12 to 18 months with implementation lead times, cloud-native solutions enable transformation in mere days.
In fact, cloud apps, tools and services enabled millions of workers to switch to remote work overnight. CaaS and SaaS allowed for increased customer interaction, maintained global supply chains, and "shifted entire industry business models in a matter of weeks. The rush to cloud during the pandemic also exposed stark contrasts between companies that embrace cloud technologies and those that have resisted or underfunded them. The aggressive move to cloud, already proceeding at a healthy clip before the pandemic, will spike in 2021, yielding even greater enterprise adoption, cloud provider revenue, and business value in 2021.” Source: Forrester, Predictions 2021, Accelerating out of the crisis.
Trust is one of the leading customer concerns in a post-pandemic world. Superior communications and CX is a powerful way to drive loyalty and revenue. Adopting cloud-based services enables employees to interact with customers in real-time. With customer experience the top priority of two-thirds of businesses, experts agree that the leading CIOs will embrace cloud-first communications priorities to reduce costs and increase value in 2021 and beyond.
Evolving towards the future
We’re past the era of replicating monolithic platforms in a SaaS environment. In 2021, there is a growing need to break services down into sub-components and delivering a microservice approach to communication management and customer experience in a cloud environment that reduces silos and increases agility for distributed teams. Quadient brings the CX consistency to highly regulated industries that haven’t been great candidates for CaaS in the past due to logistical, data or governance challenges.
“With the shift to cloud, CX, and business user enablement, it is becoming increasingly clear that traditional software products are going to be offered more and more as software services.” - Source: Aspire, The State of CCM-to-CXM Transformation, 2019
This area – CaaS or SaaS - is exactly where Quadient has invested to better support our clients’ needs going into 2021 and beyond. Stay tuned for where Quadient can take you on your path to CXM evolution.
Scott joined the industry in 1997, after earning a B.A. from University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He started as a document designer using several VDP technologies, before moving to the software side of the industry. He has more than 17 years of experience in the document composition software industry as both a transactional document designer and a software vendor. He earned his EDP and M-EDP certification from Xplor and his MBA in 2007 from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.
