Step 1: Analysis
From conversations with hundreds of customers, we learned that the largest barrier to transforming communications is the high cost of getting an accurate assessment of the communications currently produced. Many customer communication systems are well over ten years old. As a result, many of the changes, updates, and refactoring efforts haven’t been fully documented.
We learned that most enterprises need one to two person-years of analysis to accurately define their current portfolio. With a cost that high, it’s no wonder that many of these projects never begin. But, Quadient generally completes this 90% faster than if our clients worked without our assistance, delivering meaningful analysis in just a few days.
We understand how you got into this position. Think of all the times you had to make a quick change before you went home for the day without fully documenting your work. Making an undocumented change just once a month for ten years adds up to 500 poorly documented changes that are barriers to your migration.
Quadient took an approach that doesn’t rely on information properly documented systems. Our approach relies on your output, which is the most accurate information you have. This approach also doesn’t unnecessarily burden your future communication designs with the limitations of your legacy system through code-based translations.
We work together to analyze your current output, from any and all of your legacy systems. We start by processing a few hundred of your existing communications, as PDF, HTML, PostScript, .rtf, .docx, email, AFP or many other popular (and rare) formats. As we work with clients, we spend a few hours analyzing 100-200 output documents. We complete initial analysis overviews in about four hours to ensure viability.
Then, we have a quick meeting to show clients how the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) consolidated content and templates work. This gives a first glimpse of the more efficient future state of your communication portfolio.
As you see, even a quick analysis often delivers content consolidation of 70% or more. Companies with a lot of communications, or communications that have grown inorganically for ten years, see massive efficiencies discovered through AI analysis. Even if you have fewer communications, like the company represented on the right hand of the graph below, which started with 38 complex contracts see hundreds of thousands in operational cost savings by reducing content.
Step 2: Optimization
AI-assisted transformations deliver incredible results in short timeframes. Even a few hours of analysis of your existing output proves the benefits of reimagining your customer communication portfolio. This next step delivers more powerful insights. Once our clients see the results of our initial analysis, Quadient and our clients work together on a larger sample for a few days to uncover even more opportunities to accelerate the transformation of your customer communications.
We spend time training Machine Learning modules to separate and categorize your communications into groupings that are meaningful to your business. We go through a few iterations, often discovering an “AI Surprise,” which is a pattern that people, even experts, would not have found. Quadient, the AI and our client discern patterns in the content at the micro level of content fragments and the macro level of templates and applications. These patterns lead to new ways of organizing communications.
Looking at reports, we re-evaluate the relationships between content, templates and departments. Using the “pilot console” we adjust the sensitivity of the model to variations at the block and template level to give a variety of options to consider as the future structure of the portfolio takes shape. Within a few iterations, we find the optimal model.
Together, we generally work through analysis at the rate of about four hundred inbound communication types per week, and process around one to three million communications per night at capacity during this phase. This allows for a comprehensive analysis by covering as large and as diverse sample of communications that we establish with our clients.
Once we decide on the best possible path forward, we run some larger samples through InspireXpress to ensure that we have caught as many variations as possible. At this point, we have templates, variables and content established. We also have a map of the relationship between blocks of content within templates.
We work together, using cloud-based collaboration technology to make final modifications on templates, add detail, track expert knowledge, describe rules, make comments and optimize structure of the portfolio. At this point in the process, we work to manually override any results the AI suggested portfolio. For example, we combine templates that are similar to reduce ongoing management costs.
We also concatenate blocks to reduce the amount of content fragments that are migrated to the Inspire Customer Communication Management system. As a final step before export to the CCM system, we work to ensure everything is named in a way that reduces the burden for all of the people who will be using the new system, as contemporary CCM technology divides work amongst the relevant stakeholders in the most impactful way possible.
Step 3: Implementation
As our clients continue their rapid digital transformation with InspireXpress, we have analyzed thousands, or even millions of communications. We determined the best way to structure the new communication portfolio using tens of millions of cross comparisons conducted by the AI technology to endure that our new portfolio is built on solid ground. We have worked together with many areas of the business to ensure the integrity of the content, validated its taxonomy and are ready to export it. It’s probably been about a week for every four hundred templates the client initially had, which is on average seventy percent faster than performing these steps without the assistance of technology.
Exporting content to Inspire from InspireXpress is easy. The content is prepped, formatted and packaged for import to the Inspire Content Management system. A package is exported that contains all of the content fragments as blocks ready for use by Inspire. Templates are also automatically generated for use in Inspire Interactive.
The next step of implementation is to connect the templates to the formatting in the master template, add in the rules that were annotated in the optimization step and connect the variables to the data sources. Depending on the complexity, which was determined with settings that adjusted the AI’s tolerance to variations within a template or block, the resulting templates take as little as an hour for simple ones or a few days for highly complex communications with a high degree of variability.
Each implementation gains benefits from previous implementations as rules, content and formatting are scalable. Typically, in just a few weeks, your first applications are transformed and able to go live in Inspire. Compare this to the multiple person years you might have spent simply on the analysis manually within your current structure.
Step 4: Expansion
After Quadient works with clients to go through the analysis, optimization and implementation of a customer transformation project, it’s time for the best part. The content and template structure is optimized. The formatting is ready, and you have escaped the limitations of your legacy capabilities from all of your redundant CCM technology.
The next thing to do is to take advantage of Inspire’s omnichannel native technology. Since all of your new designs are in Inspire, they are all ready for their omnichannel designs. We work together to replace any redundant channel-based solutions with new output from your current design. Your data, documents and rules are channel independent, and ready to reach your clients from new channels.
You are capable of managing multi-step and multi-channel iterative communications that allow your customers to switch channels during transactions with this new structure. You connect your communications to new Customer Journey Maps to collaborate with your CX partners to ensure that every communication you manage is part of a deliberately curated portfolio that reflects your company brand and tone in every interaction. You engage with cloud-based CX users, web-based content experts and desktop-based designers with Social Commenting features. You connect production analytics to journey maps to monitor trends in customer interactions.
You now manage a flexible omnichannel portfolio with Quadient’s Scaler technology as well, delivering communications to the right channel for the customer’s current needs. This helps you manage customer experience expectations while keeping the costs of communicating low.
In the not too distant future, you have a transformed omnichannel CX portfolio, if you are willing to escape the limitations of your legacy technology. Quadient has the technology of the future today, and a way to get you there faster than you thought was possible. Let InspireXpress speed up your transformation.
After Quadient works with clients to go through the analysis, optimization and implementation of a customer transformation project, it’s time for the best part. The content and template structure is optimized. The formatting is ready, and you have escaped the limitations of your legacy capabilities from all of your redundant CCM technology.
The next thing to do is to take advantage of Inspire’s omnichannel native technology. Since all of your new designs are in Inspire, they are all ready for their omnichannel designs. We work together to replace any redundant channel-based solutions with new output from your current design. Your data, documents and rules are channel independent, and ready to reach your clients from new channels.
You are capable of managing multi-step and multi-channel iterative communications that allow your customers to switch channels during transactions with this new structure. You connect your communications to new Customer Journey Maps to collaborate with your CX partners to ensure that every communication you manage is part of a deliberately curated portfolio that reflects your company brand and tone in every interaction. You engage with cloud-based CX users, web-based content experts and desktop-based designers with Social Commenting features. You connect production analytics to journey maps to monitor trends in customer interactions.
You now manage a flexible omnichannel portfolio with Quadient’s Scaler technology as well, delivering communications to the right channel for the customer’s current needs. This helps you manage customer experience expectations while keeping the costs of communicating low.
In the not too distant future, you have a transformed omnichannel CX portfolio, if you are willing to escape the limitations of your legacy technology. Quadient has the technology of the future today, and a way to get you there faster than you thought was possible. Let InspireXpress speed up your transformation.