Save Time and Money With CCM Tools! Here’s Why You Should Invest in It!
MHC Team 
February 11th, 2020
Customer Communication Management (CCM) tools are software programs.
These programs help to manage your business’s communication among a variety of platforms. Having the best CCM tools will help to improve customer satisfaction, which, in turn, improves the success of your business.
There are a variety of customer communication tools available to business owners and finding the right one is important. New advances in automation technology have allowed for improved performance, opening a new market for upgraded business communication.
In today’s world, we have a huge amount of information about our customers at our fingertips.
Utilizing that information to provide better customer experiences can improve business over time. The use of automation in CCM tools can help to advance the customer experience. Find out more about the benefits they can bring!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Business Benefits of CCM Tools
The benefits of having a CCM solution may seem clear but can be complex. Everything we do in our business affects our customers. Ensuring that each customer’s experience is positive is important. CCM tools can help advance your customer experience and more.
Improve Customer Experience
CCM tools enable you to manage all communication in an easy format. You can see all communication across all channels in real-time. This can help you to provide quick responses that meet your customer’s needs. Moreover, you can focus in on your customer’s preferences.
You can use these tools to build a personalized interaction for your customers and communicate with them when and how they prefer. CCM platforms include dynamic and interactive portals to provide high-quality interactions. Use interactive charts, forms, sliders, and more. Use tools that will make your customers happy and make them feel in control.
CCM systems provide your customers with convenience. They can reach you when they need to without waiting. One of the worst experiences is having to wait in an endless line. Provide your customers with quick responses they will appreciate.
Improve Business Efficiency
CCM tools are very easy to use allowing you to create a quick and efficient customer experience. You can even manage these tools yourself, allowing you to cut costs for IT management. Automation will make customer support easier.
Why pay the high costs of having an entire team dedicated to customer support? You can use the automated tools available to you to make customer care easy. Cut extra expenses in your business and have better customer care.
Improve Speed
Using customer communication tools with automation can improve the speed of your customer care. Customers want immediate responses when they need your help. If they don’t receive it, they may go somewhere else.
Automation allows you to provide immediate responses across all channels. Your customers can receive the assistance they need fast. This will make them happy and that will improve business.
Improve Branding
Staff that cooperates effectively, and software that streamlines each task, results in omnichannel communications delivered in a cleaner package for your brand.
Whether we’re talking about one document or a whole collection of them, they have the opportunity to shine when the work behind them is easy and efficient. And with a customer communication management tool, your marketing or branding team can specify a style sheet to be used across all documents and outputs, unifying your look and feel regardless of which team originates the document.
Your business, instead of throwing together various disjointed materials, can circle around a single platform hosting many tools. The end customer receives a complete, engaging package at every touchpoint. Single documents will deliver a personal experience, and a batch of documents will reach every destination with pinpoint accuracy, all because processes were simplified from the back-end to the front office.
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What to Look for in CCM Tools
If you’re trying to keep up with the latest customer communication trends and improve the way that your company builds a rapport with its customers, you’ll need effective tools to get the job done. In this regard, customer communication management tools are essential to the way you do business. But not all CCM tools are created equal, so it’s important to learn which attributes you should invest in. Here’s what you should look for:
1. SPEED IS OF THE ESSENCE
As the old adage goes, speed kills.
When you’re implementing a customer communication tool, it needs to run seamlessly and without delays. Since the majority of platforms we use today, CCM included, are cloud-based and becoming increasingly so, you need to be certain that it’s lightweight and responsive.
You’ll need to be able to use the tool remotely without it missing a beat so your customers can trust your infrastructure whenever they want to get in touch with you.
2. TAKE AN INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC APPROACH
When you make use of customer communication tools, it’s important that you focus on your particular industry.
Work with professionals who understand the work you do so that you’re better able to build a rapport with your customers. Whether you need CCM tools for IT, banking, construction, retail, legal, medical, or any other field, you should take a top-down approach.
This way, you’re better able to specialize, as opposed to trying to shoehorn a general solution into filling your needs.
3. LOOK INTO AUTOMATION FEATURES
The better you automate your CCM features, the easier it’ll be to streamline the way your customers communicate with you.
For instance, document automation is useful because customers can sign off on their documents quickly, without having to wait for traditional mail, pen to paper signatures, and other hurdles. To more effectively communicate with your customers, you need to also make sure that your templates are automated.
This keeps your company’s communication streamlined and makes it so that you don’t have to take time and effort out of your schedule to handle these tasks.
4. INTENSIVELY TEST THE USER EXPERIENCE
Without question, you need to diligently test your CCM tools to make sure that it puts the user first.
Test the user experience and make sure that the tool is built with a graphical user interface (GUI) that people find engaging and useful.
Put together a test group that ensures that the platform is navigable, and work out the kinks before you take it from beta to a live version of the platform.
When your platform is easy to navigate and contains consistent branding, you’ll be improving your customer loyalty and will get the results that you’re looking for.
5. TOP-NOTCH SECURITY MEASURES
No matter what industry you’re in, it’s important that the CCM tool you choose has top-notch security measures in place.
Today, cybersecurity breaches are par for the course, to the point that there were $2 trillion in breaches in 2019 alone. In 2020, the loss rate is bound to increase even further. You need to be aware of the main types of breaches that you can fall prey to, such as phishing, malware, DDoS attacks, and website cyber attacks.
When you’re looking into a quality CCM tool, you need to be certain that you’re backed by businesses that put the highest quality measures in place to mitigate these risks. Ask them about their encryption standards and what practices they put into place to assist you.
Further, ask them about their emergency strategies and how they can help you out whenever you’re experiencing downtime. The sooner you can get back up and going, the easier it’ll be to look after potential risks.
6. AN OUTPUT THAT IS EFFECTIVE AND ON-DEMAND
In terms of CCM tools, you’ll need to get a feel of the output that it produces.
This output should be on-demand and should be created at the customer’s request. Some examples could include things like price quotes and invoices.
7. CHECK AROUND FOR THE MOST AFFORDABLE PRICES
Finally, be sure that you find CCM tools that’s designed for you at an affordable price.
Check around and get some price quotes to be certain that you’re using your budget effectively.
Rather than just focusing on the initial price, keep the upkeep and other matters in mind as well.
8. MAKE SURE YOU’RE YOUR CCM TOOLS ARE INTERACTIVE
When you’re looking into CCM tools, effective client communication needs to be at the top of your priority list.
Whether you’re facilitating the signing of contracts and policies, drawing upon data, or creating a dashboard, interactivity needs to be an essential part of your chosen tool.
This builds brand loyalty and lets you build a strong rapport with your base.
9. USEFUL MOBILE FUNCTIONALITY
Right now, 96% of people own a cellphone and more than 80% have smartphones.
As such, you need to be certain that you’re tailoring your CCM to the use of mobile devices. Your developers need to make sure that the functionality doesn’t miss a beat, regardless of what cell phone or tablet you’re using.
The user experience (UX) needs to be optimal on the mobile device, whether you’re using custom templates or CCM components that are built from scratch.
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Types of CCM Tools
There are a lot of different customer communication tools available to businesses today, each with its benefits. Finding the right combination of tools for your organization is paramount. 87% of customers stated that they would pay more for better customer service. So, providing the best experience you can is vital to a successful business.
Electronic Forms
There are many ways to use electronic forms in your business. Using them to improve customer experience can be helpful. Streamline orders, identify problems and resolve questions. Using ordering forms can help your client make purchases without help. Interactive forms can ensure that orders are accurate.
Making the process quick and simple for you and the customer. Using forms in the customer service part of your business helps as well. Allow customer service representatives the ability to see order history. Improve communication between departments. The more knowledge they have the easier it is to help the customer.
Chatbots
These days people hate to talk on the phone. Most people would prefer a chat or text service over a calling on the phone. Using a chatbot that utilizes automation services can help you communicate with customers. A lot of the time your customers have a simple question that has a simple answer. You may have frequent questions that are easy to automate.
Providing customers with a chatbot service can give them immediate answers. They can use the service at any time of the day and no need for call centers. Even if the customer has a more complex concern chatbots are great for screening. You can use their automation to screen the call and route it where it needs to go.
Real-Time Updates
The use of automation gives you an up-to-date picture of your business at all times. Automation provides you with real-time updates on inventory, customer experience process, and communication. You can set up real-time inventory results. Know what you have on hand at all times. Prevent the inability to fill orders by overselling. This will improve customer experiences as well.
Predict customer trends with automated real-time reports. See what your customers are viewing, purchasing, or talking about across your network. Use real-time technology to keep stock updated. Keep track of inventory in real-time. Replace inventory when stock runs low with automation.
Look for the CCM Tools You Need
When you need customer communication management tools that are useful to you, these are the attributes that you need to look into. We’d love to help you when you’d like to learn more. Use these points and contact us if you need to get the most out of your CCM tools.
Free Customer Communications Management Resources
Below are some downloadable papers that will help fill in any blanks in the CCM puzzle you might have. For even more info, make sure you check out our resource library, our infographics library, and our CCM blog!
