We are only halfway through 2020 and we can say it’s been one of the most transformational years the world has experienced. The coronavirus pandemic has brought on major challenges and changes to the economy, corporations and society as a whole. This crisis has also left a huge mark on consumers, who’s interests, and communications preferences changed as they exercise caution while they navigate the “new normal”. The effects of COVID–19 in the customer communications world has largely contributed to the incorporation of remote working policies to support business continuity, the rapid adoption of digital transformation in organizations and pressure to provide exceptional multichannel customer experiences to keep customers happy and survive this upheaval.
Remote Monitoring Solutions Support Business Continuity
In a matter of weeks many employees had to shift the way they work and move their offices to their homes. People working in the print and mail industry were not spared. Facilities that depended on operators to keep printers and other equipment running had to make changes fast to significantly minimize exposure to COVID–19 on the production floor and guarantee the safety of the employees. Some changes involved moving equipment further apart, staggering shifts, requiring employees to follow a sanitizing protocol after using the machines and providing managers with software technology that enables them to remotely monitor the production facility, track performance, review dashboards with production metrics, automate tasks, secure data and optimize work.
In a matter of days service bureaus and in–plant facilities that use customer communications management software systems like Racami’s Alchem–e™ enjoyed a smooth transition from physical to remote monitoring of the operation in real–time. These organizations have gained a competitive advantage by investing in technology that not only supports business continuity today but helps them become more resilient to battle future challenges.
Embracing Digital Transformation Amidst and Post COVID–19
There’s no doubt that digital transformation has been intensifying and developing for a couple of decades now. The trend is clear: digitization enables organizations to accelerate their growth through the implementation of digital activities that foster innovation and diminish manual work. This led to fundamental improvements in the way businesses leveraged data, information, analytics and connectivity to boost automation, security and productivity in their operations.
However, digital transformation efforts in traditional industries like in print and mail are not always successful due to the wide array of multiple legacy or home-grown systems and hardware from different suppliers. This issue not only affects the advancements of print operations but creates the perfect recipe for drawbacks, errors and process silos that heavily impact the quality of the output documents. These organizations need an end–to–end integration system that connects and communicates with all the software and hardware they already have to track operation efficiency, provide a real-time unified view of all processes, automate actions and present them with all the information that they need to expand their print production volumes and revenues at scale.
Now imagine what these companies without a smart end–to–end integration system had to go through once the government advised businesses to adopt work from home and social distancing measures? The answer is absolute chaos and a lot of mistakes. They were forced overnight to find integration solutions like Alchem–e™ to get their work done from their home offices and transform their offerings to abide by increasing customer demands for digital communications.
Importantly, even though some countries and cities are planning to reopen and return to normality soon, digitally transformed print and mail facilities won’t go back to the old ways of doing work. Essentially, these printing operations will see their companies’ roles evolve from manual and labor–intensive tasks to more data and technology–driven positions—due to the incorporation of technology—that will boost employee innovation, improve decision–making and catalyze the organization for growth.
Revamp Your Communications Strategy with a Holistic Multichannel Approach
The multichannel communications concept is simple: reach customers wherever they prefer. Nonetheless, the workflow behind it is much more complex than that. A successful multichannel communications and distribution strategy creates value by transforming the customer experience and improving communications across different channels.
The majority of businesses in the customer communications space believe they are implementing multichannel strategies when all they are doing is sending emails with PDFs. A holistic multichannel strategy involves a complex workflow system that handles customer channel preferences, creates jobs that are compatible with the destined channel, tracks document delivery and understands the touchpoints consumers are having with your brand. A smart CCM tool like Alchem–e™ realizes that multichannel is about ensuring the delivery of the communication and facilitating the customer experience at every touchpoint.
A great deal of transactional communications such as letters, statements, EOBs and bills are still generated and distributed using primarily manual work or siloed systems that don’t talk to each other and that don’t have a comprehensive multichannel strategy in place. Today, more important than ever, transactional communications and customer care professionals need to focus on listening to customer problems, delivering their documents to their preferred channel, giving hope with their messaging, communicating with empathy, and building a sense of community.
The truth is after COVID–19 passes things will not go back to the way they once were. This new normal will continue to be massively dependent on software solutions to connect employees, customers, suppliers and technology. Racami’s Alchem–e™ Dashboard and Alchem–e™ FLOW provide production managers with valuable tools to increase their operational performance, provide metrics visibility, automate processes, enrich the customer experience throughout the customer journey, and support your remote teams during these uncertain times.
If you’d like to learn more about our Alchem–e™ system and how it can support your operation’s growth, schedule a demo with our team here: https://lnkd.in/eiisFVE
