Two weeks ago, OpenText hosted OpenText World 2023, its annual conference, in Las Vegas. The theme of this year’s gathering was, unsurprisingly, the future of artificial intelligence (AI). Sessions at the conference spanned focus areas ranging from application modernization to DevOps to IT operations to customer communications management (CCM).
OpenText highlighted its new strategic approach to helping its clients with using AI as well as its product roadmap. ValueMomentum was excited to be a sponsor at this year’s event and have the opportunity to connect with insurers on how to improve the cadence and personalization of their communications as well as how to integrate their CCM solutions with their core systems.
We also got to meet Ice, the AI-generated yeti mascot.
The Emerging Future of Customer Communications Management
While the conference itself covered many industries, topics, and types of technology, there were several lessons for insurers working with modern CCM solutions. Here are a few of our team’s key takeaways from the conference’s digital experience and CCM keynote and sessions.
- Customer experience remains a top priority
In her intro to the keynote on communications and experience, OpenText’s Senior Director of Product Marketing Janet de Guzman cited Gartner and said that experience is the new economic battleground.
Increasingly, consumers are choosing whether to stay with a brand or switch to a competitor based on their experience with that organization. Customer experience leaders are seeing this more and more as digital channels have become the predominant medium consumers use to make purchases. In addition, customer expectations are up, and non-essential spending is down.
With the societal shift to more hybrid and remote work, collaboration and communication tools like CCM platforms are more vital than ever before. Organizations should ensure that the platforms they use are enabling employees to deliver a meaningful customer experience that is part of a holistic brand experience.What does this mean for CCM solutions? They should be integrated effectively with an organization’s tech stack to ensure that data is not siloed and that customers’ touchpoints with the business are all reflective of the same experience.
- Customer communications have reached a turning point
Another clear theme from OpenText World 2023 is that CCM is no exception to the AI craze. AI-led experiences are changing the way customer experience leaders and communications managers are able to interact with their customer bases. New advancements in CCM platforms are harnessing data from all available channels to enable a hyper-personalized experience across the entire customer journey.
Personalization remains difficult for organizations to get right, especially at scale. But AI is likely to help this become more feasible to do quickly and on demand. Kaspar Roos, CEO and founder of CCM consulting firm Aspire, noted that in years past, companies would invest in CCM platforms as a way to drive costs down and address regulatory requirements. But in the last ten years, the conversation has shifted and is now focused on how communications can help drive business growth. As AI-fueled solutions in this space become more advanced, CCM offerings should allow for more understandable, globally engaging, and measurable communications across industries. AI will also be able to facilitate faster migration of existing communications from legacy systems and move them to modern CCM solutions.
- Integrated workspaces will improve customer communications
Session leaders noted that as with all technology journeys, it is important to assess an organization’s customer experience and CCM maturity before making any changes to the way these aspects are run. Staying on top of new developments in the CCM space can be difficult, but it will ultimately be rewarding. As with other technology areas, a unified ecosystem of platforms may be the way forward for CCM solutions and other customer experience tools.
Bringing experience tools and capabilities together and implementing some AI-driven tools can simplify the process for business users to optimize their customer journeys and make the most out of each touchpoint. It can remove friction from both the employee and the customer experience. And it can ensure that communications tools are linked to data and analytics platforms to provide interchangeable information. OpenText, for example, showcased changes it has made to the way its own tools interact in the OpenText Experience Cloud.
As the theme of OpenText World 2023 showcased, AI is a fast-moving area of technology that is impacting every aspect of insurers’ life cycles and interactions with customers. Customer experience and CCM solutions are no exception.
Need help navigating the modern world of CCM? Learn more about our Customer Communication Management Services.