Customer Communications Management, long established as a need in the insurance industry, is gaining momentum as a primary discipline. But has the industry really made progress in managing communications with customers, or is CCM just another fancy acronym or the latest buzzword? Has the industry moved ahead?
The answer in a nutshell is yes — and no. Real advances have been made, and increasingly robust IT solutions are available in the marketplace. However, insurers still have a long way to go to implement CCM across all channels and all functional areas. For some insurers, good coordination of communications across their channels is sorely lacking, and the results are inconsistent messages, inefficient use of resources, and unhappy customers.
Fortunately, insurers are becoming more aware of the business benefits of CCM and are willing to make IT investments to improve customer communications. Insurers cited improved customer service, retention, and a better understanding of customer needs as the top three drivers of IT spending in this area — all are growth-oriented drivers.
A key indicator of the increased focus on CCM is the frequency of customer communication reviews. Sixty-five percent of insurers in North America conduct formal reviews of customer documents and communications at least once a year, according to our survey. A few leading insurers have established an organizational unit with the sole responsibility of assessing and coordinating customer communications across the enterprise.
Speaking with insurers has made it clear that this organizational construct will continue to gain favor. The need is evident; it is simply too difficult to loosely coordinate communications through multiple channels, by different company divisions, and diverse areas such as marketing, distribution, and claims.
Turning to specific components of customer communications management, over 75 percent of survey respondents across P&C and Life said that correspondence management, e-delivery, response management, and electronic bill presentment and payment were all highly strategic or important for their organizations.
IT solution providers now offer comprehensive platforms that support the authoring, delivery, and management of content and messages to customers. This is a great step forward, but these solutions need to be supported with a senior management focus and they need leadership by an executive with enterprise-wide responsibility. The importance of these kinds of communication goes beyond efficient and accurate transactions and touches critical business dimensions such as brand image, new prospect identification, and claim severities.
Despite the perceived importance, the high availability of solutions in the marketplace, and the significant level of IT spending, there are really only a few insurers that have implemented strategies across the enterprise to coordinate and manage CCM. SMA survey results indicate that 40 percent of insurers claim to have such a strategy. However, insights gained through interviews and personal experience with insurers lead us to conclude that only a few truly do have a comprehensive, actionable strategy in place.
The challenges to developing enterprise-wide strategies for CCM are not trivial. All too often, the specific need for communication and information coming in and going out of the organization is urgent and very tactical. This frequently spawns another silo approach — a point solution that meets the critical need in one specific area of the business. Even insurers with well documented and formal management processes find it difficult to effectively resolve priorities and preferences among different functional business areas.
Call to Action
Insurers need to find a way to create an enterprise-wide strategy and plan, one that optimizes all interactions with the customer. Insurers should consider appointing a senior executive and giving that person responsibility for managing an integrated, consistent, effective set of customer communications across the enterprise.
Success requires strong alignment of the business strategy to the specific functional capabilities needed to drive the strategy. Once capabilities are defined, it is time to determine the best IT solution approach.
The key is to start with small projects that fit within the context of the overall strategy. Current solutions should be reassessed. Many traditional players in this space have enhanced their offerings, and new entrants are selling their solutions to insurers.
Insurers that establish senior executive focus on customer communications, align business strategies to capabilities, and implement best-of-breed solutions will be able to move to exemplary customer communications management, while their competitors struggle with a channel coordination mess.
About the Author
Mark Breading, a Partner at SMA, is a recognized industry expert in the CCM space. With exceptional knowledge and experience in all aspects of customer centricity – CCM, CRM, customer insights, ECM, data and analytics, and more, Mark is the go-to person for all things customer related. Mark can be reached at mbreading@strategymeetsaction.com
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.