Part one of three
Transactional documents represent an important area of the print industry. In addition to printed documents, electronic delivery mechanisms are essential to the process for both customer service and regulatory reasons. Several trends are evident when it comes to electronic distribution of electronic documents.
“The first thing to remember about transactional communication is that it will always be with us. Some may be printed, some may be delivered electronically, but it is essential, regulated communication,” shares Mary Ann Rowan, chief experience officer, Solimar Systems.
“The trends center around distribution to all electronic devices, providing support for any electronic delivery point, including interactive personalized video and interactive voice response,” adds Kemal Carr, president, Madison Advisors.
With the implementation of digital channels, Carr feels that organizations also hope to treat the transactional communication as a marketing opportunity with integrated, personalized promotions to be acted upon from within the document.
Workflow Integration
Avi Greenfield, VP, of product management, CXM, Quadient, points to two top trends when it comes to the electronic distribution of transactional documents, downstream integration of documents into post-communication processes and designing for better accessibility.
After a communication is sent, there’s a chance, typically between five to ten percent that the document will be needed as part of a chat-enabled, self-service support interaction, an inbound call center experience, an outbound upsell attempt from a sales rep, a self-directed download for tax or business reasons, or other post-creation need, explains Greenfield.
Integrating multiple digital communication channel types into a usable and available system is critical for the opportunities that a document will be needed later, and those post-composition needs can be expensive if they are not considered in your digital transformation strategy, he offers.
Therefore, file optimization is re-emerging as an essential component of customer communications strategy. “When a job is onboarded into production, it should be optimized to make sure it is going to flow through the production steps seamlessly and efficiently. This trend of needing better file optimization dovetails with the trend of standardizing on the PDF file format for print and e-delivery,” shares Rowan.
“Years ago, many companies relied on archiving multiple formats of documents—PDF, AFP, and PS,” adds Ernie Crawford, president/CEO, Crawford Technologies. Today, most large organizations now rely on secure, real-time transformation to minimize the amount of stored data, create output formats optimized for mobile viewing, and offer mobile-friendly options for document delivery and payment. Many of these trends have become available thanks to the integration of secure APIs that enable systems and solutions to interact together to create a secure, auditable customer communications management environment.”
Matt Mahoney, EVP sales and marketing, Racami, points out that PDF is still the preferred format for consumer-facing transaction documents viewed from large screen devices.
Customer Options
Customers continue to demand more, including email as text messaging options.
“Customer surveys consistently tell us that recipients of these documents want to choose how they get them and be able to change their minds. And some want them both in print and electronically,” says Rowan. “Savvy transaction communication producers have been following the trends and rebuilding their workflows so they link to their customer experience systems to ensure that customers can control how they receive the many documents sent by their providers.”
It is increasingly important for organizations to work with a document composition that’s targeted for optimal readability on mobile devices is essential, says Margaret Curry, national manager, PPS and Strategic Accounts, RISO.
Crawford sees is the ongoing workflow optimization requirements that companies are demanding. “Previously, an organization may have had a customer workflow for each document type, the result being hundreds or thousands of potential workflows to manage. Now, most of our installations have three to five potential workflows. Users then utilize Crawford Technologies’ artificial intelligence and technology-based normalization to enable a letter and a statement to use the same workflow as a marketing mailer. This simplification allows them to efficiently manage their workflow.”
Bryan Ten Broek, VP, business development, Nordis Technologies, adds that Amazon and other leading consumer brands continue to set the bar for customer experience, raising customer expectations in all business interactions. “Companies need to focus on choice, convenience, and ease of use through omni-channel transactional communications.”
“Businesses need to be able to deliver billing statements and alerts via an email event if the consumer does not use the company portal as their preferred payment method, opting instead to use traditional online bank bill pay. Every consumer is different,” shares Ten Broek.
Patrick Kehoe, EVP, product management, Messagepoint, also sees organizations looking to drive efficiency in the management of those communications, not having silos of operations for print, PDF, portals, or mobile applications to manage the content. “The current setup in most organizations has teams entering and managing the same content and data feeds across several systems, increasing the risk of inconsistency across channels and regulatory risk.”
“Everybody wants to do things on their phone, whether that’s an application or a mobile website, you better have a way for it to be done on a phone. Because a smartphone is always with most people, it’s the quickest and easiest way to get your information and take action,” comments Ryan Semanchik, president, Transformations, Inc.
Beyond how they receive communications, what they see is increasingly important.
“Consumers now expect a brand to provide a highly personalized seamless experience across all channels,” shares Crawford. He says organizations need to deliver that experience through personalized, relevant transactional and marketing communications across all channels and devices.
Solutions are being developed that go beyond sending customers attachments in an email or an email link to a portal. “The demand for one-click convenience for customers and delivery to multiple devices for immediate access is going to drive the requirement to provide attachments in a text message or the ability to stream the document right to a smartphone without the need for an attachment or a link. The document just shows up on your phone, and you receive a notification,” shares Semanchik.
“People want to receive documents that are interactive and responsive and have the ability to click on an item that takes them to a special link, personalized just for them, relevant to their interests,” adds Brad Turner, VP, Transformation, BelWo, Inc.
The other key trend is design for accessibility and inclusion. “While it’s sensible to design to avoid fines, its market expanding to design with accessibility and inclusivity in mind. During a digital transformation, it is always cheaper to design communication options and accommodations for customers with low-vision, dyslexia, discalcula, color blindness, assistive technology requirements, hearing impairments, and other challenges than it is to do post-composition remediation. Adding captions to videos, large print versions, higher contrast options, and other helpful features can reduce inbound calls, reduce confusion, and save your customers time,” shares Greenfield.
Kehoe says that right now, email plus the PDF is a standard, but he sees more organizations wanting to provide better customer experiences that are more suited to mobile devices in the future, such as sending the same information via mobile apps and push notifications. “This will be particularly important for younger generations that have grown up with a smartphone in their hands.”
Security and Compliance Consumers are concerned about keeping their personal and financial information secure and private, so Ten Broek stresses how critical it is to ensure electronic transactional communications build in security, such as providing secure links to documents in emails and text messaging versus embedding statement content or other personal information in the body of the email or text.
Crawford says it is the use of secure cloud solutions as opposed to traditional on-site software deployments. “These solutions are gaining adoption and provide a secure and cost-efficient way to store, manage, and distribute transactional documents electronically.”
Ten Broek sees a growing acceptance of electronic transactional communications in highly regulated industries including accounts receivable management, credit, and collections. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explicitly allowed email and text messaging that met specific conditions in Regulation F, its modification to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which went into effect in late 2021. Since then, we have seen a spike in interest from the ARM industry in our CCM-powered omni-channel solutions.”
Continued Communications
Transactional solutions are complex, but electronic distribution consideration is now essential. In part two of this series we highlight trends in printing and finishing in the transactional space.
Jun2023, DPS Magazine
