As a key component under the aegis of the Customer Experience, Customer Communications Management, or CCM, is a way for enterprises to create, manage, and deliver customer communications across multiple computer-networked channels, which ensures a consistent, personalized customer experience. As is easily guessed, it lies in the same spectrum with Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which doesn’t emphasize the direct communications with the customer quite as much as does CCM, instead focusing on “practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle, with the goal of improving business relationships with customers, assisting in customer retention and driving sales growth.”

CCM also lies in the same fundamental grouping with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM), as part of an overarching strategy for optimizing enterprise resources and management on a larger scale.

Examining Customer Communications Management

Customer Communications Management refers to a convergent set of Information Technology solutions, and is defined by Gartner Group, the “Magic Quadrant for CCM Software” publisher, as ‘the strategy [by which] to improve the creation, delivery, storage and retrieval of outbound communications, including those for marketing, new product introductions, renewal notifications, claims correspondence and documentation, and bill and payment notifications. These interactions can happen through a widespread range of media and output, including documents, email, Short Message Service (SMS) and Web pages. CCM solutions support these objectives, providing companies with an application to improve outbound communications with their distributors, partners, regulatory bodies and customers.^” 

The Main Components of CCM

The same technology that supports CCM also allows levels of sophistication in the message content. Customer communications management technology applies to a wide array of industries and may consist of the following components:

• Data Extraction, Transform & Load Software
• Data Management, Analysis And Location Intelligence Software
• Data Hygiene Database Software
• Document Composition Software
• Electronic Document Archive Software And Perhaps Payment Processing Functionality
• Print Stream Engineering / Post Processing Software
• Mailing Compliance Database Software
• Printer Management Software
• High And Medium Volume Production Printers
• Envelope Inserter Machines
• Email Marketing Software
• SMS Communication Software
• Mobile Media Based Content Distribution Software
• Entering The Frame More Recently Social Media Distribution Software
• Document Production Reporting Software
• Portal Technology
• Transpromotional Application Software

(Source: Wikipedia)

Developing and Mastering the Customer Experience

Customer Experience is one of the biggest trends in business today and a key reason why many enterprises are investing in a modern end-to-end platform to manage customer communications, making mass changes and consistent customer experiences much more executable. Customer engagement is also a top priority for many SMBs.  Whether customers are clicking a link, scanning a QR code, interacting with dynamic content such as graphs and charts, or simply responding to a payment request in real-time – communications needs to be a two-way street.

Need Assistance with CCM Setup or Support? 

If you need assistance with your Customer Communications Management setup or support, contact a helpful specialist at Vertical IT, which is a proven leader in IT consulting and management. Call us at (888) 505-8215 or by email at info@verticalitcorp.com, and we will be happy to help.