Documents designed for an audience of one are highly effective. Organizations use the data they collect about their customers to improve future communications and boost customer loyalty. Personalization is not just about using a recipient’s name or explicitly printing other personal data. Information an organization compiles about a customer can also affect messaging and remove irrelevant content based on the account type or other data that differentiates one customer from the next.

Transactional documents are already highly personal communications, and they are widely opened and read by consumers. Document producers used to add promotional or informational content to these documents in a decidedly impersonal way, with envelope stuffers or generic statement messages. Today, document composition platforms like Quickcoms™ make it possible to fine-tune promotional content and other components of transactional documents to make them more useful and interesting to customers.

Today, we will look at how personal data, combined with business rules, can create interesting and relevant transactional documents that improve the customer experience.

Why is Personalization Important?

Personalization is essential to the originating organization because customers expect personalized communication and it works. Once a business has a messaging philosophy and a platform in place, it can roll personalized documents out to multiple audiences. If companies can adapt their communications according to customer data, they increase their chances of eliciting a positive response, such as customer loyalty. Organizations make transactional documents easier to understand by referencing real customer data and excluding irrelevant information. Documents support customer relationships by treating each customer as an individual.

What is the Difference Between Explicit and Implicit Personalization?

Marketing professionals agree that personalized web and direct mail content are essential in today’s marketplace. In the past, personalization was accomplished with little more than dropping a customer’s first name somewhere in the headline or body copy of an email or physical mail piece. As data sets for each customer record increased, personalization improved. There are two types of personalization:

Explicit personalization displays customer information as part of the document. For example, when a web visitor supplies specific information about their age, income, or spouse’s name. Companies leverage this information to get a customer’s attention and show them the communication applies to a single customer, not to thousands of other individuals. Transactional documents may reference account types, important dates, or purchased products, for example, by displaying this information in the documents.

Implicit personalization is accomplished by using data that a customer has not directly volunteered. For instance, noting that a customer always pays online, a company might personalize a customer’s bill by eliminating a return envelope and generating statement messages highlighting the benefits of automatic payments. Another example is content based on geolocation. Messages on a bill or statement could suggest nearby participating dealers or service centers for equipment the customer bought. If they are far from a physical location, the document will feature an offer and a web link instead.

Implicit personalization for transactional documents is not limited to promotional messages. A financial institution could supply customers with information about new account terms or fees for only the accounts they own. This data-driven design modification saves customers from searching lengthy documents with information about all the bank’s offerings. Likewise, companies could personalize employee benefit summary booklets to include only relevant sections based on each employee’s benefit choices and options.

With implicit personalization, the documents may not display the information on which these document composition decisions are made. The data will control the nature of the content the customer sees in their documents.

Customer Communications Management in the Cloud

The postage and production costs to mail a transactional document are the same, regardless of what is printed on the paper. Many organizations use space on transactional documents for promotional messages. Transactional documents are the perfect marketing vehicle. Recipients look at these mail pieces because they communicate information on which the recipient must act, but what recipients see must be relevant. Using CCM cloud-based applications, companies can draw in personalization elements to speak to the recipient. If an individual has been a customer for ten years, insert an anniversary offer. If the customer lives in Michigan, their transactional document may include a snow removal discount code. For customers in warmer climates, leaf cleanup equipment may be more appropriate.

Great customer communication management software is essential for effective document personalization. Customers will see and respond to offers relevant to them. A generic message wastes valuable mailpiece real estate and falls on deaf ears and eyes. Companies have a wealth of data useful for cross-selling and up-selling existing customers. A CCM application allows them to deploy this strategy effectively.

Business Users Manage CCM Applications

Ideally, team members intimately involved in the marketing process should manage promotional offers in transactional documents. Timing makes a difference, so business units must be able to use the document composition interface easily to respond to changing conditions. An early season storm could prompt the snow removal offer in Detroit, bumping a previously planned offer to later in the year. The quick response makes customers believe the company is on top of the situation. With the right document management platform, lines of business can manage the technology instead of a company’s IT department. This solution is viable with no-code CCM software. Non-IT personnel can make changes when they need to, making organizations reactive to the marketplace’s demands and customer base.

The Quickcoms CCM Solution

Quickcoms’ next-generation customer communications management platform enables organizations to build and execute effective communications while lowering operating costs and ensuring compliance. Residing in the cloud, Quickcoms’ technology provides banks, insurers, and other regulation-sensitive companies with practical ways to improve change management and update documents. Quickcoms cloud based CCM software uses information stored in company databases to personalize transactional documents. An intuitive interface and no coding give an organization the power to leverage customer data and provide superior customer experience through transactional documents.