Category: Customer Communications Management Solutions

Is your company’s communication program prepared for the new normal? We are all living in a time of global crisis. COVID-19 has radically affected our daily lives. Besides the obvious and terrible human cost of the virus and its devastating impact on public health, we could be heading for a global economic crisis.  It’s a new territory for all of us. Innovatix Technology Partner has a more optimistic point of view in these uncertain times. We cannot predict the future. But we can control how we respond to the emerging new situation as it unfolds.  It has been said that adversity can be the element that defines our character.  Crisis can be a time to look deep inside and begin a positive transformation. Every company who wants to thrive needs to be asking What do we need to be doing now, so in three years, we can say this current crisis was the best thing that could have happened to our company? At Innovatix we believe the key to success is digital communications. We are in a new virtual working world.  Your company needs to consider revising how you manage communications to ensure you are always having a one-to-one conversation. Establishing a lasting relationship with clients, requires they feel valued. Targeted communication with personalization is now expected.  Companies must get in touch with clients as an individual, avoid treating every contact the same Not all people are the same and if your company still believes you can treat them the same you are likely to alienate your customers. Email remains the least expensive way to quickly reach large numbers of contacts. Email may work for many customers, but not for everyone. Some may prefer to receive updates by email, while others might prefer text. If you are not matching your communication to customers’ preferences, they will soon be frustrated.  Likewise, sending the same messages and content to each client is not effective. This can cause clients to feel undervalued and decrease response rates. Innovatix works with the Quadient Inspire CCM communication suite making personalization simple using automation. Nowadays, employees work from home and resources are exhausted. Personalization increases complexity and can lead to errors. The solution is technology. Quadient’s user-friendly software can automate the creation and distribution of documents. This ensures that accurate, professional-looking items are always sent to the correct recipient and channel. Sending targeted and personalized messages to customers at the right time and via the right channel is the key to increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction. Those who are successful can build long-term relationships that have a direct impact on their sales and thereby the growth of the business.  

Over the past several years Macrosoft has seen a wave of change as new clients want to move into an Agile Development program with delivery after every two-week Sprint.  We embrace this approach and agree it is best for project success.  But as we heard from Ammar Alwahab, Quadient Project Lead, at the Quadient Inspire annual meeting held in San Antonia Texas, before you can begin your Sprints the ground work must be in place. Both Macrosoft and Quadient agree, a robust Agile methodology is essential to the success of a long-term project. But before you can kick off agile template development your organization needs the proper building blocks in place to get this done. Agile software development can be defined as a methodology under which requirements and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of cross-functional business and technology teams. It leverages adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continual improvement, allowing for rapid and flexible response to change. Before your company jumps into the Agile Sprint delivery schedule, we heard Ammar recommend four basic building blocks be properly in place. Business Requirements A business requirements document (BRD) details the business solution for a project including the documentation of customer needs and expectations. Data Definitions This includes a detailed listing of the type of data that is collected and where it is stored. Project Team Assignments Clear definitions of what functions are required for the Agile project team. Testing Plan A document describing the scope, approach, resources and schedule of intended test activities. Macrosoft and Quadient both want you to get value and expected business outcomes from Inspire as soon as possible.  The objective is to take your communication need, aligned with your data definitions, to create an Agile template program with thorough testing to ensure success.

Everyone in business has heard of the KISS method when faced with an issue.  The problem is most don’t know how to actually Keep It Simple. Quadient Professional Services Manager, George Wolbert, presented an excellent session on Simplifying Complex Documents at the 2019 Quadient Inspire annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. “Change is hardest at the beginning, messiest in the middle, and best in the end.” bestselling author Robin Sharma Quadient provides and incredible powerful set of tools but when put in the wrong hands complexity can creep in and take over. No one would let someone operate heavy machinery without proper instruction and guidance, but when it comes to technology people sometimes jump right in, only to find real problems later down the road. Initially document applications were simple and repetitive. Project teams then found things that look the same such as address blocks, paragraphs, headers, and footers and assembled templates that simplified the production process.  As documents became increasingly complex a single template became a myriad of overlapping business rules. To win the fight over complexity creeping in to your applications, projects teams need to look at both Rationalization and Categorization. Rationalization Elimination of redundancy by organizing documents logically into a coherent system to make it as efficient as possible. This is a reorganization of documents and templates in order to increase your operating efficiency. Categorization The action or process of placing into classes or groups through which objects are recognized, differentiated, classified, and understood. For Quadient Inspire customers true lifetime value and cost reductions come from the reduced maintenance and speed of changes after integration. Complex documents that contain many business rules can be streamlined to contain much less code and reuse approve content. Building the master template using a combination of rationalization and categorization allows you to bring in new approved content without changing the master template. And keeping the process clean, efficient, while reducing maintenance cost. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo da Vinci To simplify your project objects need to be put in containers. Then categorization needs to occur for each of the blocks. This eliminates the requirement for layers of business rules. Your simplifying complex documents and templates by breaking it into manageable pieces. The key is understanding your business goals and objectives both reducing maintenance and improving speed to market.