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Customer Communications Management (CCM) is software that companies use to deliver communications to customers. Originally, customer communications referred to printed documents, archived digital documents, and email. [1] Organizations' digital transformation of customer communications expanded communication distribution to include SMS, in-app notifications, responsive design mobile experiences, and messages over common social media platforms. [2] [3]
Before the term CCM was used, this technology was referred to as Variable Data Printing (VDP) or Variable Data Publishing. The term "Trans Promo", short for "Trans Promotional", was in use as the term "VDP" gave way to "CCM" in industry-generated content.
Initial CCM concepts focused on the utilization of company system generated transactional documents. These documents such as bank statements, statements of account, invoices, and other customer transactional documents were viewed as ideal customer touchpoints to promote company products to customers. Transactional documents are opened and read by more than 90% of consumers. [4] In competitive markets, the average consumer encounters numerous advertisements, e-mails, direct mail, and solicitations daily. Employing personalized communication strategies can result in repeat buying customers. [5]
All CCM technologies feature design interfaces that primarily use a visual layout software to define the structure of the communication. These design interfaces create a basic visual structure of a communication that is later populated by a production engine with data, variably created data, static content elements, rules-driven content elements, externally referenced content and other elements to create a finished customer communication.
There are varying degrees of sophistication that CCM design interfaces handle, depending on the business needs. Some design environments are simple cloud-based interfaces that create communications for quick and easy marketing communications. There are more comprehensive interfaces that can support complex applications like insurance policy generation that require the skills and expertise of many business experts.
Most CCM technologies offer data extraction capabilities that allow marketers and businesses to combine data from multiple systems across their business to perform customer analysis before composing communications. This allows marketers to evaluate the marketing mix and position individual products to the customer in respect of relevance to the customer or the results of purchase propensity model by applying rules on content elements within the design.
The process results in the creation of a data model, data acquisition and decision rules. These enable a document composition engine to follow its own set of document application rules, constructing individual documents on the basis of data items contained within an individual's data record. The Document Composition engine usually produces either a print stream or, XML data.
Post-processing can be utilized to prepare a print job for production and distribution. This may include tasks such as the application of barcodes to deliver individual mail piece instructions to the inserters and to vary these in terms of the actual inserter being used. For example, one manufacturer's inserter may require different barcode instructions to complete the same task than another.
Print Management software controls the routing and distribution of print jobs to either a single production printer or a fleet of production printers. Print management software also provides a mechanism for assured delivery (ensuring that all pages get printed) through communication and feedback from print devices. Analysis of resultant data provides insight useful for Document Production Managers.
An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in contrast to public networks, such as the Internet, but uses the same technology based on the Internet protocol suite.
Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them."
ABAP is a high-level programming language created by the German software company SAP SE. It is currently positioned, alongside Java, as the language for programming the SAP NetWeaver Application Server, which is part of the SAP NetWeaver platform for building business applications.
Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet or an intranet. Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications, electronic businesses, and social network services. A more comprehensive list of tasks to which Web development commonly refers, may include Web engineering, Web design, Web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, Web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development.
Database marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing.
Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response marketing. In contrast to direct marketing, advertising is more of a mass-message nature.
Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the use of software and computer systems' architectural principles to integrate a set of enterprise computer applications.
Enterprise content management (ECM) extends the concept of content management by adding a timeline for each content item and, possibly, enforcing processes for its creation, approval, and distribution. Systems using ECM generally provide a secure repository for managed items, analog or digital. They also include one methods for importing content to bring manage new items, and several presentation methods to make items available for use. Although ECM content may be protected by digital rights management (DRM), it is not required. ECM is distinguished from general content management by its cognizance of the processes and procedures of the enterprise for which it is created.
In marketing, lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or enquiry into the products or services of a business. A lead is the contact information and, in some cases, demographic information of a customer who is interested in a specific product or service.
Variable data printing (VDP) is a form of digital printing, including on-demand printing, in which elements such as text, graphics and images may be changed from one printed piece to the next, without stopping or slowing down the printing process and using information from a database or external file. For example, a set of personalized letters, each with the same basic layout, can be printed with a different name and address on each letter. Variable data printing is mainly used for direct marketing, customer relationship management, advertising, invoicing and applying addressing on selfmailers, brochures or postcard campaigns.
A service delivery platform (SDP) is a set of components that provides a service(s) delivery architecture for a type of service delivered to consumer, whether it be a customer or other system. Although it is commonly used in the context of telecommunications, it can apply to any system that provides a service. Although the TM Forum (TMF) is working on defining specifications in this area, there is no standard definition of SDP in industry and different players define its components, breadth, and depth in slightly different ways.
Web-to-print, also known as Web2Print, remote publishing or print e-commerce is commercial printing using web sites. Companies and software solutions that deal in web-to-print use standard e-commerce and online services like hosting, website design, and cross-media marketing.
Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES4) is a service-oriented architecture Java EE server software product from Adobe Systems used to build applications that automate a broad range of business processes for enterprises and government agencies. LiveCycle ES4 is an enterprise document and form platform that allows capturing and processing information, delivering personalized communications, and protecting and tracking sensitive information. It is used for purposes such as account opening, services, and benefits enrollment, correspondence management, requests for proposal processes, and other manual-based workflows. LiveCycle ES4 incorporates new features with a particular focus on mobile devices. LiveCycle applications also function in both online and offline environments. These capabilities are enabled through the use of Adobe Reader, HTML/PhoneGap, and Flash Player clients to reach desktop computers and mobile devices.
A computer appliance is a computer system with a combination of hardware, software, or firmware that is specifically designed to provide a particular computing resource. Such devices became known as appliances because of the similarity in role or management to a home appliance, which are generally closed and sealed, and are not serviceable by the user or owner. The hardware and software are delivered as an integrated product and may even be pre-configured before delivery to a customer, to provide a turn-key solution for a particular application. Unlike general purpose computers, appliances are generally not designed to allow the customers to change the software and the underlying operating system, or to flexibly reconfigure the hardware.
Transpromotional ("transpromo") is a compound expression formed from the words "transaction" and "promotional". By adding relevant messages, companies can piggyback promotion or even advertising onto existing transaction-related documents, such as statements, invoices, or bills. Transpromotional documents combine CRM and data mining technology with variable data printing and location intelligence.
Xplor International also known as The Electronic Document Systems Association is an international trade association specifically focused on the issues of transaction documents. Transaction documents are legally relevant documents that are either printed and mailed or are electronically delivered e.g. bills, bank statements, insurance policies etc. The goal of the organization is to promotes "best practices for the design, production and delivery of electronic documents."
Document automation is the design of systems and workflows that assist in the creation of electronic documents. These include logic-based systems that use segments of pre-existing text and/or data to assemble a new document. This process is increasingly used within certain industries to assemble legal documents, contracts and letters. Document automation systems can also be used to automate all conditional text, variable text, and data contained within a set of documents.
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. is a public corporate services and financial technology company founded in 2007 as a spin-off from management software company Automatic Data Processing. Broadridge supplies public companies with proxy statements, annual reports and other financial documents, and shareholder communications solutions, such as virtual annual meetings.
PDF/VT is an international standard published by ISO in August 2010 as ISO 16612-2. It defines the use of PDF as an exchange format optimized for variable and transactional printing. Built on top of PDF/X-4, it is the first variable-data printing (VDP) format which ensures modern International Color Consortium-based (ICC) color management through the use of ICC Output Intents. It adds the notion of encapsulated groups of graphic objects to support optimized efficient processing for repeating text, graphic or image content. Introducing the concept of document part metadata (DPM), it enables reliable and dynamic management of pages for High Volume Transactional Output (HVTO) print data, like record selection or postage optimization based on metadata.
A customer data platform (CDP) is a collection of software which creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems. Data is pulled from multiple sources, cleaned and combined to create a single customer profile. This structured data is then made available to other marketing systems. According to Gartner, customer data platforms have evolved from a variety of mature markets, "including multichannel campaign management, tag management and data integration."