Best Practices For Personalized Customer Communications By Nic Carter, Cincom Document Solutions, Cincom Systems, Inc.

Tales of bungled software implementations are all too common. They are the horror stories of our modern business world. These tales form a common currency in an environment where software upgrades - and complete system overhauls - are necessary to maintain the competitive advantage.

Implementing a personalized customer communications system can be challenging. It requires buy-in from staff across the enterprise and coordination between departments. Plus, it requires analysis, support and testing.

By carefully preparing for the three stages of software implementation, you can ensure success and full utilization of your new system.

Personalized customer communications, the primary form of which is document communications, goes far beyond simple document automation. It's an entirely new way of approaching every phase of the customer care cycle.

Any system can create stacks of impersonal documentation. A first-rate system is truly personalized, meaning that the content is accurate and relevant only to one specific customer or groups of customers. It contains data about customers you already know. It can also be delivered through the customers' chosen channel, such as print, e-mail, fax or web pages.