​Effective customer communication is critical in the success of any organization.  Without it, you can expect to lose business, revenue and wallet share.

Organizations that utilize high volumes of customer communications – like banks and credit unions – are at a unique advantage and can leverage business-critical documents to connect with and drive customers to a specific goal.  In order to effectively reach your customers, it is essential to give them information they want, when they want it, and the way they want it. Here are the top 5 features customers expect from your business-critical communications:

1. Consistency
Zendesk says 87% of customers think brands should put more effort into providing a consistent customer communication experience. This is especially true in the way people receive their financial communications. When customers view information, they want it to be the same as it was last time, and the same as it will be next time, so they aren’t constantly searching for the information they’re looking for.
To accomplish this, format your documents using a template that includes designated space for branding, summary tables and transactional information. Documents with consistent formatting not only increase readability, by placing logos and branding in the same area will increase brand recognition.

2. Accessibility 
To make the customer experience truly exceptional, make things as easy as possible.  Customers know how they want to receive and access information.  Your ePresentment should be mobile responsive, user friendly and functional, with all documents available through a single platform, easily logged into from any interface. Take the guess work out of finding information and your customers will thank you!

3. Unique Engagement
62% of millennials report that brand engagement is more likely to make them a loyal customer, according to USC Dornsife. Customers want an experience that is unique to their individual preferences. To maximize engagement, make sure your your documents are consistently formatted and optimized for readability, easily accessible through any platform or channel, and personalized to each individual. 

4. Solutions to problems
Customers wanting solutions to their problems is the driving force that has made Google into what it is today: The #1 search engine for people looking for answers.

Providing solutions in transactional documents and customer communications is actually much easier than it sounds. You can use customer transactional data to target them with specific offers compatible with services they already utilize. Sending personalized marketing (in the form of affiliate ads or cross-selling and upselling) to individuals who, based on previous habits, will have an interest in or need for that particular service provides them with answers to their questions, and solutions to their problems.

3. Self-service
​Organizations should ensure that customers are able to find answers to their questions using an assortment of self-service options, as 50% of customers think it is important to solve product or service issues themselves and 70% expect a company’s website to include a self-service application. Make the most of your customer communications by adding self-service website links to both print and electronic documents. This will not negate the need for customer service calls, but it will reduce call center volumes AND make your customers happier because they satisfy their need to find answers to their questions on their own.

Contact us today to discover how transactional document solutions can strengthen your customer-base, discover new revenue and cut operating costs.

The electronic marketing world is constantly evolving. Ten to fifteen years ago, electronic marketing could be equated to the wild-west frontier. Opportunities were abundant, and the presence of constant white noise surrounding consumers was nowhere near the volume it is now. According to Statistic Brain, the average human attention span is 8.25 seconds, meaning it has become increasingly difficult to effectively reach customers. It’s safe to say that the game has changed drastically as many businesses have upped their electronic marketing efforts in hopes of cutting through the clutter.
 
This is where personalized marketing comes into play. Seventy-three percent of consumers prefer to do business with brands that use personal information to make their shopping experiences more relevant, according to Digital Trends. When done correctly, using personalized marketing in your digital and print business-critical documents can help you effectively reach your customers and yield a high ROI. In addition to offsetting production costs, personalized document marketing can help create a better customer experience by delivering content unique to an individual’s specific needs. The best part? There are no additional costs because your customer documents are already being delivered. 
 
Before we discuss electronic document marketing applications, let’s talk about print for a minute. We know you have probably seen the Internet argument over whether or not print is dying, and while digital has taken precedence in reaching consumers, it is wise to not underestimate the power of print. Not only are print documents still required for compliance reasons in finance and billing, but many consumers opt to receive all of their documents in both print and electronic formats. According to a recent survey, more than six in 10 consumers say they would not choose a provider that does not offer paper bills and statements, and 88% want to be able to switch between electronic and paper bills without difficulty or cost.
 
With the right capabilities and tools such as inline inserts and dynamic messaging, you can effectively personalize and segment marketing on print documents, and even make changes right before a production run. The one-two punch comes in when you maximize your electronic document marketing to complement the print version.
 
Electronic documents offer more real-time marketing capabilities than print because they provide added interactivity and instant access. Here are three applications to enhance your personalized and segmented electronic document marketing:

1.  Push marketing technology – Present a marketing page to customers as they sign on to access their home banking account. This can include promotions, inserts or any document you want to ensure the account holder views as they sign in.
2. Digital onserts - Utilize workflows and business rules to segment your electronic customers and target groups with particular offers that will be most beneficial to the individual. Digital onserts are clickable, which provides instant access to promotions for the customer, and a faster way to drive customer behavior for your business.
3.   Multichannel expanded hyperlinks - Include links to webpages and offers from directly within eDocuments, and route them to any device: desktop, mobile phone, or tablet. The interactive links provide your electronic customers easy and instant access to the promotional content in the messages.
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The benefits of personalized marketing on electronic documents are enormous to both customers and your business. Maximize the capabilities of your electronic document marketing in tangent to print documents, and you’ll start seeing a significantly improved ROI.

For the past decade, moving to paperless communications has been at the forefront of most organizations’ minds. Not only is electronic delivery a customer expectation, it also benefits your business’ bottom line. In fact, a recent study estimates that moving from paper to electronic delivery of certain documents could reduce costs of producing communications by 36 percent. While it is not a new concept, the challenge still exists in accelerating eAdoption. Here are three secrets to driving paperless customer communications:

1.Provide Consistency in Electronic Document Formatting
Many third party software packages generally provide a rudimentary print layout of a document for use electronic use, thus creating a stale, unfriendly document that does not match the printed, often legal, version.  This creates customer reluctance in moving to electronic delivery because the same document presented in different formats for print and electronic can be confusing.

A successful electronic conversion includes providing an exact replica electronically that is offered in print and mail. A very important reason to offer online statements in the same format as printed is to provide the institution’s customers with a true legal document online rather than a home banking transaction printout. Because most customers require a legal version of their documents in the event of a loan application or tax audit, offering the statement in the same format will encourage eAdoption.

2.Rethink Print Default
Many organizations still have print documents as the default option on new accounts. When customers are not made aware that they can make the switch to paperless, they assume print and mail is what will serve them best. For statements and other documents that aren’t necessarily required to be sent via snail mail, a good option is to set electronic delivery as the default option on new accounts.

“When we switched cores in 2009, we made a big push toward eAdoption on new accounts opened by setting the default statement option to electronic,” said Sandy Gaskamp, Operations Support Manager at University Federal Credit Union. “We now have an 86% eAdoption rate with over 205,000 members, and they all seem to be enjoying the advantages of going paperless.” This not only enhances the customer experience, but also saves on print production and postage costs. In order to meet regulatory stands, be sure to communicate the default option with new account holders so they can verify it as the option they desire.

3.Offer More Outside of Online Banking
Online banking has been widely implemented in financial institutions to provide customers with easier access to accounts in order to alleviate traditional in-person transactions and decrease print and mail costs. However, due to the lack of eAdoption, the ROI on online banking platforms alone has not been as high as originally anticipated. Typically, it is difficult to convert non-transactional customers to electronic documents due to the perception that they do not need to access online banking to manage a daily balance or transfer money. Translation: One cannot live by online banking alone.

Your business’ website coupled with a mobile-responsive ePresentment platform can work wonders for eAdoption rates. If an electronic document can be accessed and viewed securely from your website without going through online banking, the potential audience for eStatements and other electronic documents increases beyond online banking users because customers then do not have to remember a login or sign up for online banking in order to switch to digital document delivery. By providing a direct access point to electronic documents, the overall customer experience is heightened. Additionally, if you are being charged by your provider for each online banking user, the users who opt out of paper documents through ePresentment are less costly.

Customers also desire a central location to access all account documents including notices, loan coupons and tax forms. If your business can support electronic documents, including eStatements, eNotices, eLoan Coupons and eTax Forms, your customer  has the option to receive all communications electronically, which is a win-win scenario.

Conclusion
By giving your customers the opportunity to access more of their documents online, you can begin the conversion toward providing total comprehensive electronic services. It is important to remember that the customer is looking for at least as much value as they receive from a printed document.

To read more strategies on driving paperless communication, access our white paper.

When most people hear the term “cutting costs” it may make them cringe a little. Often it requires hard decisions and giving up things they're accustomed to having, and may even NEED.

What if we told you that reducing costs isn’t actually a direct result of CUTTING Costs? 

Cutting costs implies cut backs, cutting corners, and cutting features that may be important and useful to your organization. That’s the last thing you want to do.

REDUCING COSTS IS ALL ABOUT ROI.

Today we’re sharing the top 4 ways to increase the ROI of your document processing operations, thus reducing your overall costs and increasing the value of your business processes.

1. SAVE TIME:

We’re sure you’ve heard the expression “time is money,” and guess what? It’s true. You need a document processing partner that takes on the lion-share of operational tasks and thus, saves your business money as well. 

-Fast Change Management- Making changes to your customer documents is a painful process. Compliance and regulatory requirements can change fast, so you need to be able to make document changes fast as well. When choosing a document outsourcing partner, or evaluating your in-house operation, fast change management should be one of the top factors influencing your decision.

-Reduce Customer Service Calls- Calls regarding difficult to understand statements and bills can be factor eating up a major portion of your customer service representative’s time. Make sure your operational system has capabilities that accommodate optimized document design for easy readability, and result in less customer calls for help. 

2. ADD VALUE:

Selective marketing in your member communications is something most businesses today implement, but is it dynamic and personalized? If you’re currently offering only static, un-personalized marketing messages, you’re missing the opportunity to speak directly to your customers on a one-to-one basis. 

3. ELECTRONIC DELIVERY:

Most businesses today have an electronic delivery platform, but to really save money, customers need to be using it, and not receiving print communications at all. To find out the top ways to increase electronic adoption rates, download our eBook to learn about our step-by-step electronic onboarding plan, and start increasing your eAdoption rates today.

4. PARTNER UP:

Outsourcing document production is the complete solution and best way to increase your ROI. Here’s how:

Eliminate physical document processing costs – Through document outsourcing you can completely eliminate the need to have dedicated print and mail resources.

Better marketing capabilities – Offset production costs and create additional revenue streams through new, dynamic marketing opportunities.

Increase electronic onboarding – Reduce paper, print and postage costs by providing solutions that help increase electronic adoption rates.

Postage Discounts – Take advantage of any postage and presort discounts that an outsourced partner may provide

A great document outsourcing partner’s sole focus is creating custom solutions that drive customer development, save time and effort, and increase the value of their documents. The best solution may not be the cheapest on paper, but real cost savings happen over time and are achieved by adding value, not cutting corners. 

Contact us today to find out more about Lanvera’s custom solutions and how we can help you increase the value in your member documents.

As postage and paper costs rise, the ROI of printed customer communications for many organizations is dropping significantly. The optimization and consolidation of your customer documents is key to improving the ROI of your print documents.

Optimizing your print documents doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive, but there’s one thing you absolutely need to make it a reality.

DOCUMENT TEMPLATES.
Creating documents from scratch is a waste of time. Standardized document templates can help your business to increase brand consistency, save time on document creation, and easily incorporate personalized marketing messages into designated areas of the documents…

Today we’re sharing everything you need to know about utilizing document templates to optimize your documents for production, readability and marketing implementation.

HOW TO USE TEMPLATES TO OPTIMIZE DOCUMENTS FOR: PRODUCTION
The impact of poorly designed documents on your print operations is huge. Increased postage on heavy envelopes or documents that take up many pages, excessive paper consumption, and redundant postage costs accumulating by sending numerous documents to a single household, frequently arise as a result.

To combat this postage increase, you can create standardized workflow templates that allow you to utilize duplex printing to decrease page counts, use re-pagination to increase lines per page and control line spacing, eliminate wasted white space and practice “house holding,” which is the consolidation of numerous documents sending to the same house into a single envelope. All of these practices will lower production and postage costs and increase the efficiency of your operations.

HOW TO USE TEMPLATES TO OPTIMIZE DOCUMENTS FOR: READABILITY
Unfortunately, your print operations aren’t the only area suffering as a result of poor document design; there can be a lot of unexpected collateral damage that happens as well. From unnecessary customer service calls and low electronic adoption rates, to customer frustration and poor corporate image, the repercussions can trickle down to almost every element of your business.

You can use templates to provide documents with a consistent user-friendly design. By formatting your documents with tables, shading, summaries and bolded headers, you make documents easier to read and understand, increase customer satisfaction, and improve the overall impact of your documents.

HOW TO USE TEMPLATES TO OPTIMIZE DOCUMENTS FOR: MARKETING IMPLEMENTATION
Templates can also help to expedite the automated marketing process. First, start with a global document template. This template will be the standard format guide for all documents of a particular type. Next, insert branding and business information into certain areas on the template, and finally, through business rules and workflows, segment your customers based on specific criteria to insert personalized content into the remaining areas.

Templates make the entire document lifecycles easier and faster, and will significantly improve the ROI on your document processing operations. 

The invoices, notices, statements and other business-critical documents your organization sends represent not only a substantial allocation of funds, but also a key vehicle for communicating with your customers, and thus one of the most critical components of your business. That said, these documents should not be overlooked as a simple operational formality.

There are four important facts every executive should know about customer documents and why they are one of the most important elements of any business:

1. Between 50-70% of total indirect spend in the financial services industry is on I.T. and technology infrastructure.  Part of this percentage includes the equipment, software and maintenance costs necessary for document processing and production, as well as costs needed to ensure compliance with changing regulations, data security and management and overall operational improvements. Having the infrastructure necessary to keep up with demands is essential, but it is costly. Additionally, expenses tend to be on the higher end of the overall percentage if all production operations are kept in-house.
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2. A decline in branch visits and increase in digital and mobile banking has made business-critical documents a major contributor to the customer experience.  Last year saw the highest level of bank and credit union branch closures in U.S. history, according to FDIC data. This solidifies the fact that financial institutions must improve the customer experience in other ways to account for this drop in face-to-face interaction. Customer documents, both print and electronic, are more important than ever for enhancing the customer experience and driving behavior.

Here are ways you can use transactional documents to enhance the customer experience:
-Offer user-friendly eStatement hosting on your Home Banking
-Utilize mobile applications that provide capabilities such as opening a new account, fund transfers and direct check deposit 
-Print documents that are designed and optimized to be easily understood, personalized and fully branded

3. Documents can serve as a Powerful Marketing Tool. Given the drop in branch visits, both print and electronic customer documents can supplement for the loss of face-to-face interaction and serve as an essential and profitable marketing tool. Access to transactional data gives the financial industry the unique ability to personalize documents and provide their customers with timely, applicable marketing messages through transpromo marketing in the form of personalized affiliate ads, as well as cross selling and upselling.

4. Document outsourcing is the best way to simplify processes, reduce costs and manage risk while increasing value. While the need to reduce costs and conserve resources is a prominent one, it’s important to remember to cut the RIGHT costs and allocate your expenses to elements that will work tangent to your business goals while increasing overall efficiency. Document outsourcing is an excellent way to mitigate some of the IT spend while continuing to achieve the technological advancements that customers require.  

A great document outsourcing partner will serve as a single-source extension of your business, offering a comprehensive combination of equipment, security, delivery vehicles and software. In addition to controlling operational costs and reducing capital expenditure needs, outsourcing can provide added value through enhanced marketing opportunities and assured quality control, which ultimately allows you to devote your time to your core competency.

For a free consultation, click here.

According to the MBA’s 1st quarterly National Delinquency Survey, foreclosure starts and delinquency rates are at the lowest since Q2 of 2000. "The delinquency rate of 4.77 percent has returned to typical pre-recession levels and is lower than the historical average of 5.4 percent for the time period from 1979 to the first quarter of 2016,”said Marina Walsh, MBA'S Vice President of Industry Analysis.
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As the market changes to reflect the decrease in delinquencies and foreclosures, there are a couple of different strategies servicers are using to shift focus in order to maintain profits:
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1.Focus on Performing Loans
Some servicers are transitioning to more of a performing loan focus, thereby expanding their portfolios. As departments are thinning, servicers are given the choice of either downsizing or moving employees into different job roles. This is a viable option, requiring servicers to identify adaptable personnel to cross-train them for other positions within the organization.
 
However, the challenge still lies in the extra costs accrued through increased compliance operations, which, in turn, negatively impact loan margins.
 
2.Identify New Sources of Revenue
One strong option to the market changes is to identify new ways to generate more profit per loan on existing portfolios. If successful in maintaining or even increasing margins, servicers can place themselves in a better position to keep personnel and cross-train them rather than eliminate jobs. This is where identifying new sources of revenue through transactional document communications such as mortgage statements and letters is the answer. Servicers have the opportunity to utilize transactional documents to cross-sell and upsell services to performing loans, as well as utilize affiliate advertising to create new revenue streams.

To learn more about how transactional document communications can help you net more profit per loan, click here.

Virtually every financial institution loses some customers, but few ever measure or recognize how many of their customers become inactive. High turnover rates often occur when a bank or credit union invests an enormous amount of time, effort and expenses building the initial customer relationship, only to let that relationship go unattended. As a result, the customer becomes disengaged and more likely to walk away, leaving the bank in a position to spend another small fortune to replace them. In fact, according to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, it is 6-7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one.

Based on these facts, the easiest way to grow is to focus on retaining current customers while increasing incremental product spend. Once you decrease turnover rates, it’s often possible to significantly increase your growth rate because you’re no longer forced to make up lost ground just to stand still.

Increasing customer retention often starts with consistent communication, branding and personalization.

1. Provide Proactive Support
Usually, customers who have problems with products and services will not communicate the issue. According to Lee Resources International, for every customer who complains about an issue, there are 26 who stay silent. Instead, they take their business elsewhere. 
 
A best practice for “breaking the silence” and providing proactive support is to utilize the space on digital and print documents to request feedback and encourage open dialogue.  

2. Value Proposition Reinforcement
Value propositions are a clear statement that should:

• explain services and how each service improves the customers' situation (relevancy),
• deliver specific benefits (quantified value),
• highlight competitive advantages that drive customers to stay with the orgianzation (unique differentiation).

A cost-efficient, yet effective way to reinforce value proposition is through ePresentment of transactional documents. As customers log in to view documents, they are easily reminded of the company value by simply displaying personalized messages on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
 
3. Add a Personal Touch
As technology continues to evolve, customers are expecting more personalized communications that align with behaviors, needs and wants. According to “The Cost of Poor Customer Service” by Genesys Global Survey, 38% of consumers say personalization is important to the customer experience.

Marketing space on digital and print statements, letters, notices, etc. can be optimized to target customers with products and services that best fit specific needs. A best practice is to utilize existing customer data to identify specific criteria, including account balance, zip code, and spending habits, to name a few. From there, leveraging dynamic communications on all digital and print documents creates a timely, effective customer experience.

While it’s next to impossible to have a 100% retention rate, financial institutions can drastically decrease turnover by proactively approaching and maintaining current customer relationships. 

​To learn more about customer retention through transactional documents, contact us at lanverainfo@lanvera.com or click here.

According to KPCB mobile technology trends, mobile digital media time in the U.S. is now significantly higher than previous years at 51% compared to desktop usage (42%). We all know the mobile device world takeover is driving consumer expectations and shifting market reactions. Because of this trend, companies who want to continue to be profitable and grow are finding themselves rethinking their online customer experience — namely, their mobile experience. 

When looking to improve your customers’ mobile experience, it is crucial to look at the entire scope of your online communications. Not only do customers access your website, they also access other platforms such as online banking and ePresentment. If the design, usability and ease-of-use do not carry seamlessly across these platforms, your customers will be less engaged and more inclined to move their business to one of your competitors with a better mobile experience.

The most important factors to consider with the mobile experience are responsive design, applications, marketing, and two-way messaging.

Mobile Responsive Design
Adobe reports that eight out of ten consumers will stop engaging with content if it does not display well on the device they are using. True mobile responsive design means your site is designed to provide an optimal viewing experience — easy reading and navigation with minimum resizing, panning and scrolling — across a wide range of devices. Added bonus to mobile responsive design: you will improve your online search rankings because Google’s search engine gives preference to mobile responsive design because it understands the importance of delivering a user-friendly mobile experience.

Mobile Applications
According to Smart Insights, apps account for 89% of mobile media time, with the other 11% spent on websites. Furthermore, statistics show that the average American spends more than two hours a day on his or her mobile device. A mobile application will ensure you are visible to your customers at all times, as well as provide easy access to your business’ digital communications. 

In order to increase their changes of more downloads and return customers to their mobile applications, many businesses are also digitalizing their loyalty programs and making it possible for customers to collect rewards via their mobile applications.

Mobile Marketing 
Marketing Land estimates that by 2019, mobile marketing will represent 72% of all US digital ad spending. Any savvy marketer knows that the key to future success is adapting to and optimizing their marketing efforts for the mobile market. What’s equally important is one-to-one mobile marketing. Email engagement, apps, programmatic display, geo fencing and beacons have shifted mobile marketing from mass messaging to targeted, personalized messaging.

Two-Way Mobile Messaging 
App Annie reports that more than 2.8 billion people reached out and made connections using their mobile devices in 2015. This means that SMS, email and mobile app two-way messaging are expected in today’s market because most people would rather not pick up the phone to place a call. By allowing your message recipients to reply and hold a digital conversation with a representative, you will increase customer engagement and loyalty.
Conclusion
It is imperative that you and your vendors invest in the technology necessary to staying ahead of mobile digital media demands. By actively pursuing the above factors, you will increase your market value and improve customer online engagement.

To learn about how Lanvera can help your customer communications go mobile, contact us today.

Enter “how to avoid a security breach” in any search engine and you will see no shortage of opinion and advice.  Some of it salient and wise. Some of it questionable and dangerous. This article is based on twenty five years spent in the financial, health care and telecommunication industries focusing on technical and security issues.  I have personally been involved in handling three significant security breaches, dozens of reputation affecting security events, and thousands of security incidents affecting productivity.

Organization size and security budget applied are irrelevant to the competency and preparedness of IT people responsible for that security.  I have seen effective security programs on a shoe string budget and grossly ineffective programs with big budget, corporate authority, and scores of security people.  

So, how do credit unions and other financial institutions avoid a security breach?

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