Many
organisations have recognised the need to apply some kind of document and data
capture technology on the journey to the digital enterprise. After all, you
cannot realise the vision of the paperless office if you are still pushing
paper around.
Leading
organisations are now embarking on the next phase of their digital journey. For
those that have laid the initial foundations, the transition to the digital
enterprise is less about paper and more about data.
“Now that we are capturing and routing all
inbound documents electronically – how do we make use of the actual content?”
From Digital Mailroom, to Customer Dialogue
Management
The
description of capturing and routing all inbound documents is of course the
digital mailroom concept. Such systems point to proven ROI – speeding
downstream business processes through automated classification and routing, thereby
increasing the overall effectiveness of an organisation. Things get done
quicker and smarter, with less effort, less paper and less cost. But what comes
next?
Looking at
the bigger picture, all processes, communications, interactions and decisions,
be that in a consumer or business capacity, have one thing in common – they
share 3 core components – an input element, a processing element and an output
element.
- Input – the data flowing into the central system from outside
- Process – the action of manipulating the data into a more useful form
- Output – presenting the data as information in a user-friendly way
In other
words, the information flow moves from data, to insight, to action.
In this
sense, the Digital Mailroom, acting as the input element, represents only the start
of the value chain and therefore just the beginning of any end-to-end business improvement
initiative. Traditionally, the processing element “what is the value of this
content, and therefore what do I have to do with it?”, or more simply, the
decision point – has been a job for humans, but will increasingly become a job for machines as more advanced technologies emerge.
Organisations
across the globe have realised the benefit of handling incoming content
(paper, email, web, PDF) through one multi-channel content capture platform –
standardising the capture process. But what about the response process?
Leading
organisations are one step ahead and have recognised the strategic importance of the
Digital Mailroom and its ability to drive customer-centric activities. The system
is set to evolve from a purely admin-centric operation, stationed on the organisation
periphery, to one placed at the heart of business operations driving
high-value, high-impact customer dialogue.
Decision-as-a-Service:
Automated Decision Management
The concept
of a fully automated input-process-output chain of events – touchless
processing with minimal, or zero human interaction, is human-computer
interaction (HCI) at its best and straight out of science fiction. Ask a
question, receive an answer – in real-time. Sure, it is a futuristic one, but an
increasingly realistic one when you begin to combine advanced technologies in recognition,
analytics and linguistics.
Imagine a
state-of-the-art system where incoming content (requests, enquiries,
complaints, questions) is analysed with human-like interpretation to drive
automated interactions, decisions and actions (answers, offers,
recommendations, approvals) in near real-time or even real-time itself.
Such a
concept gets close to a real-time conversation platform between businesses,
suppliers, customers, employees and artificial agents, with a myriad of
one-to-one interactions in a futuristic, always-on, hyper-connected society. No
waiting, no down-time.
Setting the Scene
As a customer of a large mobile phone provider,
you would like to email customer services with a specific complaint – you are
receiving spam text messages and you are requesting they put a stop to it
within 2 days, otherwise you will switch provider.
In today’s
environment, not only is this not possible due to a lack of multi-channel
capabilities by the provider (they cannot handle email), it is also reliant on
a human processor who has to understand the nature of your request (requires
human logic), and who has a number of other tasks to handle (delayed response).
Further, due to a lack of integration with your historical customer data the
agent is unable to appease you when it matters most (loyalty programmes and
special offers) and the net result is that you remain an unhappy customer (defecting
to the competition).
The
business case stacks up when you multiply the issue across your customer
base. Not only
does the mobile phone provider have a potential customer attrition problem, it
is also missing out on leveraging customer insight, in real-time, for up-sell /
cross-sell opportunities. Reason enough to put forward a case for customer
experience optimisation and the subsequent implementation of more advanced
technological capabilities. The outcome: happier customers, healthier balance
sheet.
Integrating Multi-Channel Input with Multi-Channel
Output…and a whole lot in between
The idea of an automated business decision platform – driven
by an integrated input-process-output chain of events sounds simple in
practice, but in reality is rather complex. The truth is that there are a
number of enterprise software applications implicated in this story, not least
CRM, ERP and Database Management systems holding a plethora of historical data,
which may, or may or may not need to be drawn upon at the “decision-point” in
real-time.
In addition, the output element – or outbound communications
component – is fragmented between the fast-growing marketing automation space
and declining print media space. Traditional document composition systems will
need to mature into multi-channel output systems (including mobile and voice
capabilities) capable of creating meaningful content on-demand, as opposed to
heavy-duty document production.
And last but not least, the glue that joins it all together,
semantic analytics, acting as the central brain and decision-engine, remains a
super-technology in early adoption. Even then we should not discredit human
intervention – after all, we are still some way off true artificial intelligence,
meaning intelligent systems will still require a form of human touch. It is
likely that decision management platforms will initially surface as decision-support
engines, running as a centralised enterprise service. Consequently, they will
automate much of the business process, but still require human guidance.
Part 2 of this article will explore barriers to adoption, and
key recommendations to move this concept towards reality.
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