3. WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Table of Contents
Introduction___________________________________________________________________ 4
Consumer technology will change radically__________________________________________ 5
Customer expectations will experience profound and varied changes.___________________ 6
Customers expectations around information availability will evolve______________________ 7
Enterprise technology and infrastructure will experience massive changes________________ 8
Technology accretion accelerates while old technologies remain________________________ 9
Structuring a business to communicate effectively___________________________________ 10
The regulatory constraints of 2025_________________________________________________11
Taking control of 2025, right now!________________________________________________ 12
4. Customer Communications in 2025 | 4
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
10 years isn’t as far away as it used to be
At the rate technology evolves, 10 years seems like a long time off. A decade from now, we might
expect thousands of contextually-driven, ultra-personalized messages to reach our customers at exactly
the time they are needed. Certainly they will be delivered through all sorts of new devices, many
integrated into cars, clothes, glasses or other interesting places. These devices may use new types of
quantum processors and new memory that makes today’s fastest technology look like a clunky 1990’s
PDA. And all of this new technology will be applied to improve customer communication.
Some communication may be managed by a variety of helpful services, devices, bots and social
networks. We may expect communications that are information rich, but not intrusive. We will expect
them to be useful. We will expect filters that get us the right information at the right time. We will
expect them to be secure and private. We expect them to be delivered on constantly improving devices
that are bigger, smaller, faster, and smarter. And yet all of this new communication should not take more
time from our days, just as self-driving cars, smart elevators, and self-cleaning clothes each add a bit of
time back to our busy schedules.
While it may seem a long time off, 10 years is not so far that the choices you make now won’t impact
you then. If you consider the impact of 10 years across common technology refresh cycles, it is only a
few upgrades away.
Today, people in your company are considering investments in technology that will absolutely affect
your ability to communicate in 2025. Some of these choices will improve your communications in 2025.
Others will not.
Many companies are planning investments in Customer Experience—or “CX”—initiatives that are led
by marketing in an effort to strengthen customer relationships. Other companies want to delay critical
infrastructure upgrades “until next year”—every year for the next 10 years. Your decisions today matter.
As you consider how you will communicate in the future, let’s think about those decisions in terms of
consumer technology, customer expectations, information availability, enterprise technology, technology
accretion, business structure and regulatory constraints. This whitepaper explores how communication
could be in 2025 from these perspectives, and offers some guidelines in how to best position yourself
for the future.
1
Based on historical update cycles for commonly used technologies, including Microsoft Windows,
Microsoft Office, iOS, iPhone, Android, Samsung Galaxy, and others.
Number of upgrade
cycles in a 10-year period
5. Customer Communications in 2025 | 5
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Consumer technology will change radically
Over the next 10 years, personal and corporate communications will change in many ways that are
shaped by new types of consumer technology. The essential need to connect with people and handle
transactions will not change much, but the devices we use, the frequency of switching touch points, and
the etiquette of these communication channels will change quite a bit.
Today’s smart devices have screens, speakers, microphones, NFC capabilities, fingerprint readers, Wi-
Fi, Bluetooth, lights, gyroscopes, location, moisture, light, motion, and other sensors. These sensors
constantly become cheaper, more powerful, and more tolerant to environmental extremes, enabling the
creation of new devices that send new types of information. By 2025, this information could be used to,
for example, share experiences with friends with striking realism. And it will generate a lot of data for
corporations to store, manage, and mine to connect with customers in new ways and realize new value.
Today, we communicate via paper-based mail, smart phones, tablets, and desktop and laptop computers
across a variety of third-party services, social networks, and business networks. Consumers have been
experimenting with wearable fitness trackers for a few years. The early adopters are already sharing
immersive 3D experiences. Many of us are on Snapchat, Instagram or Periscope and engaging in new
image and video communications. In 10 years, there will be new social networks along with more apps
and connected devices. The information exchanged will flex to best fit these channels and the context
within which they are used.
As we consider future communications, it is not far fetched to imagine that the average consumer will
have five or more personal, connected devices. Several of these devices will always be available. And
the Internet of Things (IoT) will likely add additional sensors that communicate with these devices.
There will be new services that bridge people, devices, and data across new media. The form factor and
capabilities of the devices we use will impact how people communicate as well as what they consider to
be important.
As you imagine your place in the world of 2025, you need to imagine a business that is friendly to
new types of technology. You cannot escape concerns of privacy and security, but you will not survive
with restrictive policies that favor slow adoption. Technology is moving faster than the 12-month
budget planning cycle, so you need a business that is built to absorb new technologies on their release
schedules.
6. Customer Communications in 2025 | 6
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Customer expectations will experience profound
and varied changes.
There is no reason to believe that consumers won’t have busy lives in 2025. With devices that send and
receive messages all day, consumers will want to manage the noise level. And, there is no reason that
individual consumers will start to tolerate a one-size-fits-all approach to communication. Once you have
a smartphone, there’s no going back to the Nokia 9700! Customers will want to be in control of the
frequency and intensity of the interactions they have with companies.
People will still use water and electricity in 2025, but no one will want to receive a haptic feedback
notification each time someone turns on a light or runs the tap. For most consumers, a once-a-month
bill will be sufficient. And while there will be more connected refrigerators, who wants to be notified
each time a yogurt hits its expiration date? A consumer might appreciate a warning that a red sock has
slipped in with the whites on laundry day, but they don’t want to know when the spin cycle began in
their laundry machines. In 2025, people won’t tolerate oversharing. Some services just don’t warrant a
high level of mindshare.
Some telecom consumers (especially parents of teenagers) want to see a record of all text messages
sent each month. Others are happy with a summary statement. And others don’t even care that much
and prefer a single tweet or SMS-sized notification with just the amount and date of a deduction. In
2025, the possibilities will expand, and successful communicators will learn those preferences and act
accordingly.
In any case, individual consumers have wildly different expectations for communications. Consumers
have a wide range on their preference for the amount of detail that is available to them on bills
and other statements. Some banking customers feel comforted to receive a confirmation for every
transaction. Certain consumers prefer long, sortable lists of transactions. Others prefer a more graphical
presentation of information.
In 2025, unhappy customers will take their bad experiences viral faster than ever. They’ll turn a corporate
communication failure into a new meme that pervades hundreds of social networks and billions of
potential customers just by shouting something from their brand new 360-degree 3D videocasting
device.
As you build your business to communicate 10 years down the road, consider how you will manage to
communicate with the right frequency, intensity, and style. The technology will be there to communicate
across all of the channels constantly. Considerate businesses that resist the temptation to over-
communicate will create the strongest bonds with customers.
7. Customer Communications in 2025 | 7
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Customers expectations around information
availability will evolve
By 2025, devices may be so varied that communication will fully become a utility, instantly available
and automatically optimized for the desired display method. Before indoor plumbing technology was
popularized, to get fresh water, every home had a bucket that had to be filled at a well in the center of
town. Today’s envelopes, text messages and emails are like those buckets, in that they are carriers and
storage devices for information. As more businesses and social networks share information, the sensible
solution is to view information as an on-demand utility.
When much of the same information can be accessed in different ways, customers will expect all
information to be available on any channel, even retroactively. Consumers won’t tolerate maintaining
many separate personal archives to track their
interactions for 10, or even 100, different devices,
services, sensors or social networks. The business
and social networks, apps, and corporate systems
will be expected to get any information out to any
form factor at any time from the client’s very first
interactions.
This market shift will create a need for a major
overhaul of what we consider to be archiving today.
Today, we archive communications, which are
discreet and fairly easy to identify. But, as devices
fragment, social networks expand, and consumers
change context frequently, the burden to re-create
or reformat will fall on your company rather than
the consumer. The archiving landscape will undergo
the most profound change of any infrastructure
technology in the coming decade. This change will
largely be unnoticed by the consumers—supposing it is done well.
Archive systems will move from redisplaying things, to displaying only things that were created in the
past, to providing more. In 2025, consumers may expect their vendors to show them what would have
been displayed in a different form factor. In 2015, it’s not excusable to just show a PDF as a “digital
communication,” as this burdens the consumer with scrolling around the communication in a way
that is frustrating. Communication systems will need to be flexible enough in how they assemble
communications to display old information in ways that best fit the new devices, social network formats,
and customer expectations.
In order to succeed in 2025, businesses must be able to provide information as a utility, making it
available to clients in the right format, at the right time. This will require systems that have easy access
to data, an ability to reformat that data, create the right communication, adapt to the best design, and
deliver it to the right channel in an optimized format. Almost all enterprises are facing choices in the next
36 months that will affect their ability to effectively make information available to clients in 10 years. If
you add 36 months to a common 7-year storage requirement for communications, you’re already into
2025.
In order to succeed in 2025,
businesses must be able to provide
information as a utility, making
it available to clients in the right
format, at the right time. This
will require systems that have
easy access to data, an ability to
reformat that data, create the right
communication, adapt to the best
design, and deliver it to the right
channel in an optimized format.
8. Customer Communications in 2025 | 8
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Enterprise technology and infrastructure will
experience massive changes
In 2015, any company that delivers communication from a technology infrastructure created from
disconnected silos already is at a serious disadvantage. By 2025, firms that do not constantly refresh
communication technology and approaches will quickly find themselves not communicating at all,
because they will have closed their doors and be nothing more than a footnote in Wikipedia.
In order to reach so many people, each one using a variety of devices, the technology will need to be
easily integrated to other data sources, rapidly upgradable, and highly scalable.
To deliver this, the business culture of 2025 will not have the patience for 12-month budget planning
cycles. Opportunities will arise and vanish in less than 90 days with competition from aggressive firms.
As a result, software and service vendors will have to move to high availability models that reduce the
implementation time to zero. This isn’t only for bits and bytes technology, but the visual skills, content
skills, and knowledge of the nuances of all of the channels. Many SaaS and just-in time versions of
software will support these rapid changes. But left unmanaged, these can cause even more project-
based silos than the older methods.
From
12-month
budget
planning
cycle...
Zero tolerance for communication errors
Rapidly upgradable and highly scalable
Easily integrated and flexibile
Implementation time to zero
... to less than than
90 days planning
cycle
The business will have to rapidly integrate communication to new devices and social networks. New
social networks will need to be adopted right when they spring up—not after a “wait and see”
period—to ensure that the brand participates early on in every opportunity and at a low entry price. This
will need to be balanced with a long-term support strategy that actively manages the slow accretion of
subscription-based solutions. In order to do this, companies will have to ensure that the business is built
to handle this level of flexibility, while having zero tolerance for communication errors.
9. Customer Communications in 2025 | 9
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Technology accretion accelerates while old
technologies remain
Everyone gets excited when new channels are added. Consumers get excited to have short names on
new platforms. People flock to new channels as soon as they appear. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Pinterest, and Snapchat set records for the speed at which they were adopted. But nobody gets excited
about removing technology from a portfolio. In fact, many businesspeople get hostile about removing
old channels from the mix, even if they are underperforming, difficult to maintain, or rarely used.
As the above graphic shows, a social media platform catching on can go from no users to a critical channel
with 50 million users in less than a month. This favors a business that can react quickly, assembling the right
communication team to execute well in the new channel, without gaffes, errors or breaches.
While new channels are added with increased frequency, other channels will never leave. Today, some
major corporations still have tape backup systems, fax-based communication procedures, and unsupported
machines with no spare parts. Old channels often survive for 10 to 15 years after their useful life, because
they are on the budget and not causing harm. In 2005, any of you would have predicted that paper-based
billing would be gone by now. In 2015, paper is still a critical channel for many corporate processes and
consumer transactions for reasons of both preference and regulations.
By 2025, XML may be perceived as dated as COBOL is today, but both will probably still be supported by
millions of applications around the world. As you build systems, ensure that your old data is accessible by
your new systems, and your ability to communicate will expand beyond the limitations of your weakest
system.
While the number of channels will increase, the budget to execute will likely remain constant. The businesses
of today that will be successful communicators are already nimble when it comes to adding the new
communication channels their clients, prospects and employees are using. This requires you to consider
technologies that readily convert legacy formats to useful data and content.
10. Customer Communications in 2025 | 10
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Structuring a business to communicate effectively
With incredible pressure from the potential of a communication error going viral, the organizations who
lead in 2025 will be built with communication as a fundamental strength. Let’s consider the roles within
your business that will impact communication:
• Artistic designers will optimize communications for all of the popular form factors, maintaining
the image of the brand across hundreds of potential channels.
• Data scientists will be constantly looking for possible gaps in the customer experience,
proactively recommending changes to product and service owners.
• Lawyers, regulators, and executives will need to instantly approve go-to-market plans that
will often include over 100 separate communication channels.
• IT and technology teams will have to ensure 100% availability and 100% quality across all of
the internal and external technology components.
• Sales, support and service staff will have to work with clients and prospects to get the right
information to their customers instantly.
• Chief Experience Officers will manage a portfolio of thousands of touchpoints. They will need
to see the big picture of the entire possible customer journey as well as individual interactions.
• Executives will support the concept of communication as a critical part of the customer
experience, which will be the chief differentiator in 2025.
All of these roles will need direct access to critical communication technology. Today, there are often
multiple handoffs, several redundant steps, confusing processes, and many opportunities for error. In
2015, smart choices will allow the right people to have the right level of participation. It is critical to
choose technology that maximizes the efforts of every team member while minimizing the software-
specific training required.
11. Customer Communications in 2025 | 11
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
New concepts, such as Customer Experience Management, will change how communication is measured.
Communications can no longer be separated into cost centers and profit centers, because the operational
communications cannot be left to undermine lifetime customer value in order to save a few cents on
delivery. Every communication will need have its impact measured on the entire customer experience.
Other concepts, like Customer Journey Mapping will allow executives to view an entire enterprise-
wide communication portfolio easily, while allowing them to move down to the most in-depth single
communications. This capability, combined with data science, will help focus the attention on the right
elements of the rapidly changing communication portfolio.
In 2025, speed will be the critical key performance indicator (KPI). The businesses that can rapidly
synthesize messages will have the strongest relationships with their clients. Businesses can pave the way
by choosing technology that easily allows all of the stakeholders an easy way to design, approve, monitor,
and deliver communications to a variety of output channels.
The regulatory constraints of 2025
With all of the communication possibilities, businesses will most certainly have a complex mix of
regulations to follow. As communication channels grow, product and service owners will be focusing
on better messaging. Regulators may put incredible amounts of force to slow down transactions or
interactions on new channels. When new channels spring up, it is important to engage in a way that uses
the channel’s strengths, while staying within the regulatory confines of the business.
Personal data security will be a powerful regulatory force as an increasing number of touch points
exponentially increases the chance of a breach that could negatively impact a customer or prospect’s life.
Technology exists today to ensure privacy, but it is not commonplace in many services because it affects
ease of use and increases the costs of delivery.
Finance, insurance, healthcare and telecommunication companies will strive to keep up with regulations on
core aspects of the very services they provide in addition to regulations requiring clarity and consistency in
communication. With communication form factors tending towards the smaller and faster, simple updates
to complex terms and conditions will become staggeringly difficult to realize. It is hard not to imagine that
consumers will have to go to multiple channels to conduct business, make purchases, research benefits,
and understand terms of service. By 2025, regulatory agencies may likely require cross-channel consistency
standards to prevent consumer frustration.
For example, if a new microblogging channel takes off that sells insurance for devices on the network,
the entire terms and conditions probably need to be available on a channel that supports display of that
information. This combines with the need for powerful archive capabilities that will archive items that were
available to the user on a variety of channels, but that the user neglected to review. Of all the possibilities
for exciting business and social networks, none would successfully launch if they used front-facing cameras
and ocular direction sensing technology to ensure you completely read the terms of service.
Business structured to communicate across multiple channels without organizational silos will better be
able to meet regulatory challenges. By ensuring that all critical IT systems can move data and content up
to the communication design process, communications can be pushed to the correct formatting utility,
ultimately delivered to the customer, while being effectively captured, stored and reported to regulatory
agencies.
12. Customer Communications in 2025 | 12
WHITEPAPERICLASSIFICATION:PUBLIC
Taking control of 2025, right now!
In order to thrive in 2025, businesses will have to approach communication as an interdisciplinary
competence. The technology choices made today should be considered in the light of the future of
communication from many perspectives. The communication projects of 2025 depend on the choices
you make in 2015.
Start by creating an organization that is centered around customer experience, understanding that the
customer is impacted by every interaction with your brand. Many of these interactions are beyond your
control, so you need a business that respects the data, time and privacy of your customers. Consider
how new technologies in the area of Customer Experience Management, Customer Engagement
Management, and Customer Journey Mapping can combine with your Business Intelligence and Data
Analytics investments to deliver powerful results in the short term.
Your communication team will be executing broadly across a wide array of devices, networks and other
factors instantly in order to build and maintain a strong, positive reputation. Your line-of-business teams
will change communications constantly. As you expand globally, you will have to manage localized
messages, local languages and local calendars in the context of a global brand.
It won’t be easy to communicate in 2025. You will have to manage a dizzying matrix of ownership over
content, data and compliance aspects of customer communication. You will have to always support the
latest technology, along with some old technology. You will balance regulatory constraints with service
innovation. But, with the right attitude and perspective, this is possible. And it’s easier if you start today.
After all, the future is only a few upgrade cycles away.
https://www.flexiant.com/2015/02/17/disruptive-technologies-offer-service-providers-significant-revenue-
opportunities/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2013 (Jan 29, 2013)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2010 (june 15, 2010)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_6
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_8
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S5
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S6
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions
Writing credits to Scott Draeger M-EDP, with assistance from Antoine Hemon-Laurens, Priskus
Guentensperger, Andrew Hellard and Laurent Ghio.
GMC Software helps companies communicate with their customers and employees. GMC Software empowers
organizations to create stronger engagements with timely and relevant communications. A Neopost Digital Company,
GMC Software provides the means for business users to develop contextual, highly individualized communications across
all channels that span the entire customer journey. A leader in customer communications, GMC Software supports
thousands of clients and partners in banking, insurance, healthcare and service providers around the world.
