InfoTrends has expanded its Ultimate Guide Online Program, adding a Customer Communications Management (CCM (News - Alert)) guide that it says better reflects growing trends within the market.

"As enterprises continue to align their organizations to follow best practices, and focus their efforts on the customer experience, they will seek solutions that are able to accommodate a variety of communication applications and channels,” said David Stabel, associate director of production workflow and customized communications service at InfoTrends.

Customer Communications Management means creating a standard way to send communications to potential customers via a number of methods: such as websites, brochures, even social media. InfoTrends considers it a natural outgrowth of IT departments as they’ve expanded from transaction processing on mainframes to generating content for communications channels.

Communications can also be generated automatically, as in the case of invoices or annual statements, or triggered by agents, such as welcome kits or insurance proposals, even insurance claims. Customers can even generate communications by submitting requests for information on websites or via mobile devices.

The Ultimate Guide covers the composition and interactivity features of CCM. It includes a series of databases that marketing service providers and other businesses can use to streamline their communications. It replaces its earlier Enterprise Transpromo guide.

In modern large businesses, communicating with customers is crucial. Communications between businesses and customers need to be consistent. If one customer agent says something and one person says something else, or it differs from the company website in some way, it can undermine a company’s credibility. Solutions like CCM can help businesses manage customer expectations.

In the past, customer communications generally included the phone and mail. Now customers have a plethora of options for getting in touch with companies, including the Internet and text messages, making effective, centralized communications more important as the number of channels continues to grow.