Ah, Labor Day. A time to kick back from work and enjoy the last vestige of summer. Wouldn’t it be great if every day could be Labor Day? Or, at the very least, a lot less laborious?

“Hello. This is your friendly compliance agent. We received a complaint about your customer communications that indicate they may violate HIPAA regulations, the FCRA and even the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. I need to review all emails sent between July 31, 2012, and July 31, 2014, within 30 days. Oh, and each separate violation is subject to penalties of up to $50,000.”

Company #1: EmblemHealth EmblemHealth had a problem. This large regional HMO and health insurance company, dedicated to providing excellent health coverage and administrative services to 3.4 million people, had less than excellent customer communications. They had previously used Microsoft® Word to generate communications to members, care providers and facilities, which resulted in templates scattered across nearly 3,000 desktops in 16 workgroups at seven facilities spread across three states.

Many companies still rely on IT to make changes to their customer communications. It made sense when technology wasn’t advanced enough to provide non-technical users a way to interact with it, but today the “coders only” notion is as antiquated as flip phones and dial-up Internet connections.

We've noticed some of our fellow DOCCM vendors and even a few analysts have been using the term "interactive" (with respect to customer communication management) to mean different things at different times.