When we say “360-degree integration,” we mean integrating the people, processes and technology involved in customer communications all the way around the entire customer life cycle. Most customer journeys are going to cross multiple touchpoints, and therefore multiple departments and myriad technologies. There’s a certain amount of integration required to simply deliver content across all the different channels, particularly if you want your customer-facing communication to look, sound and feel like it’s all coming from a single entity (and you do).

In the just-published Forrester Wave™: Web Content Management Systems, Q1 2015 report, analyst Ted Schadler discusses the role of web content management (WCM) systems in a customer journey. He lists the many tools and channels involved in managing customers' digital experiences in this graphic:

The Forrester Wave™: Web Content Management Systems, Q1 2015 report is out. Beyond Forrester’s usual leading-edge insights into this critical component of digital experience, we at Topdown see some important implications for customer communication management (CCM) as well.

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.