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Smart Communications to keep focus on people
By Leon Gettler, Talking Business
A NEW PLATFORM aims to give super funds, banks and insurance companies the kind of customer engagement people expect from Amazon.
James Brown, CEO of Smart Communications – a leading technology company that helps businesses engage in more meaningful customer conversations and which works with top Australian government agencies and highly regulated companies like banks, insurance companies and super funds – said this was now the big trend. Smart Communications works with the nine largest banks in Australia, four top insurers and 50 government agencies.
“If you look at all these regulated industries, they need be operating from a customer experience point of view at the same level as the very best digital brands that are out there,” Mr Brown told Talking Business. 
“Their competition is not the next bank or the next insurer. Their competition is Amazon, Dominos, Deliveroo, whatever it is that provides a great customer experience. That is the benchmark now.
“Many citizens and consumers don’t compare their bank or government agency to another bank or government agency. They compare it with Amazon or whatever the best digital experience they’re getting across the spectrum of engagement that they have.”
COLLECTING DATA AND CONVERSATIONS
To achieve this Smart Communications has developed a platform which collects data and conversations. It creates highly personalised two way conversations. It is on a massive scale.
Mr Brown cites one case of an Australian insurer. The firm has provided more than 400 million communications for them.
Smart Communications works with major regulated companies across Australia and around the world, and government agencies, to transform the customer experience with more analysis and control of conversations. The company works with superannuation providers, insurance companies and banks
“Where we work really effectively is that really deep intersection of customer and citizen engagement and regulatory complexity,” Mr Brown said.
“We manage to create great customer experience for complex, highly regulated environments.
“And one of the things we’re seeing with banks and insurance companies is that the legacy landscape in those industries is often very complex.”
The system also uses a lot of artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure the communications are appropriate and in context. The customers will also use artificial intelligence for their analytics.
SHIFT TOWARDS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
Mr Brown said companies in regulated industries since COVID have been looking to create deep and meaningful customer experiences, turning them from one way interactions to two way conversations.
He said in Australia in recent years, there had also been a rapid adoption of cloud technology in these sectors which had facilitated the adoption of the company’s platform.
The company is about turning one way communication into “genuine two way conversations,” he said.
“The richer and more detailed they get, the better.
“We are very focused on building out this conversation cloud that allows organisations to really look at the conversation as an enterprise-wide challenge and deal with it with enterprise wide solutions,” Mr Brown said.
“If you look across all the major industries and government bodies that we work with, it’s a complete transformation of that forms process, with really rich omni-channel two-way communications.
“We believe the conversation is the best way to deliver customer experience.”
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.
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