Objective:
In this article we will be talking about how you can exclude customers from either communications or reports in Core iQ. We will explore the following topics:
- How exclusions work on a customer record level and an institution-wide level
- When exclusions are checked and how they are enforced
Within Core iQ, there are several different ways for you to ensure that any given customer will not receive either a print or electronic mail piece. These safeguards allow you to not only honor customer preferences on communications, but also stay up to date on their desire to opt-out of future items. Whether you have this data coming in from your core, or you want to start fresh in Core iQ, we have the tools to help you block communications when necessary. Here we will outline three different exclusion scenarios and how Core iQ handles each of them.
Exclusions coming from your core
If you have flags coming in from your core that designate certain customers as being opted out of all forms of communication, then we can map that into your instance of Core iQ. These sorts of flags will be converted into a platform-wide block on all forms of communications to that customer. Whenever you attempt to queue up a non-Mandatory communication to that customer, you will receive a failure message telling you that this customer cannot be sent the desired message. You can verify that the flags are coming in for a given customer by viewing their Customer Profile. On the right side of their profile, you will see a section labelled Mapped Core Contact Restrictions. This is where you will either see several YES or NO messages for the four main communication types in Core iQ. If a customer has the correct communications flag in your core, then it should translate to this area of their profile.
Exclusions coming from institution-wide preferences
Within Core iQ, you have the ability to set global communications exclusions that will be enforced across the entire platform. These items directly relate to the appearance of a customer or item on reports and/or communications. In order to set these items, you need to go to the Report & Communications Exclusionsarea of your Admin menu. From here, you can create a variety of exclusions relating to things such as a customer’s account number, a branch number, or even an account type. These exclusions will take effect after your next nightly update of core data, and will continue to be in effect as long as they are on this list. Just like the core exclusions discussed above, these items are checked before queueing a communication, meaning that items cannot be queued to customers from this list. There is an option on every report that will default to remove relevant exclusions from the report, but you always have the option to include them using that toggle.
Exclusions coming from email opt-out
Every outbound electronic communication from Core iQ can have an email opt-out message added to it, which gives your customers the chance to remove themselves from a particular email category. If you send them a Product Offer email with an opt-out at the bottom, they can choose to remove themselves from receiving any future Product Offer emails from you. However, this will not remove them from other communication categories such as News and Interest, Surveys, or Courtesy Followups.
Customers also have the option within these emails to opt themselves out of ALL non-essential communications coming from your bank or credit union through call, text, or email. This option allows a customer to completely remove themselves from all electronic forms of communications from your financial institution. If a customer chooses this option, they will only be able to receive print items and Mandatory Messages (electronic or otherwise).
This change will be reflected on the customer’s profile and will be denoted by a warning next to their email address telling you the category that they opted out of. You are also able to see any changes to this area of a customer’s preferences by checking the Contact Preference Changes section of Core iQ. This list will show you all of the customers who have changed their contact preferences within the set date range.
These exclusions are a bit different from the other two examples we have outlined in Core iQ. While the other exclusions check for a failure before they queue, a communication being sent to an opted-out customer will fail at the Processing step. This means that the message will still attempt to queue as either New or Pending Approval, but it will fail once it transitions to Processing. Core iQ will always honor this customer choice, it’s just that the check for this choice happens at a different time in the queueing process.