DS0409_REPORT_p7_CS Smartfocus:Layout 1 1/4/09 15:58 Page 7
CASE STUDY
FOCUSED ON RESULTS
SMARTFOCUS allow RIAS to understand and react to their customers better
“
have a single view of our customers,” says Delahaye.
“As a result, we couldn’t segment our customer data, or
gain insight into who these people are and what they
were likely to respond to.” Another consequence of the
Since unavailability of customer data was that RIAS found it
starting with
difficult to judge the effectiveness of its campaigns. “We
couldn’t do any meaningful analysis,” says Delahaye.
smartFOCUS
“We would have to get data from the outsourcer, link it to
for marketing
internally sourced results, and then manually carry out
the analysis process. It could take a full day to produce
Customer
campaigns,
an analysis report, and that just wasn’t practical.”
RIAS plc
we’ve seen RIAS deployed smartCAMPAIGNER and
Industry Sector smartANALYZER. The first thing RIAS wanted to do
Financial Services
a 10% uplift
was to achieve a single customer view through a
in direct
centralised store of up-to-date customer data. “We
RIAS provides high quality, low cost insurance for the worked closely with smartFOCUS to move all our data
over 50s. Founded in 1992, the company has become
marketing
in-house,” says Delahaye. “We processed the data
one of the largest providers of insurance in the UK
efficiency,
thoroughly and matched up all the duplicate records.”
over-50s market. The company has nearly one million RIAS now has instant access to its customer
customers, a track record of over 23% compound which information, and this has had a significant impact on the
growth and over 1,100 employees. RIAS is partnered speed at which campaigns and analysis can be put
with some of the most respected insurance companies
demonstrates
together. “All our customer data is available at any time,
in the UK, including Fortis Insurance, AXA Insurance
how much
and we don’t need to process or clean it at all,” says
and Canopius at Lloyd’s.
more effective
Delahaye. “Campaigns that would once take two weeks
to construct can be done in just a few hours.”
The Challenge
this approach is
RIAS wanted to drive the growth of the business, With the database established, RIAS was able to better
without increasing marketing costs. The company had analyse and segment its data, judge the effectiveness of
outsourced its marketing database storage and its campaigns, identify which customers have responded
campaign management to an external company and the to particular messages, and use this information to
provider was not providing them with much direct future campaigns. “Using smartANALYZER, we
transparency. “This meant that we didn’t have much can continually refine our targeted selections, improving
confidence in our ability to market effectively,” says our campaigns.” says Delahaye. “In a short time, we’ve
Simon Delahaye, Head of Customer Contact at RIAS. seen more than a 10% uplift in the efficiency of direct
“We were marketing extensively at that time, but we marketing.” Reporting is also much easier for the
wanted to do it better, by improving targeting and company. “The smartFOCUS system lets us produce
customer insight.” The external database was automated reports,” says Delahaye. “It used to take up
preventing RIAS from achieving this. “Our marketing to a day, but now it can take a few minutes to share
requirements were growing much faster than the information – it’s that quick.”
outsourcer’s ability to deliver the level of service
required, and this was holding us back.” The database is hosted at RIAS but smartFOCUS is
responsible for maintaining it, ensuring the quality of the
One of the biggest challenges that RIAS faced was that data. RIAS and smartFOCUS enjoy a strong relationship.
campaigns were taking too long to put together. “Every Collaborating with smartFOCUS has been great, as have
time we started a new campaign, we had to request the the results,” says Delahaye. “For the first time, we can
data from the outsourcer, which took time,” says see the customers in our database as people, rather than
Delahaye. “We have a vast customer database and just names, and it makes for better marketing.”
every single time we received new data, we had to
clean it thoroughly, and painstakingly remove any The Bottom Line
duplicate records.” The time required to put together a With the smartFOCUS solution, RIAS is now able to
month’s campaigns could be measured in weeks, and deliver much more effective marketing. The company
this was preventing RIAS from achieving the volume of can target campaigns much more accurately, and better
marketing it desired. judge their effectiveness. Since the data is now stored
in-house, managed by smartFOCUS, campaigns take
RIAS also wanted to improve its targeting, but was hours to construct as opposed to weeks. In less than
struggling to do so because it could not manipulate its one year, the company has enjoyed a 10% uplift in
data. “Because our database was outsourced, we did not direct marketing efficiency.
DATA STRATEGY | REPORT | APRIL 2009 7
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