1. ESSENTIAL UPGRADE LEADS TO
DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING REVOLUTION
Synopsis
Established in 1870, the Cheshire is the UK’s 11th largest building society with
around 900 staff, a 52-strong branch network, and assets in excess of £4.4
billion.
Cequity's end-to-end suite of integrated
services includes customer management
In addition to providing retail financial services, the Cheshire has subsidiaries involved in estate Customer
consulting, marketing database &
agency, property letting and offshore deposit taking. Up until 1999, it largely relied on its local information management solutions,
Cheshire Building Society
analytics, metrics & dashboards and
branch network to deliver its investment and mortgage products and services. The ability to
campaign measurement support. Our
manage customers through multiple channels and a wider range of products were urgently
Industry sector
state-of-the-art technology solution,
needed, but first the systems had to be put in place to cope.
CequityServices powered by smartFOCUS
Financial ACE is
and is a hosted customer marketing
In early 2003, another force for change appeared in the form of experienced database marketer system that can be quickly implemented
Solution
Howard Ormesher who took up the role of Customer Knowledge manager. Ormesher saw the without major hardware or software
Intelligent Marketing
investments. This helps us deliver rich yet
opportunity the new infrastructure presented for state-of-the-art marketing and
valuable, information-driven, customer
customer management.
experience opportunities for you.
Solution components
Challenges and Solutions “From our experience, the Intelligent Analytical
Marketing from smartFOCUS makes it possible
Data Quality/Management
to instantly analyze, segment, identify and
Fast and Agile
communicateCustomer View
Single with large volumes of customers
With a sophisticated multi-channel capability, it was time to take a close look at what was and contacts on an individual basis. Intelligent
available to complement the other new systems in the way of a central marketing database Analysis & Visualization
Marketing improves customer communications -
throughout the entire lifetime of a company-
and related functions.
Predictive Modeling
customer relationship and makes performance
driven multi-channel marketing a reality.
“We developed a ‘battle plan’ that looked at each segment, some of which had a high cost to Campaign Management
smartFOCUS is faster and more efficient than we
serve and some were declining, where others had huge potential. “At that point, we had shone
thought it would be!”
Email Marketing
the torch into the darkened room but we still needed a system to apply the segmentation to the
full database, make selections and track and report on campaign activity,” says Ormesher.
Online Execution
CEO - Cequity Solutions
“All we had was a Business Objects straight reporting tool. We presented the case to the board Marketing Performance Management
and they approved it.” A detailed statement of requirements then went out to a selection of
Managed Service
marketing vendors, with the emphasis on key operational deliverables rather than just a list of
required functions. “You need to lock in things like the need for daily updates and the integration
of specific systems to both the initial ITT and also the proof of concept,” advises Ormesher.
“Otherwise, everything is up for negotiation and you can end up with the different vendors as
well as your own internal people teaming up to tell you why it can’t be done! Under the terms
of our contract, if implementation became protracted could walk away if the implementation
took too long.”
The smartFOCUS smartMARKETER suite, running on the Viper high-speed database, was
chosen to build a proof-of-concept system. “It was the most stable and refined of the systems
and its development had obviously taken account of a lot of the client feedback over the years,”
explains Ormesher. “It’s flexible too, which is important when developing multiple
pitches to be put to a customer in the branch. Normally marketing software deals with just one
offer at a time but you can work around this in Viper.” The proof of concept was swiftly up and
running and work then started on building the main system. As the work progressed, the proof-of-
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concept database was kept up and running with daily updates so that lessons learned from it
about the data, the merge process and much else besides could be transferred to the new system
using a strict change control procedure.

2. Results
Following the successful completion of the project, four source systems now feed the marketing
database nightly: the core banking back office platform, the call centre database, and the
MAPs and iMAPs mortgage and investment application processing systems. All aspects of this ETL
operation are controlled by the smartFOCUS Enterprise Manager application. In addition, a file of
credit card customers from affinity partner MBNA will soon be added along with
other data provided by 3rd parties.
Better control of branch interactions with customers is another major benefit of the new
infrastructure. “We have a very detailed record of all transactions, all date and time-stamped,”
says Ormesher. “I’d be very surprised if any other building society could get this level of detail
daily.” In total, over 500,000 customer records and 21million of their “most interesting”
transactions are transferred to the smartFOCUS platform, whose highly-indexed database is
in effect rebuilt from scratch early each morning. A permanent file of campaign histories is
remerged with the new file each time to provide the continuity required; all other historical
data is re-imported each night from the source system and all derived variables such as The Cheshire Building Society can now
lifetime value, any bandings and even age are also recalculated on each update using the latest punch well above its weight when it comes to
data. All this takes about 80 minutes. “If we have new demographic data that we want to load, data driven initiatives,
we can easily link it in at postcode or individual level,” says Ormesher. “It amazes me how much
thanks to its state-of-the-art customer
the technology has moved on. We are now fully independent of bureau and IT. Once you’ve paid
management systems.
for the system, it’s just maintenance costs.”
Marketing and IT can agree on at least one
After exhaustive user acceptance testing, the marketing system is now supporting live
thing: legacy systems are the bane of their
campaigns for the first time. These include offering mortgage, buildings and contents insurance
lives. Continually rejigging
to mortgage holders, personal loan offers to relevant customers based on age, Cameo group
ancient mainframe code to take account of the
and product holdings, and ISA top-up mailings. One of the key variables for the former is
latest add-ons sucks up time and resources
renewal date, lists of which are available externally. “We need to know their insurance renewal
best deployed elsewhere.
date and their mortgage renewal,” says Ormesher. “It’s now very easy to append data.” As part
of the drive to get the broadest and most accurate view, geodemographic codes and dates of So when the Cheshire decided to ditch its
birth were amongst the first data sets to be appended, along with the original value-based legacy systems in favour of modern server-
segmentation, and mailings have already gone out to ask those who have opted out of based software, it paved the way to potentially
marketing contact to opt back in. Data collection in general - and email in particular - is a merge analytics and
priority. “We ask for the email address on all forms and in the branch, and customers can opt
operational customer management in a way
in to our email newsletter on the website,” says Ormesher. “In future, we will select emails
rarely seen in the UK financial services
and different treatments on Viper.”
sector.
Customers can also use the site to state their preferred channel for different types of
communication, opting in or out as desired. By inferring these media preferences across the
database, the most suitable contact method can be used where possible. Market research
surveys are already periodically mailed to samples of the various segments.
Daily updating is tailor-made for triggered marketing and also means that conventional
targeting can be based on customers’ most recent transactions. The other side of the coin is
that the data that decisions are based on can change rapidly and selections can quickly go out
of date. “Accounts change every day,” explains Ormesher, “so customers can move from one
mailing cell to another if they pay in some money, or open a new account. It’s extremely
dynamic and you have to get your head around the speed and complexity. It’s refreshed every
day at 4am and we can have a campaign out by 6.30am. You have to plan your schedule in
close to real time.”
“Pitching”, uses the existing operational CRM capability to provide branch prompting, and it links
to an HTML script using intelligence gleaned from customer database. Depending on the
customer, staff might best use their visit to the branch to suggest a meeting with a sales
consultant or simply ask them to provide their email address as part of the data gathering
process. Some of those targeted in the initial mailings will also have the same products pitched to
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them by staff if they visit their local branch.

3. After exhaustive user acceptance testing, the marketing system is now supporting live Cheshire Building Society Customer
campaigns for the first time. These include offering mortgage, buildings and contents insurance to Knowledge Manager, Howard Ormesher, has
mortgage holders, personal loan offers to relevant customers based on age, Cameo group and been delighted with the speed at which they
product holdings, and ISA top-up mailings. One of the key variables for the former is are now able to access
renewal date, lists of which are available externally. “We need to know their insurance renewal
customer insight. He says “we are keen
date and their mortgage renewal,” says Ormesher. “It’s now very easy to append data.”
to exploit the advantage that the daily
refresh of the customer data gives us.
As part of the drive to get the broadest and most accurate view, geodemographic codes and dates
This will allow us to finely tune our
of birth were amongst the first data sets to be appended, along with the original
marketing campaigns with increasing
value-based segmentation, and mailings have already gone out to ask those who have opted out
sophistication, responding almost
of marketing contact to opt back in. Data collection in general - and email in particular -
immediately to the way our members’
is a priority. “We ask for the email address on all forms and in the branch, and customers can opt in
operate their accounts. I have been
to our email newsletter on the website,” says Ormesher. “In future, we will select emails and
very impressed by the robustness of
different treatments on Viper.”
the daily build process which is now
Customers can also use the site to state their preferred channel for different types of managed in-house with minimal IT
communication, opting in or out as desired. By inferring these media preferences across the involvement. We now have customer
database, the most suitable contact method can be used where possible. Market research insight in seconds, which is used
surveys are already periodically mailed to samples of the various segments.
immediately to develop ever more
targeted campaigns, delivering greater
Daily updating is tailor-made for triggered marketing and also means that conventional
member value.”
targeting can be based on customers’ most recent transactions. The other side of the coin is
that the data that decisions are based on can change rapidly and selections can quickly go out
of date. “Accounts change every day,” explains Ormesher, “so customers can move from one
mailing cell to another if they pay in some money, or open a new account. It’s extremely
dynamic and you have to get your head around the speed and complexity. It’s refreshed every
day at 4am and we can have a campaign out by 6.30am. You have to plan your schedule in
close to real time.”
“Pitching”, uses the existing operational CRM capability to provide branch prompting, and it links
to an HTML script using intelligence gleaned from customer database. Depending on the
customer, staff might best use their visit to the branch to suggest a meeting with a sales
consultant or simply ask them to provide their email address as part of the data gathering
process. Some of those targeted in the initial mailings will also have the same products pitched to
them by staff if they visit their local branch.
As well as the smartANALYZER analysis toolset, the Cheshire has also bought the
smartMODELER module which employs the popular KXEN automated model-building package to
deliver functions like profiling and predictive modeling. “We’re not running predictive
models yet, we’re targeting using the segmentation, recency, age, value and so on - standard
stuff,” says Ormesher modestly.
MapInfo’s GIS package already helps with local branch catchment analysis; a new Cheshire
branch opened in central Manchester and Ormesher was able to plan 50,000 door drops
in-house to accompany a mailshot to 20,000 customers situated in the postcode sectors
round the new branch location. “Now we are looking at who from that mailing has taken up a
product,” he says.
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4. The Future
Keep developing
Though the infrastructure is now complete, the Cheshire is still very much at the planning stage in
its new data-driven strategy. More data will continue to flow into the marketing database: the
recently-built match keys used to link the call centre database to the central marketing database
means that the Cheshire can add agent records to the central database, and export product
histories and tailored scripts to the call centre. There are plans to
integrate the complaints database in the near future.
One missing link is a data hygiene application. Though all customer records on the marketing database
have a simple name and address match key appended and the GB Accelerator tool is used for rapid
address entry in the call centre, no de-duping or other verification work is
carried out beyond IT’s quarterly postcode updating on the source systems. “This is one for the future
and we have to make the business case for that too,” says Ormesher. The possibilities for future
targeting are almost endless, including generating in-branch pitches dynamically
rather than manually, based on the very latest transactional data.
Customer journey planning is another ambition, with the appropriate treatments applied
when customers are seen by the system to have reached a different “node” in their lifecycle.
Another benefit from swift access to customer-referenced data includes greatly improved
management information that will hand valuable measures like cost-to-serve and profitability to
senior managers. “We can produce information much more quickly using Viper instead of
Business Objects,” says Ormesher. “I can’t really think of anything we can’t do now, so it’s
simply a matter of setting priorities.”
Company Profile
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smartFOCUS provides software and services that enable companies to manage and coordinate
marketing across multiple channels, including email, SMS, RSS, telemarketing, point of sale 105-106, 1st Floor, Anand Estate,
and direct mail. The company provides a complete portfolio of data integration, analysis, 189-A, Sane Guruji Marg, Mahalaxmi,
Mumbai-400 011, India
modelling, on-line execution, campaign planning and management, with integrated budgeting
and finance solutions. The result is ‘Intelligent Marketing’, driven by a single view of the Phone: +91 22-43453800
customer’s activities across all channels. Marketers can target their communications more
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accurately, cutting wastage, increasing conversion rates and achieving a better understanding
of the customer base. Users of smartFOCUS’s Intelligent Marketing solutions include AAA, For more case studies, white
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Note: This is an ‘original paper’ by smartFOCUS. Cequity ACE is powered by
smartFOCUS and Cequity uses this distinguished technology to empower its end-to-end suite
of analytical marketing and customer relationship management solutions.
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