Customers

Banque Accord

Banque Accord"Our database contains 2.5 million customers and about fifteen different product offers. BusinessObjects Set Analysis gives us the capability to develop our cross-sales by targeting our products and services at those customers who are the best match."

Frédéric Muggéo
Head of Business Intelligence Projects
Banque Accord

Challenge

Banque Accord’s mission is to adapt the rules which have proved successful in the field of retail distribution to the financial services sector, by offering consumers discounted products that are simple but innovative. Over the last twenty years, Banque Accord, a subsidiary of the Auchan Group, has developed its essentially product-based approach and now has about fifteen different product offerings which include bank cards, savings, revolving loans, and insurance.

Banque Accord is currently in the process of implementing a new customer-focused company strategy under the CAP Clients name. The new strategy is being deployed via a range of very diverse channels: call centers, SMS, emails, account statements etc. Set Analysis and Web Intelligence on the new BusinessObjects XI Release 2 platform have been selected by Banque Accord as the tools to improve targeting of products at those customers who are eligible.

The Marketing Research Department was limited by the tools available to them. At their request, IT Management commenced the search for a solution better adapted to a multiproduct, multi-channel approach, enabling better knowledge and use of the potential within the Bank’s database of 2.5 million customers. “We first of all looked at ‘rule-driver’ type solutions; but when we examined the requirements in more detail, it became apparent that what they actually needed was a selection driver”, recalls Frédéric Muggéo, Head of Business Intelligence projects at Banque Accord.

Approach

One of Marketing’s priorities was to reduce the processing time as far as possible, whilst at the same time retaining control over the selection rules. Banque Accord launched a bid process in June 2006 and performed a Proof of Concept with a set of selection rules applied to the whole customer database, using the three short-listed software tools. The result was that BusinessObjects Set Analysis proved its flexibility and power and was implemented in September 2006.

Marketing statisticians are now able to access all of their Set Analysis selections through a Web Intelligence reporting portal. Their selections are made in three phases whichresult in a finely-honed selection: firstly, indicators such as years as a customer, eligibility for products or sales pressure are supplied to serve as the business rules. Target selection is then performed: for example, from the customers who already have a savings product, those who bought a product as a result of the first campaign would be excluded. The remaining customers are then targeted and ranked. A third set of rules is applied to the sampling carried out on the pool of potential customers.

Within the portal, users also have control reports providing them with facilities to prevent duplicate requests. When the selection is ready and has been validated, it is extracted as a flat file and can be distributed to users. The Sales department, for example, may wish to run an “outgoing calls” campaign or outsource a campaign to a Direct Marketing agency which takes responsibility for the whole operation.

Business Objects pre-sales and consultancy teams assisted Banque Accord to set up the qualification server and define its operating parameters (automated processing, triggering mechanisms and controls for calculation rules etc.). A review day which was held in-house was sufficient to transfer the knowledge and equip the users with all they needed to run Set Analysis themselves.

Results

“Today, Set Analysis provides us with the capability to easily and rapidly cross-refer databases. The users who own the system are independent: they can enter and interpret the rules themselves without requiring support from IT, hence a much better response time”, says Frédéric Muggéo. The greatly improved response time is explained by the fact that the expansion of the selection tree now takes less than an hour and includes four times as many rules as previously: “We’ve gone from 53 rules to over 150, which means our selections are much more effective!”

Set Analysis provides more in-built functions. For example, the tool presents the scattering and retains a count of the number of customers incorporated in each stage. The relevance of the selection criteria is therefore quantifiable. In addition, the tool provides a better view of the interaction between the databases and is able to manage distinct groups which facilitates inter-product research. And finally, the interface’s great ease of use has been welcomed by the users.

From now on, the sales team has all the information they need to promote several associated products or services without over-loading customers with mailshots. In short, Banque Accord works more effectively, more rapidly with more refined targets and has all the keys to increase cross-selling opportunities and develop cross-sales business. Set Analysis is a basic but essential building block in this strategy. Banque Accord also intends to use Set Analysis for new customer prospecting.

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