Replacing an external agency with SAS paid off for Home Credit
Elimination of administrative and operational activities has reduced costs and significantly increased the efficiency and flexibility of direct marketing.
Home Credit needed a solution that would meet the demands of 21st century digital marketing and was looking for a technology that would be both more efficient and automated than the existing way of campaign management, as well as being able to integrate with their CRM system.
Společnost používá produkt • SAS® Customer Intelligence 360
Replacing an external agency with SAS paid off for Home Credit
Initial situation
Non-bank lender Home Credit needed to streamline its email marketing campaigns. Working with an external agency was no longer meeting modern requirements for communication with clients due to low flexibility, capacity constraints and the need to plan well in advance.
Solution
The company started to implement campaigns faster, more flexibly and at a lower cost in-house with the help of SAS 360 Engage, which was possible to integrate with the existing SAS CRM system.
Benefits
The elimination of administrative and operational activities has reduced costs and significantly increased the efficiency and flexibility of direct marketing.
Personalized customer communication, immediate response and flexible campaign management is an imperative for every customer-centric company today. Home Credit, a global consumer finance provider with Czech roots, decided to abandon an external agency and bring the creation and execution of mailing campaigns in-house leveraging the newly deployed SAS 360 Engage solution in order to automate the process, shorten response times, and to improve customer experience. Today, email content and templates are fully handled by a three-strong in-house direct marketing team.
„It was a relatively simple decision. About four years ago, we started sending out emails in bulk. However, as the number of emails and templates grew, the costs were rising, too, and the agency was increasingly failing to keep up with our requirements for speed and flexibility of execution. In 2020, we therefore started to consider switching to an in-house solution that could be integrated with our existing CRM solution and would relieve us of our dependence on an external partner,“ says Jitka Bařinová, Head of Direct Marketing at Home Credit’s Czech office.
Automated and intelligent solution
Besides operational reasons, technical aspects, too, played a role in the choice of the solution. Home Credit needed a solution that would meet the demands of 21st century digital marketing and was looking for a technology that would be both more efficient and automated than the existing way of campaign management, as well as being able to integrate with their CRM system.
„The tender process proved that SAS 360 Engage would best suit our needs. Besides, we had had previous positive experience with SAS products. The ability to integrate with an existing CRM solution at acceptable cost was key for us, and SAS’ reliable and high-quality support also played a role. Now we have a solution that selects clients for communication in a sophisticated way, enabling us to send emails to the target recipients directly from the CRM,“ Gabriel Hudák head of technical infrastructure for CRM Campaigns Home Credit
Faster and more flexible campaign execution at a lower cost
After the transition to the new system, Home Credit was able to terminate its contract with the external agency. This eliminated a significant number of administrative tasks and operational activities - from entering and explaining campaign concepts, to handing over documents and exporting contacts from the CRM, to ensuring security and billing.
As a result, campaign costs have decreased. While the agency was paid for every single template, test, and email sent, the direct marketing team can now handle everything on their own after proper training. Campaign execution has accelerated, as the in-house team can work more flexibly and plan faster, while not being dependent on the agency’s capacity.
„Our fears that the team would not be able to handle the burden timewise have not come true as the switch to our own system has saved a lot of time on other activities. They are now also able to run larger campaigns thanks to the SAS solution. We have been accelerating and streamlining our work, the team members are receiving further professional training, and the entire team even won a corporate award for the project.“ Jitka Bařinová Home Credit
Home Credit – Project in numbers
2 months to implement the new system and integrate with the existing CRM
1.2 million email messages dispatched per month
99% email deliverability compared to 98% with an external agency
3-member team handles creation of email templates
Personalized communication tailored to each client
The integration of SAS 360 Engage with SAS Customer Intelligence has enabled better personalization of email communication, which now takes into account the services actually being used by individual clients.
„By being able to send out more emails, we can raise awareness of our brand among clients more effectively. For instance, we have expanded the target group to which we send our loyalty program offers. Previously, we would send them only to clients with an active card, but now, attractive discounts and promotions are also available to clients who do not yet have a card and are eligible to obtain one. In addition, lower costs have abled us to expand the range of clients to whom we send birthday cards, where we address not only active clients, but also take this opportunity to get in touch with those who terminated their contracts with us,“ Jitka Bařinová Home Credit
Future plans
Switching to a modern email campaign management solution integrated with an existing CRM system helps Home Credit keep up with the competition. The company is planning further development, including the introduction of real-time operations and opening the system to other departments, e.g., for sending service emails to clients.
„The SAS solution is beginning to serve as a digital platform that could provide personalized customer journeys in other digital channels besides email - online, in a mobile app and in social media. It definitely paid off to overcome our fears of a major change, to take on the challenge, and to adopt the new solution,“ Gabriel Hudák. Home Credit
