The document discusses various companies that have implemented successful customer analytics strategies to improve customer loyalty and business results. It describes how DIRECTV PanAmericana developed a single customer view approach to identify customers at risk of churning and better target them. It also discusses how Hilton Worldwide uses a customer loyalty score metric and problem resolution framework to improve the customer experience and increase loyalty scores by an average of 5.1 points across its brands between 2007-2012.

1. Customer Obsessed. Strategy Focused. Results Oriented.
of the 2014 Gartner & 1to1 Media CRM Excellence Awards
Meet
the

2. customer analytics
GOLD: Hilton: By focusing on building an exceptional service culture, Hilton Worldwide empowered its employees to
go above and beyond customer expectations in an effort to drive loyalty and increase revenue. ................................ 6
customer service
GOLD: SanDisk: The technology firm’s investment in a global customer service strategy has helped capture
market share. ................................................................................................................................................................... 10
integrated marketing
GOLD: Syngenta Brasil: The agribusiness firm’s rich segmentation strategy and value-added loyalty program
helped to increase market share............................................................................................................................. 15
salesforce effectiveness
GOLD: HDFC Bank: The bank’s 360-degree view of its customers helps to offer the right products at
the right time. .......................................................................................................................................................... 18
innovation
GOLD: Portugal Telecom: By allowing customers to create and broadcast their own TV channels, Portugal
Telecom fosters engagement and brand loyalty through its innovative entertainment platform, which subscribers
can’t find anywhere else............................................................................................................................................13
©2014 1to1 media. 1to1 media is a division of Peppers & Rogers Group. All rights protected and reserved.
CONTENTS
SILVER: DirecTV PanAmericana: By devel-
oping its single-view customer profile approach,
DIRECTV PanAmericana can now pinpoint the
early signs of churn as the brand works to reen-
gage and transform detractors into promoters......7
SILVER: City of Buffalo: The City of Buffalo
uses sophisticated analysis to target areas of the
city that require services. ................................... 11
SILVER: Banco Espirito Santo: Robust
customer data is allowing the Portuguese bank
to market to individual clients with very targeted
offers. ................................................................16
SILVER: Akbank: The bank is making extensive
use of customer data to develop price-sensitive
product offers for its customers........................... 19
BRONZE: T-Mobile: By blending its social sup-
port strategy with its emerging live chat channel,
T-Mobile’s enhanced, consistent service spans
across all touchpoints to ensure quick resolutions
and customer satisfaction. .....................................9
BRONZE: MedicAlert: The emergency sup-
port network foundation embarked on an ambi-
tious project to have a 360-degree view of
customers and better focus on their needs. .....11
BRONZE: Isbank: A micro-segmentation model
ensures that targeted marketing campaigns remain
relevant across the bank’s channels, eliminating
redundant communications to build and sustain
customer loyalty. ............................................... 17
By Cynthia Clark, Elizabeth Glagowski, Thomas Hoffman, and Anna Papachristos
Your Customers
Applaud You
...and so do we.
You make superior customer experience look easy, and
TeleTech knows the significance of that achievement. Winners,
like you, use a holistic approach that starts with strategy and
uses seamless execution to deliver an exceptional experience
for every customer, across every channel, every day.
Meet
the
Design by Lorri Cosentino

3. 4 5
5
In 2004, 1to1 Media set out on a mission to reward the best thinking and results in customer
strategy. At the time, “Relationship Marketing” was fresh on the heels of the CRM revolution in
the 1990s, sweeping the business world with its promise to forever change the way enterprises
interact with their customer bases by understanding customer segments, delivering quality
service, and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
1to1 Media created the program to reward the leaders and innovators who managed to get
buy-in from their executive teams to implement a customer strategy program and then saw big
returns from their tireless efforts to get them to take hold across their companies.
During these past 10 years, the industry has seen many changes: the rise of the customer,
the emergence of social CRM, the advent of experiential loyalty programs, the connected enter-
prise and customer, customer advanced tracking features, mobile messaging, Big Data, the
Cloud, and improvements in automation. Throughout these constant changes, 1to1 Media and
Gartner have continued to award the organizations that have adapted to change, implemented
innovative customer strategy programs, and have thrived as a result.
In the 2008 awards, for instance, AT&T’s John Cushman, then eSales and service vice
president at AT&T, created a vitality plan based on a survey of employees’ goals, setting career
paths and developing a timeline to orchestrate moves without negatively impacting customer
support. At the end of the process, 56 percent of the employees in the eSales and service
organization had new roles.
In 2005, Capital One COO Tom Farrell led his team in implementing a contact center system
that made the right agent available within 12 seconds. The interview process was replaced by a
database that recognizes a caller and her history with the company. The results were dramatic.
Applications for 2005 were up 10 percent; cross-sell revenue was also up 10 percent. Aban-
doned calls dropped by 42 percent and cancellation rates dropped by 60 percent.
And in 2007 Dan Thorpe, group leader and director of analytics and senior vice president at
Wachovia, led a small group of people from marketing to build a customer equity database. They
developed several econometric models to estimate marketing’s impact on the components of
customer equity, which for Wachovia includes customer acquisition, retention, and share-of-
wallet. Wachovia saw a 19 percent rise in customer equity soon after implementing the marketing
mix model.
This year the entrants to the Gartner & 1to1 Media CRM Excellence Awards program are still
reporting creative customer strategy innovations and strong results. In the pages that follow,
you will read about advanced innovations, as in the case of Portugal Telecom, which offers
personalized television channels to its cable customers, and the City of Buffalo, which with the
help of advanced analysis, is providing targeted services to various neighborhoods to improve
quality of life throughout the city.
Gartner and 1to1 Media hope these stories will inspire customer strategy innovations
and spark ideas for change within your organizations. And don’t forget to check,
www.1to1media.com on December 1, 2014 to find out how to nominate your company to
receive a 2015 Gartner & 1to1 Media CRM Excellence Award.
—Mila D’Antonio, Editor-in-Chief, 1to1 Media
Celebrating 10 Years
of Customer Experience
Excellence
Judges
Cynthia Clark,
Former Senior Writer, 1to1 Media
Kim Collins,
Research Vice President, Gartner
Mila D’Antonio,
Editor-in-Chief, 1to1 Media
Rob Desisto,
Vice President, Distinguished
Analyst, Gartner
Penny Gillespie,
Research Director, Gartner
Gareth Herschel,
Research Director, Gartner
Tom Hoffman,
Executive Business Editor, 1to1 Media
Michael Maoz,
Vice President, Distinguished
Analyst, Gartner
Anna Papachristos,
Staff Writer, 1to1 Media
Ed Thompson,
Vice President, Distinguished
Analyst, Gartner
A panel of judges, including
Gartner analysts, and 1to1 Media
editors, review the nominations and
selects the winners in each
category of the Gartner &
1to1 Media CRM Excellence
Awards. This year’s judges include:
www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence

4. As the leading satellite television provider for Latin America and
the Caribbean, DIRECTV PanAmericana serves nine territories,
reaching more than 17 million customers with its exclusive con-
tent, excellent customer service, and continuous deployment
of the latest entertainment technologies. Yet, while information
plays an essential role in any business, the huge increase in con-
sumer data required DIRECTV to reconsider how it analyzes,
classifies, and stores this information in an effort to continue pro-
viding the best entertainment experience possible.
Ultimately, DIRECTV aims to always surprise its customers
at every point of contact by remaining vigilant of their evolving
expectations. Thus, in 2011, DIRECTV partnered with SAS to
implement an integral business analytics solution that answers
numerous questions about the organization: Which customers
are likely to churn and what factors lead to their decision? What
are the main drivers behind customer satisfaction and how do
promoters and detractors impact the bottom line? Is the brand
upholding its promises and performing as expected across all
touchpoints? Does DIRECTV recognize employees’ efforts in
relation to customer impact and do these employees understand
how their roles influence the customer experience?
Because many of these questions had yet to be answered,
DIRECTV created an analytical roadmap that served as the foun-
dation for its Pan Regional ACE (Analytical Center of Excellence).
This program was designed to both promote the use of analytics
and to support the end-to-end analytical needs of the entire com-
pany. Though DIRECTV boasts an array of experienced, qualified
employees, the company failed to capitalize on their knowledge
by providing a platform where they could share their experiences
with one another, thereby reducing mistakes and inaccuracies.
Thus, to alleviate confusion and enable sustainable decisions,
the ACE was designed to address technology, consulting, edu-
cation, and administration within the context of the business to
analyze and reveal any shortcomings.
For instance, DIRECTV was able to identify and rectify the
average employee’s lack of information and analysis capa-
bilities. By implementing the SAS tools and training key users,
employees gained easier access to user-friendly data, achieving
enterprisewide analytics support. Said tools also enabled users
to view information from different sources and countries on one
platform, thereby providing analysts with the necessary informa-
tion to make their work more time efficient.
DIRECTV’s findings also revealed the need for contact automa-
tion, which allows the company to reduce unnecessary contacts,
such as calling valued customers during collection campaigns,
and increasing necessary contact, such as reengagement calls
to those at high risk for churn. Voice of the customer text mining
enabled the provider to dive even deeper into customer opinions,
uncovering the drivers behind satisfaction and the problems that
create detractors. DIRECTV’s underlying goal to convert detrac-
tors to promoters remains at the center of its strategy, for these
extremes can have varying impacts on the bottom line.
Detractors, overall, are 110 percent more likely to churn vol-
untarily, each costing the company $204, while promoters carry
2.5 times greater value than detractors. However, since building
out its business analytics abilities, DIRECTV saw Net Promoter
Score increase by 1.1 percent and churn improve by 0.2 percent
in 2013 alone, highlighting the solution’s success and its promise
for the future.
pated needs, and consistently recognize their most loyal guests.
To assess its success, HWW’s loyalty score allows the com-
pany to ask guests three questions that provide insight into the
main predictors of customer satisfaction and retention: overall ex-
perience with the property, likelihood to recommend the property,
and likelihood to return to the property. Similar to NPS, this three-
pronged metric aligns with overall business goals to drive loyalty,
repeat business, and revenue. If guests rate each component as
9 or 10 (promoters), the property’s loyalty score will be 1, while
ratings below 9 (detractors) result in a score of 0. Each property’s
target percentage of promoters averages 60 percent. Overall, loy-
alty scores increased an average 5.1 points between 2007 and
2012 across all 10 Hilton Worldwide brands, with the Waldorf As-
toria seeing a 15.1-point boost during that time. HWW has also
calculated that promoters spend an average of 21 percent more at
HWW brands and stay 4.6 nights longer than detractors.
DirecTV PanAmericana Enhances Analytics to Drive
Conversions and NPSSILVER
7www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence
customer analytics
By focusing on building an exceptional service culture, Hilton Worldwide empowered its employees to go above and
beyond customer expectations in an effort to drive loyalty and increase revenue. —by Anna Papachristos
By developing its single-view customer profile approach, DIRECTV PanAmericana can now pinpoint the early signs of
churn as the brand works to reengage and transform detractors into promoters. —by Anna Papachristos
customer analytics
GOLD
For Hilton Worldwide (HWW), comfort and loyalty go hand-in-hand.
Each of the chain’s 10 hotel and resort brands, which include more
than 4,000 total properties throughout more than 90 countries,
work to ensure every stay satisfies its customers’ expectations.
HWW’s SALT (Satisfaction and Loyalty Tracking) customer
analytics program stands as the foundation for the company’s
customer-centric culture, empowering the organization through
actionable data that enables employees across all levels to drive
satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue. However, HWW recognized that
said insights often lacked the “so what” element necessary to im-
prove customer experience.
Ultimately, HWW aims to be the first choice among its custom-
ers. But, to ensure optimal performance, the Guest Experience
team needed to restructure SALT to be brand-oriented, with an
emphasis on understanding the key drivers of satisfaction, iden-
tifying the root causes of issues, and finding opportunities for im-
provement. With more than 50,000 users across all Hilton brands
and properties, SALT has been in use for 12 years, making the pro-
gram a critical component of the chain’s overall operations. Thus,
the Guest Experience team established one single point of contact
under its umbrella to ensure the program’s loyalty performance
metrics align with the company’s objectives and drive company-
wide change through data-validated practices that are constantly
tested and measured for impact.
The core Guest Experience team consists of five members
who manage the program on a daily basis to continually drive
actionable customer analytics to all parts of the organization,
thereby providing employees with access to the information
that’s relevant to them. The Guest Experience team also brings
the “so what” behind each factor to shareholders and leaders
as it works to enlist buy-in from the top down through a regular
communication cadence for sharing new objectives, actionable
insights, and loyalty performance scores.
HWW also implemented the new HEART problem-resolution
model: Hear the Guest; Empathize with the Guest; Apologize to the
Guest; Resolve the Issue; and Thank the Guest. This five-step pro-
gram encourages all employees to reduce and resolve customer
issues on property.
According to HWW’s previous research, guests who experience
problems during their stay score 41 points lower on property loy-
alty, 38 points lower on overall service satisfaction, and 78 points
lower on NPS than those who don’t encounter any issues. Thus,
the HEART model was created to boost each employee’s likeli-
hood of meeting or exceeding customer expectations, for those
who complete all five steps of the process, as opposed to four,
increase the chance of surpassing guest expectations three-fold.
“We found that completing all five steps of HEART led to a much
higher problem resolution rate, and a higher rate of satisfaction
and loyalty,” says Kelly McManus, director of guest experience.
“Publicizing these findings with our key brand and property part-
ners helped team members internalize the model, understand its
impact, and apply it more effectively.”
To increase guest loyalty and likelihood to return, HWW ap-
plied collected insights to establish three goals for brand leads.
First, employees were tasked with reducing the number of prob-
lems and increase the number of problem-free stays because 26
percent of all customers encounter issues. Second, employees
must work to increase the problem reporting rate, for 69 percent
of all issues remain unresolved because customers neglect to
bring these problems to light. Last, employees need to boost
the number of resolutions that exceed guest expectations be-
cause only 25 percent currently agree that the resolution met or
surpassed the desired outcome. In response, HWW enacted the
“Make It Right” program, which encourages employees to take
ownership of reported problems and do everything in their power
to satisfy the guest, proactively look for ways to meet unantici-
Hilton Worldwide Puts Loyalty at the Heart of Its
Service Strategy
Advertising Campaign
from Hilton Hotels &
Resorts Showcases
Global Guest Experiences
Advertising Campaign
BUSINESS BOOST
Hilton Worldwide’s “Loyalty Score” metric saw an
average increase of 5.1 points between 2007 and 2012
across all 10 brands, while the Waldorf Astoria received
an unprecedented 15.1-point boost.
BUSINESS BOOST
In 2013, DIRECTV PanAmericana’s new business
analytics solution saw NPS increase by 1.1 percent
and churn improve by 0.2 percent.
©2014HiltonHotels&Resorts
6 #GartnerCRM

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9
customer analytics
Loyalty and trust are often the result of an open, honest relationship that allows room for growth.
Yet, while that might sound like the recipe for success in the personal realm, these elements
weigh heavily on the longevity of brand relationships, as well.
In March 2013, T-Mobile launched its “un-carrier” initiative, which was designed to free cus-
tomers from the standard obligations of the wireless industry by eliminating yearly contracts and
early termination fees. Thus, in doing so, customer loyalty became an even more critical focus, as
the nationwide brand sought to offer world-class customer service across all touchpoints.
“By freeing our customers from contracts, we have given them the option to walk away from
our service at any time, for any reason,” says Jen Palmer, director of knowledge management and
social media service. “If we don’t provide the service our customers want, expect, and deserve,
they can leave us. So it’s our responsibility to consistently earn our customers’ loyalty by resolving
their issues and providing the best experience in our services, our offers, and across all customer
interactions, whether it’s in store, over the phone, on social media, or through online chat.”
Just as T-Mobile chose to change, the wireless carrier also recognized
a shift in consumer behavior, as more customers took to the Web to find
information and request service. However, the company’s social success
outpaced its live chat options, thereby leading to its latest analytic inno-
vation. T-Mobile chose to apply the customer service lessons learned in
social, such as communicating effectively and solving problems through
text-only conversation, directly to chat. By redirecting its internal focus
to examine and align with consumer behavior, T-Mobile planned to opti-
mize the company’s holistic online engagement program through its
data-driven, analytical approach to understanding customer interactions.
Thus, the brand moved to develop the right partnerships, processes, and
tools to execute this endeavor efficiently, ultimately bringing the chan-
nels together, aligning resources, and providing a better, more consistent
customer experience across channels.
By partnering with TouchCommerce, T-Mobile created a systematic, repeatable approach to
benchmarking the quality of customer chat experiences and monitoring real-time chat volumes,
enabling the carrier to efficiently staff agents and reallocate resources as demand dictates. The
core objective of this partnership aimed to provide enhanced customer analytics and reporting,
enabling T-Mobile to seamlessly gauge whether the right customer service agents are involved
and if representatives are properly empowered to do their job. T-Mobile also wanted to determine
why customers were contacting the company and evaluate their experience with the chat team in
an effort to understand consumer behavior and empower service agents with the insights neces-
sary to be more available and responsive to online inquiries.
T-Mobile adopted a new internal motto—listen, engage, and resolve—while the social support
team adopted its newfound responsibilities, as the brand believed it would be beneficial to blend
best practices from social to improve chat. The carrier then focused on two central metrics to
quantify its understanding of the customer experience and apply said data to measure perfor-
mance and make decisions.
While the myVOC score represents insights from customer surveys, the GRE score evaluates
courtesy, concern, and resolution based upon internal chat transcripts. Each metric provides
T-Mobile with a more holistic view of the customer experience, allowing the company to identify
opportunities for improvement. As a result of T-Mobile’s live chat advancements, myVOC scores
increased by 0.2, while GRE internal quality measurement scores jumped +0.1. In return, the
average customer wait time decreased by two minutes, average handle time decreased by 150
seconds, and resolution rates grew by 6 percent.
T-Mobile Embraces Online Customer
Care to Strengthen LoyaltyBRONZE
By blending its social support strategy with its emerging live chat channel, T-Mobile’s
enhanced, consistent service spans across all touchpoints to ensure quick resolutions
and customer satisfaction. —by Anna Papachristos
www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence
BUSINESS BOOST
By working to augment
efficiency, T-Mobile was
able to decrease the average
service response wait time
by two minutes and average
handle time by 150 seconds,
improving resolution rates
by 6 percent.
Connect
1to1 media
with

6. 11www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence
SILVER
BRONZE
customer service
Today’s customers demand flexibility and unless organizations
deliver on this need, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant. This
was a reality that MedicAlert Foundation knew it needed to address
in order to improve its customer service.
The foundation, which was established in 1956, had some chal-
lenges when it came to connecting with its customers. Karen
Lamoree, the company’s COO, explains that sepa-
rate databases meant the customer service team
didn’t have a 360-degree view of customers, making
it difficult to provide effective service.
Recognizing the need to change, in 2012
MedicAlert embarked on a two-pronged CRM initia-
tive aimed at obtaining a holistic view of customers
and increasing flexibility in its offerings. “Without a
360-degree view, we could not distinguish our customers between
varying levels of service,” Lamoree notes.
Further, the foundation wanted to collect additional medical
data about its members to better help them during an emergency,
integrate its telephone system with its CRM, collaborate with new
business partners to leverage new programs and services, and
quickly train new customer service reps.
Following the changes of the CRM initiative, MedicAlert
Foundation staff have detailed information about individual custom-
ers, allowing customer service representatives to access a complete
customer profile—including health information, which marketing
materials or communications they received, and their previous
order history—while talking to that customer.
Armed with more robust customer profiles, the
foundation has started to segment communica-
tion efforts among its customer base, for example
according to age, location, or medical condition.
Further, customer feedback identified the need to
provide a lower price point for some customers,
and the new CRM platform has allowed MedicAlert
Foundation to launch new membership services with varying lev-
els of customer support.
It is clear that a better CRM system has led to an improved cus-
tomer experience, with MedicAlert Foundation achieving a Net
Promoter Score (NPS) of 62 percent in 2013, the first year it started
tracking this metric.
MedicAlert Foundation’s CRM Revolution Improves Service
The emergency support network foundation embarked on an ambitious project to have a 360-degree view of customers and
better focus on their needs. —by Cynthia Clark
Managing a company is tough, but managing a city requires just as
great a commitment, especially when talking about a large city with
a population of about 270,000 people.
The City of Buffalo was facing serious social and economic
challenges in the past decade including mass unemployment
and increased crime and drug activity. This led to a
greater need for resources to address a multitude of
issues that went beyond just fixing a pothole but also
dealt with education, unemployment, and healthcare,
amidst severe budget constraints.
Recognizing the need to identify the areas of
greatest need, the city decided to leverage Big Data
to pinpoint the neighborhoods that required most
assistance and target services. The intention was
to improve the quality of life of city residents while making the
most of scarce resources. Oswaldo Mestre, director of Buffalo’s
Division of Citizen Services notes that the plan was to embark on
an interagency collaborative approach that would allow different
departments to work together during clean sweeps to address mul-
tiple issues in one location. “We wanted to tackle problems in a
more holistic way,” he notes.
Although these clean sweeps had been underway for several
years, there was no data-based reason for the areas targeted.
Many different agencies were collecting their own data, including
Buffalo’s 311 Call and Resolution Center, which receives more
than 300,000 verbal complaints from residents every year that are
imputed in the KANA LAGAN system. But data was siloed, and the
first step, which kicked off in 2010, was to quickly identify neighbor-
hoods requiring the services.
Working with the IT department, Mestre created maps that pull
data from different departments and give an at-a-glance view of
problem areas. Mestre notes that the maps can
quickly identify areas where poverty, crime, and 311
calls overlap indicating the need for special attention.
“We are more nimble at being able to pinpoint areas
of need and organize outreach,” he notes.
Mestre notes that new issues were also identified,
for example a particular area needed better access to
dentists that led to partnership with a dental school to
offer the needed services.
Better data is allowing the City of Buffalo to acquire new partners,
a number which grew by more than 400 percent since the organizers
can reach out to partners whose services are required. This was due
to the ability to better pinpoint challenged communities and actively
seek out organizations that could address the problems.
Further, the removal of debris, street repairs, tree pruning, and
demolition referrals also went up, indicating that better data is
increasing the impact and focusing efforts in areas that need it.
Other successes include an increase of 79 percent in the number of
squatters found and offered services in vacant homes, an increase
of 135 percent in referrals for weatherization, and an 86 percent
increase in applications for the Mayor’s literacy program.
Buffalo’s Data-Driven Clean Sweeps
The City of Buffalo uses sophisticated analysis to target areas of the city that require services. —by Cynthia Clark
Sales successes are important achievements for organizations. But
savvy business leaders understand that unless their winning sales strat-
egies are accompanied by first-class customer service, the success will
be short-lived. These leaders, like Urvashi Sheth, senior director for
global customer support at SanDisk Corporation, have made it their
mission to ensure their brands excel at customer service.
In order to make the most of the booming global flash memory based
storage market, SanDisk’s leadership decided to embark on a four-
pronged strategy between 2011 and 2013 geared toward providing
extremely high quality, quick, and efficient pre- and post-sales services.
The first step was to improve integration across previously fragmented
customer service channels to deliver a personalized and seamless expe-
rience across all channels, including the Web, social media, mobile, the
contact center, and on the field.
Cognizant that one-size-fits-all customer service is no longer suf-
ficient, next SanDisk wanted to invest in support systems that cater to
the diverse cultural needs of a global customer base. SanDisk’s busi-
ness leaders were cognizant of the need to customize processes to
suit diverse local and regional requirements. For example, in India and
China it was normal for customers to wait up to 20 days for a war-
ranty replacement since SanDisk has limited depots. The organization
addressed this problem by opening new depots that helped it trans-
form the warranty replacement process and allow customers to get
served on the same day in the same city.
The third goal was to manage rising service costs, and this included
leveraging technologies that are most popular in a particular region.
In India and China, SanDisk started providing return merchandize
authorization and warranty replacement numbers via SMS, allowing
customers to show the SMS at the counter to get their replacement.
More than 500 such texts are sent everyday and SanDisk has expanded
the use of SMS to keep customers informed of the status of a mailed
or couriered replacement. Apart from providing a good experience, this
strategy has helped SanDisk reduce customer service costs since the
cost to send an SMS is 95 percent less than a phone or chat con-
tact as it takes less time. SMS is also being used for authentication
purposes, allowing SanDisk to closely monitor its inventory and avoid
business issues, like gray market or product duplication that may lead
to brand erosion. Sheth explains that customers can text the unique
16-digit product code and be automatically informed whether the item
is authentic, allowing them to return it if there’s a problem.
Sales were not the only increase SanDisk was experiencing. The
cost of success was additional customer support requests, also due
to more complex products. While business leaders wanted to manage
costs, they also wanted to ensure they continued to deliver excellent
customer service. This required automating parts of the service opera-
tions. Sheth explains that although a knowledgebase existed, it was very
basic. “We redesigned it and focused on being media-rich,” she says.
Last year SanDisk added an assistance feature that guides customers in
the use of more complex products. Further, the knowledgebase, which
is available in 13 languages, was integrated with online forums and
communities, helping customers make informed decisions before buy-
ing products. Sheth notes that the use of both the knowledgebase and
forums has increased by about 17 percent since 2011.
The final step in the strategy revolved around taking advantage of
social media and e-commerce channels. SanDisk wanted to tap into
the growing popularity of new digital and social media channels by
extending its customer service delivery to areas where customers were
located. This includes interacting with customers on social channels,
like Facebook and Twitter, and being active on technical communities
and forums where the company responds to queries and engages in
conversations with customers. “We want to respond to customers and
let them know we’re listening to them and ready to help,” Sheth says.
Collecting data from across different channels and tracking customer
communications is allowing SanDisk to proactively help customers by
identifying and monitoring trends, for example the top drivers of calls to
the contact center and leveraging online forum conversations to identify
what customers like and dislike about products.
Overall, the whole strategy has led to an improvement in customer
satisfaction for call center services of up to 97 percent, up from 91
percent in 2011 while reducing the customer service budget by 7 per-
cent. The improvements have also helped SanDisk’s retail business unit
increase market share in the United States by 5 percent year over year.
The company has gained market share in both India and China.
Executing such a revolutionary strategy required commitment from
more than one department, and Sheth sought the support of the entire
organization by creating awareness about the project through corpo-
rate-wide events to promote the importance of a customer-centric
culture. During Retail Demo Day in 2013 the customer service and prod-
uct marketing teams demonstrated all of SanDisk’s products and their
accompanying support services. Other initiatives included a Customer
Awareness Day to educate employees on SanDisk customers and a
customer appreciation day where various customers, including one of
the SanDisk Forum gurus, were recognized for their contributions.
SanDisk’s Winning Customer Service Focus
The technology firm’s investment in a global customer service strategy has helped capture market share. —by Cynthia Clark
customer service
GOLD
10 #GartnerCRM
BUSINESS
BOOST:
Improved customer
experience and NPS
BUSINESS
BOOST
Data improves
the effectiveness
of community
outreach.
BUSINESS BOOST
A customer-centric service
strategy is leading to improved
customer satisfaction and an
increase in sales.

7. 13www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence
innovation
GOLD
Though television may traditionally be considered one-sided, tech-
nology continues to alter our perceptions of even the most common
mediums. For Portugal Telecom (PT) customers, television has be-
come the brand’s primary differentiator, as the introduction of MEO
Kanal, its personalized broadcast platform, allows clients to build
and broadcast their own TV channel, which they can easily share
with friends and family, or all MEO customers.
“Breaking through technological barriers, with support from the
MEO infrastructure of PT’s television, each client can now have his
or her own TV channel—a capability that, until now, was only ac-
cessible to large corporate producers and distributors,” says Celso
Martinho, director of technology. “The thinking behind the develop-
ment of this service was to give a TV channel to each customer and
bring them a new way of TV viewing.”
During the development and design process, the PT team fo-
cused on the consumer’s need for simplicity, thereby basing its ap-
proach upon client expectations. Thus, after countless focus groups
and several internal beta versions in collaboration with SAPO, MEO
Kanal launched in February 2012, with the intent to boost customer
acquisition, retention, and loyalty. By putting content creation in the
clients’ hands, PT sought to reinvent the television experience while
creating brand awareness. To increase word-of-mouth, PT even en-
couraged employees throughout the organization to use the service
and share their channels with family and friends by launching an in-
ternal challenge that urged the staff to record unforgettable moments
during their summer vacations. The best channels were then reward-
ed based upon the total number of views and overall creativity.
PT also created numerous demo channels, featuring high qual-
ity videos from popular sportsmen, comedians, and musicians, to
demonstrate the appeal of this innovation, along with the quality
and attractiveness of the service. These demos served as inspira-
tion for thousands of new public channels from local musicians,
entertainers, and sports teams looking to highlight their talents, as
well as local TV channels and newspapers looking to migrate to
video. Even churches and political candidates have embraced MEO
Kanal, for they recognize that having this direct channel allows
them to reach new audiences that were previously inaccessible.
However, roughly half of all MEO Kanal channels are private, as
families and friends can share videos and photos with one another.
Creators need only establish their PINs to maintain security and
ensure their content remains private. Enabling clients to share such
content quickly and easily with whomever they choose augments
the TV viewing experience, while incorporating some social flavor.
“This service has changed the way the television is used and this
is one of its major breakthroughs,” Martinho adds. “MEO Kanal is
the closest thing we have to social media on TV, but keeping the
experience of standard TV channel visualization.”
The development and project management teams continuously
work together, enabling their motivated workforce to maintain the
service’s high quality standard, while managing the brand’s road-
map, resource allocation, and customer care process. By using
daily and weekly dashboards, the management team remains up
to date on audience trends, the number of channels created and
hours of video uploaded, the number of unique viewers, churn rate,
and all other relevant KPIs. New features, such as the clients’ desire
to broadcast live events, are often the result of both customer sug-
gestion and constant analysis of service usage, for the company’s
roadmap revolves around what PT’s growing audience and chan-
nel creators value most. Big Data analysis also allows PT to deliver
customized content to customers based on the millions of interac-
tions collected, processed, and analyzed, as the company works to
align its offerings with clients’ interests.
Overall, those clients who post their content on the MEO Kanal
platform are more loyal than regular customers of the MEO IPTV
service standalone, which supports PT’s ultimate goal to boost
both loyalty and retention. PT’s MEO Kanal channel creators and
viewers have a lower churn rate (-2 percent) than MEO clients who
have never used the service, resulting in improved customer sat-
isfaction and engagement. Client behavior upholds this trend, for
the daily time spent using PT’s TV app averages two hours 25 min-
utes—almost half the time an average person spends watching TV
in Portugal. Upon MEO Kanal’s first anniversary, PT also dispersed
a customer satisfaction survey to approximate Net Promoter Score
results, culminating in an average 4.5/5. Today, MEO Kanal boasts
more than 40,000 channels and 75,000 hours of content, and con-
tinues to grow daily.
Portugal Telecom Gives Customers Content Control
By allowing customers to create and broadcast their own TV channels, Portugal Telecom fosters engagement and brand loyalty
through its innovative entertainment platform, which subscribers can’t find anywhere else. —by Anna Papachristos
BUSINESS BOOST
Since its launch in 2012, MEO Kanal has grown to more than
40,000 user-created channels, generating more than 75,000 hours
of content and occupying nearly half of the average customer’s
daily content consumption.

8. 15www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence
integrated marketing
GOLD
Innovation sometimes happens where you least expect it. Most
people equate innovation with new tools and apps at high-tech
companies or start-ups. Traditional companies in traditional
industries are not typically thought of as innovators. No one told
that to Syngenta Brasil, an agribusiness firm that provides farmers
with seeds and crop protection. The company innovated around
its customer experience and loyalty programs to reposition itself
as a trusted advisor to customers.
The agriculture industry was traditionally dominated by prod-
ucts and price. Competition in the Brazilian marketplace consisted
mostly of generic product companies competing on price and
big market players competing on products. Syngenta saw an
opportunity to move away from the price wars and product com-
moditization to differentiate itself with customer centricity and
aggregate services directly linked to its customers’ business to
the company’s product line.
The company segmented its clients into groups according to
potential use of products, customer profile, and access channel.
It identified about 35 percent of customers as having the most
potential future value. These clients could be treated in a custom-
ized way if Syngenta could create viable and suitable programs
to reach them. Those customers were divided further into two
groups—one-to-one (OTO) and Focalização (Focused).
“It is fundamental for us, without a doubt, to properly segment
customers and to customize services according to the specific
needs of each customer group,” says Aguinaldo Pavan, the direc-
tor in charge of the program. “When the actions are customized
according to the profile and needs of each customer segment,
certainly we are more effective in the relationship and create more
value to everyone involved.”
The OTO segment is made up of approximately 600 large grow-
ers with high purchase potential. Syngenta reaches these clients
through its own sales force. Another 6,000 clients are classified as
Focused, chosen because they were the highest potential growers
from each of Syngenta’s top distributors.
The new look of loyalty
There are many ways Syngenta interacts with these important
customer groups—through topical discussion forums, local
networking events, product and farming seminars, etc. But the
company was awarded the Gold Integrated Marketing award due
in large part to how it re-imagined its loyalty program.
Syngenta created loyalty programs to reach each customer
group—Aliado OTO (OTO Ally) and Programa Mais Valor (More
Value). The company partnered with Peppers & Rogers Group
Brazil to align people, processes, and systems across marketing,
sales, products, financial, legal, IT, and other Syngenta business
units to develop the program. Syngenta also employed tools from
Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Salesforce.com, and IBM.
Clients accrue points when they purchase products, which
can be redeemed for rewards. But these rewards are not the
typical branded apparel, sporting event tickets, or future pur-
chase discounts found in most point programs. Syngenta’s
loyalty rewards catapult beyond the typical vendor relationship
to offer real value-added services for customers. It offers edu-
cational and training programs, technica consulting assistance,
management and governance programs, technical, networking,
and educational trips, and specialized services. “Our biggest
surprise was the possibility to identify, through a closer rela-
tionship, that customers sometimes have needs which are
completely out of our core business activities, but that are fun-
damental to our customers’ business,” Pavan says. “So, we
needed to find a way to serve them.”
For OTO Ally members, Syngenta created face-to-face interac-
tion forums to capture and better understand the needs, business
trends, and even personal wishes of business owners, pertaining
to their role as entrepreneurs and family business owners.
In the More Value program, services are chosen based on their
wider geographical availability, since Focused customers are
scattered in a larger number of different regions. For instance,
local professors and other experts choose information sessions
and networking events. These services can be obtained for fewer
points because these clients have a lower purchase potential.
Syngenta Redefines What a Loyalty Program
Looks Like
The agribusiness firm’s rich segmentation strategy and value-added loyalty program helped to increase market
share. —by Elizabeth Glagowski
BUSINESS BOOST
Nearly 35 percent of each loyalty
program membership redeemed
loyalty service rewards, while 100
percent of clients said they would
recommend the services to friends
and redeem their points for the
same services again.

9. 17www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence
integrated marketing integrated marketing
Today’s customers are interacting with organizations over mul-
tiple channels and expect a seamless experience across each
touchpoint. However, brands are often challenged with con-
necting traditionally siloed channels to create an omnichannel
experience.
Banco Espirito Santo was facing such a challenge. Until 2010,
the Lisbon-based bank had five scattered CRM systems, making it
impossible for the 643 branches to have a clear single view of cus-
tomers’ interaction histories. As João
Manaças, the bank’s CRM manager,
explains, there was no link between the
channels, including the branches, con-
tact center, and Internet banking.
Further, increases in self-serve
options mean that less people go to
branches for their banking needs. “There were fewer opportunities
to speak with them,” Manaças explains. The bank recognized the
need to proactively reach out to customers with relevant offers.
However, the scattered systems meant that the bank was
unable to tailor campaigns to individuals. “We didn’t have
good information about previous interactions with customers,”
Manaças says. This led to poor marketing results since there
was no continuity or coordination when it came to campaigns,
making it impossible to introduce timely outreaches, for exam-
ple if a customer withdrew a large amount of money indicating
he might be changing banks.
This reality led to high inefficiency and poor performance across
the organization. For example, leads were regarded as low quality
and Manaças says it was estimated that only 50 percent of these
customers were being contacted by commercial staff since they
didn’t trust the information they were getting. Conversion rates
were as low as 3 percent.
Customer satisfaction was suffering and Banco Espirito
Santo was fourth among the top five Portuguese banks.
Recognizing the need for change, in 2009 business leaders
decided to invest in a fully integrated marketing and CRM sys-
tem that would help improve customer satisfaction and boost
conversion rates while improving brand presence and engaging
commercial staff. “We started from scratch,” Manaças says.
After talking to the IT department, the bank purchased Oracle’s
Siebel and scrapped the previous systems, except SAS, which
it kept using for analytics purposes.
Manaças notes that all conversations with a customer, across
all channels, are inputted in the new CRM system, creating a
360-degree view of individual clients and allowing the bank to
market directly to their needs. With information shared across the
organization, clients don’t have to repeat information if they speak
to a new person. Further, a client will not be proposed a product
that he’d already declined.
More robust data means that bank staff has a higher trust in
leads. “There’s more confidence in information,” Manaças notes.
As a result, outbound contacts to CRM leads have gone up from
less than half to 85 percent. Further, while in 2010 only up to 50
percent of leads were being contacted by branch staff, this went
up to almost 90 percent in 2013.
Better customer information allows the bank to make more
tailored offers. In fact, 15 percent of customers are proposed a
next-best offer and the relevance of these campaigns means that
conversion rates are in the 35 percent range.
An added bonus was that the marketing team can spend more
time on analysis and development rather than execution, which
was previously taking up 75 percent of their time. Campaigns are
also set up more efficiently and are up and running within a couple
of weeks, tested, and quickly rolled out to all branches.
The bank also introduced a real-time decision engine on its
Internet banking portal, allowing it to present the right offers to
each customer based on historical data from similar customers.
Click-through rates are three times higher than a control group.
Part of the strategy was to invest in a marketing automation
engine, which is now allowing the bank to orchestrate multi-
channel campaigns. Manaças notes that if a customer responds
to an Internet campaign, starts the buying process but doesn’t
make the purchase, he will receive a call from the branch, asking
whether he needs help completing the purchase, leading to high
conversion rates.
The new system has gone over well with customers, with an
email survey the day after a branch contact showing that 89
percent of customers rank their interaction as highly satisfac-
tory. More importantly, the bank has seen positive sales results,
and specific products marketed in a campaign have seen a suc-
cess rate from less than 3 percent in 2010 to more than 13
percent last year.
Finally, the new system has helped Banco Espirito Santo
weather the economic storm. Manaças explains that at a time
when it was impossible for banks to get outside funding, the bank
was able to fund its activity from deposits.
“All services are tightly linked to Syngenta’s client business
needs,” Pavan says. “From the start, service offerings were
designed with business value in mind, never considering personal
gifts or prizes with personal appeal.”
Education is a key facet of both programs, but they are
approached differently, depending on the customer group.
Focused clients receive access to courses in financial manage-
ment, business management, and technical advancement. OTO
clients, meanwhile, can choose courses in family business suc-
cession, MBA-level management, and their family members can
take classes too.
“We created the ‘Academia de Líderes’ (Leaders Academy), a
post-graduate management course for our customers’ sons and
daughters, to make farmers’ succession plans easier for everyone
involved,” Pavan says. “Unarguably, this has been one of the pro-
grams that was most recognized by our customers.”
Syngenta tracks the program’s success by measuring indi-
vidual share-of-customer—the total amount sold to the client,
divided by the client’s financial potential. An increase in share-
of-customer is at the same time a loyalty indicator (repeat and
increasing purchases), a satisfaction indicator (the client ‘votes’
with real purchases). and a financial indicator (sales performed
by the distributor and by Syngenta), Pavan explains.
In 2013, 33 percent of OTO loyalty members redeemed $US1.8
million worth of services. And 100 percent of clients said they
would recommend the services to friends and they would redeem
their points for the same services again. Similarly, 30 percent of
Focused members redeemed services.
Syngenta aims to reach a 35 percent share of customer for its
Focused member base. It’s well on its way, already having reached
28 percent. For OTO customers, the goal is to reach 36 percent
share of customer. At 34 percent, it has nearly reached goal.
“I am sure that we are in the right path, but we still have much
to develop,” Pavan says. “Improving the communication process
and enhancing various actions so they bring more value to cus-
tomers of different segments are the next steps.”
Pavan’s advice to others is to take customer centricity out
of sales and marketing and into the entire company. “A per-
fect internal alignment is fundamental, even before starting the
development of the relationship programs,” Pavan says. recom-
mendation is making sure that you can deliver what you have
promised to the customers.”
While Isbank may be Turkey’s first truly national bank, its lead-
ing position and achievements in the sector stem from its
customer-centric marketing strategy. But, as today’s custom-
ers become more demanding and empowered, Isbank must
constantly seek better ways to adapt in order to establish and
maintain valuable, enduring customer relationships, build effi-
ciency throughout its operational process, and create positive
customer impact.
Thus, Isbank moved to organize its operations around cus-
tomer-value based segmentation and micro-segmentation,
actively using analytical models, such as lifetime value and cus-
tomer churn, to embrace predictive analytics and data mining.
“The shift to a customer-centric organization was built upon
customer-value based segmentation...and granted us the abil-
ity to differentiate our customer service levels within each of
our channels, particularly in the call center and branches,” says
Murat Kaya Besiroglu, customer insight manager.
Much like many companies across industries, Isbank’s primary
goal focuses upon pinpointing the appropriate analytics and data
in order to make difficult decisions about targeting the right cus-
tomers with the right offers in the right channels at the right time
while staying within budget. By taking customer preferences and
contact policies into account, however, Isbank has established a
marketing optimization plan that aims to increase customer satis-
faction by limiting communications in an effort to reduce fatigue.
Isbank’s Customer-Centric Transformation program, on the
other hand, was created to introduce the 360-degree view of the
customer, including all relevant data, such as product and chan-
nel usage, customer value, risk, and demographics, and making
customer interaction histories accessible for all employees using
Isbank’s new Sales and Service Platform courtesy of SAS.
These insights then flow across branch, Internet banking,
call center, ATM, IVR, SMS, and email channels, organizing
campaigns and enhancing the customer experience through inte-
grated multichannel campaigns. For instance, when customers
respond to offers displayed on one of the various delivery chan-
nels, such as ATM or Internet, the promotional item will no longer
be displayed on other channels, for the company’s real-time
offering system enables the team to generate sales or discounts
on ATMs and Internet branch and dispense them according to
how well the given customers match certain criteria.
Overall, when Isbank’s optimization initiative went into effect
June 2013, the integrated multichannel campaign management
system conducted 601 SMS and email campaigns, 11 ATM and
Internet branch campaigns, 34 branch campaigns—141 million
customer interactions total. The hard response rates for branch
campaigns also increased by 6.6 percent compared to 2012
Q3, while the profits generated from branch campaigns and the
annual profit of products sales jumped to 23.5 percent as com-
pared to 2012 Q3.
Banco Espirito Santo Focuses on Personalized Marketing
Robust customer data is allowing the Portuguese bank to market to individual clients with very targeted offers.—by Cynthia Clark
Isbank’s Segmentation Strategy Boosts Satisfaction
A micro-segmentation model ensures that targeted marketing campaigns remain relevant across the bank’s channels,
eliminating redundant communications to build and sustain customer loyalty. —by Anna Papachristos
16 #GartnerCRM
BUSINESS BOOST: Since implementing its
optimization initiative in June 2013, Isbank has conducted 601
SMS and email campaigns, 11 ATM and Internet branch campaigns,
and 34 branch campaigns—141 million customer interactions in
all—boosting annual profits by 23.5 percent compared to Q3 2012.
BUSINESS BOOST
Breaking data silos allows
for more personalized
communications.
SILVER
BRONZE

10. 19www.1to1media.com/crmexcellence18 #GartnerCRM
Akbank is one of the largest banks in Turkey, with nearly 1,000
branches and more than $51 billion (USD) in deposits. To help
distinguish itself in the highly competitive Turkish banking market,
Akbank has endeavored on becoming more customer focused in
all aspects of its operations, including its products, services, com-
munications, and the channel experiences it offers.
Akbank’s customer-centric approach also extends to how it
prices its products. The bank is utilizing a next-generation CRM
system it deployed in 2010 along with pricing analytics and other
tools to provide more precise offers to its customers based on
a combination of factors: customer needs, price sensitivity, and
product and channel propensities.
Before the project was launched in the second quarter of 2012,
the operational and analytical capabilities of Akbank’s sales force
had matured to a level where it had obtained a single view of its
customers and their portfolios across a full range of channels.
However, the manual and unstructured approach the bank had
historically used to price products such as deposits and loans,
“was diagnosed to be a main problem in the sales force’s daily
routine,” says Attila Bayrak, senior vice president of CRM at
Akbank. That’s because previous efforts to price products was
time-consuming and didn’t focus on unique customer needs.
Akbank launched an initiative in mid 2012 to rebuild pricing pro-
cesses with the aid of pricing analytics. Customer-centric pricing
models were developed using SAS’ Enterprise Miner data mining
tool and the SAS Enterprise Guide analytics tool. Customer-centric
pricing user interfaces were designed using Java and integrated
into the workstations used by the bank’s sales people. The project
team took an iterative approach and started with deposit pricing.
Prior to this stage of the initiative, Akbank struggled with a
few challenges regarding deposit pricing at its branches. For
starters, the bank lacked a well-defined pricing methodology
to calculate and create offers for customers quickly and effec-
tively. Sales people spent too much time waiting for approval
from headquarters. Delays in interest rate offers to customers
impacted customer satisfaction.
Know thy customer
Akbank recognized that its sales force needed to be keenly aware
of its customers’ needs and expectations. Prior to these efforts,
Akbank’s sales people would negotiate with customers on prices
for its deposit products and then reach out to headquarters for final
approval. However, salespeople lacked deep insights into each
customer’s needs and expectations. The project team addressed
these challenges, in part, by empowering salespeople to negotiate
offers with customers under a more simplified set of processes
along with the use of analytics to craft more precise price offers.
The use of analytics and the new pricing processes have
enabled Akbank’s sales team to personalize and craft price offers
on time deposit accounts (aka certificate of deposit) to its custom-
ers based on a number of factors. These include price sensitivity,
the deposit amount, and the number of renewals of the time
deposit account (CDs).
“With the new analytics and processes, the granularity of
price differentiation is expanded and relatively higher interest
rates are offered to customers residing at high-competition
locations, newcomers, first-ever deposit account holders, and
loyal customers,” Bayrak says. Loyalty plays an important role
in price differentiation, he adds.
Each of Akbank’s customers (deposit and non-deposit)
receives a price sensitivity and loyalty score monthly based on
their segment, demographics, product usage, transactions, and
propensities. Key performance indicators (KPIs) established
included average cost per deposit, total deposit amount, deposit
loyalty, and customer profitability.
Akbank’s customer-centric approach to product pricing has
generated multiple business benefits. With the increase in cus-
tomer loyalty the bank has experienced along with a decrease
in the time it now takes to open a deposit, the average cost per
deposit has decreased. In addition, total deposits increased
significantly in 2013 compared to 2012. Meanwhile, customer
profitability and the cross-sell ratios of deposit customers both
rose substantially while customer satisfaction has also improved.
Says Bayrak, “Creating better customer-centric processes
and pricing strategies improves customer satisfaction and loyalty
while achieving profitable sales to the customer base.”
core systems, back-office systems, and third-party credit bureau
systems. Customers can use DAP to apply for asset and liabil-
ity products using straight through processing capabilities. This
provides customers with faster turnaround times while decreasing
sales costs for HDFC, says Kesh.
HDFC’s customer-centric sales strategies have led to impres-
sive business results. Close to 2.2 million leads (across deposit,
loans, investment, and convenience products) are generated each
month with high monthly conversion rates. In addition, the bank’s
customer-led sales efforts have enabled it to become India’s mar-
ket leader in personal loans, auto loans, and credit cards. Kesh
adds that the bank’s leadership, the strength of its employees,
governance processes, product offerings, and service orientation
also contributed greatly to the bank’s achievements.
Akbank Designs Customer-Centric Product Pricing
The bank is making use of customer data to develop price-sensitive product offers for its customers. —by Tom Hoffman
salesforce effectiveness
GOLD
Since its inception in 1994, HDFC Bank has always been a front-
runner in the Indian banking space and is currently the largest bank
in the nation by market capitalization. But in order to truly differ-
entiate itself in the market and to fend off competitors who were
aggressively marketing retail loans and other products, organiza-
tional leaders for HDFC saw an opportunity to distinguish itself over
the long term through customer experience.
To help accomplish these goals, the bank needed to develop
a 360-degree view of its customers. In its early days, the bank
invested in a data warehouse which enabled the bank to integrate
customer data from across different systems. However, there was
no single platform that offered front-line decision makers a consoli-
dated view of the customer’s entire relationship with the bank.
“We needed a system which could easily integrate customer data
and relevant information on customer behavior from all these sys-
tems and present to the front line staff in a manner which enables
a comprehensive dialogue with customers to fulfill all their banking
needs,” says Ratan Kesh, head, premier banking, current A/c, retail
trade & Fx at HDFC Bank who serves as the bank’s “change agent.”
Under an initiative called ‘One Bank’, HDFC Bank leaders not
only wanted to deploy a comprehensive CRM system, they also
sought to integrate the bank’s 20-plus legacy systems under a sin-
gle application. The system also needed to simultaneously offer the
ability to handle large volumes of data on 30 million plus customers
and 65 million product holdings and handle more than 50,000 users
securely and with varied visibility depending on the user’s role.
One of the top goals of the One Bank program was to be able
to manage the end-to-end sales process across departments for
all products on a single platform. In the past, multiple systems and
processes were used for sales fulfillment. This created challenges
for the bank’s relationship managers to view the status of customer
accounts along with where customers stood in the sales lifecycle.
Moreover, each business line had its own disparate system which
created challenges in creating a unified view of all sales and services
processes. Without a single system to access all of this informa-
tion, relationship managers were unable to obtain real-time status
of customer account and other information which led to customer
angst, says Kesh. It also made it difficult for relationship managers
and other bank employees to obtain insights about what customers
need, the full suite of products they own, or their behaviors which
could be used to shape cross-sell and upsell decisions.
Responding to customer needs
Unlike other banks, HDFC didn’t want to buy growth at the expense
of profitability. To help preserve profitability, the bank embarked on
a two-pronged strategy. First, Kesh and other bank officials sought
to raise the bar on its internal processes even though the bank’s
processes were already best-in -class.
A Lean Sigma team made up of employees with Lean and Six
Sigma skills was used to bring best practices from various parts
of the bank and integrate those into the ‘One Bank’ initiative. Also,
because the Lean Sigma team works independently from all busi-
ness functions within the bank and reports to the CIO, the team has
a neutral stance and has been able to resolve any functional conflicts
by taking a ‘One Bank’ view. Some of the areas of improvement that
the Lean Sigma team helped with included moving from multiple
systems to a single, one-stop solution for customer relationship
management along with easy access to customer information and
offers for cross-sell/upsell.
Second, Kesh and his team wanted to make use of the bank’s
CRMnext cloud-based CRM platform and other technologies to
obtain a unified view of customers by collating and using data from
a variety of sources, including mobile and web.
The CRMnext platform has enabled the bank to make personal-
ized offers to customers across the various touchpoints, including
branches, interactions with relationship managers, call centers,
ATMs, email, etc. Personalized next-best product offers are crafted
based on each customer’s product portfolio and the next prod-
uct they’re most likely to purchase based on their current lifecycle
status. The identified products are then further ranked in order of
preference and are included as part of an account planning tool
which is used by relationship managers to have meaningful engage-
ments with customers. “This has been one of the key success
factors for improving lead generation and conversion,” Kesh says.
Meanwhile, the increasing use of smartphones and tablets by
customers has also provided HDFC the opportunity to offer self-
service options. To seize on these opportunities, HDFC launched a
‘Digital Application Platform’ (DAP) as an extension of its CRMnext
platform. DAP is a web-based front-end system that’s available
on all mobile platforms, offering real-time integration to HDFC’s
HDFC: ‘One Bank’ Focused on Customer Needs
The bank’s 360-degree view of its customers helps to offer the right products at the right time. —by Tom Hoffman
BUSINESS BOOST
Close to 2.2 million leads (across deposit, loans, investment,
and convenience products) are generated each month with
high conversion rates month-to-month and rising.
BUSINESS BOOST
Total deposits increased significantly in 2013 compared to
2012. Meanwhile, customer profitability and the cross-sell
ratios of deposit customers both rose substantially.
SILVER
salesforce effectiveness

11. For more information on the 2014 program, go to
www.1to1media.com/CRMexcellence