Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools for their clients around the world. Experian helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. It also helps people to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft. In 2014, Experian was named by Forbes magazine as one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies.”
The Challenges
A need to enhance the existing CRM system
Experian has been using the same CRM system to capture and store contact information for candidate and tenancy applications for many years. An integral element of this process is the validation of a number of key pieces of information which form the core basis of the application. Although the system had been the foundation of its customer contact operations, it needed to be able to reach its increasingly mobile audience at a time most convenient for them. This meant enhancing the system’s functionality by adding a robust SMS solution that seamlessly integrated with the existing system.
Collecting accurate customer data
Experian is a market leader in business information and data analysis which means it relies on having the most accurate contact information recorded for all key contacts associated with an application. Whilst this information has been captured historically, the mobile contact channels were manually validated leaving room for human error and offering an extremely time-consuming process. Experian began looking for a solution that effortlessly automated this costly process.
The Solution.
Improved call centre efficiency
From a business perspective, the SMS solution has improved call centre efficiency, saving time and money on outbound phone calls that didn’t get answered. For those candidates that responded to the SMS, the overall application turnaround time was on average 2.5 days quicker. Which in turn ensures that internal contact SLA’s are met. This level of improved efficiency has had a dramatic impact on the team’s productivity, which is achieving more and to a much higher standard.
Automation improves data quality
Thanks to the Engage Hub messaging solution, contact agents are now able to take advantage of the built-in prompts; enabling them to follow up on missing customer information automatically. This has vastly improved the quality of the candidate data they can now obtain. It’s much more of an effective process that the traditional, more manual, methods of chasing outstanding information, largely due to the unpreceded open rates SMS messaging generates when compared to other marketing channels such as email.
