Essential Guide to Lists and Databases: Sanlam Life Cross-Sells With a Single Customer View
Insurers continually are challenged to retain clients, improve client profitability across total product offerings and various lines of business units, lower client risk and provide better customer service.
Sanlam Life Insurance Ltd., an insurance and financial services company in Bellville, South Africa, is no different. With millions of customer records, many of which either overlapped across its divisions or were in conflict among source systems, the company quickly recognized the need to create a central repository of customer reference data that would let its advisers cultivate more effective relationships with their customers.
Sanlam set out to consolidate 15 unique data sources to acquire a more unified view of its customers, and it consolidated four disparate data sources into a single data store within three months. Not only did Sanlam want to improve cross-sell and upsell activity, its Sanlam Life division also sought to increase revenue growth and profitability. The business unit developed a worksite marketing initiative that was expected to deliver:
· Higher productivity: increase in policies per adviser.
· Higher profitability: reduce risk by working with a controlled customer base (less fraud, better retention).
· Cross-selling opportunities: increase share of wallet within the existing customer base.
· Improved occupation of target markets: secure leadership position in successful segments.
To meet the needs of its advisers and various customer-facing employees, Sanlam chose a customer data integration solution from Siperian. Revenue and productivity of its advisers increased, and the initiative let the company improve relationships with customers.
After several internal CRM initiatives fell short because of data reliability issues, Sanlam applied lessons learned and determined that the first step would be to create a consolidated view of all customer master records across multiple systems. Once deployed, this customer data integration hub delivered a consolidated view of trustworthy customer data from more than 15 disparate data sources, which since has grown to more than 30 unique sources. This hub, which internally is called the Worksite Information System at Sanlam Life, is already being leveraged in future initiatives.
Only nine months since deploying the solution, Sanlam had recouped its investment. Also, policies per adviser increased 13 percent, policy lapse time fell 30 percent and premium income rose 15 percent. Leveraging comprehensive customer data integration, Sanlam got a new look on life simply by leveraging its most valued asset: customer data.