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Summary

The project team developed a new architectural framework of lead management using web services and the enterprise platform Windows XP. This inclusive system provides a sales, process and customer-focused tool set that is fully automated. In addition, the open development environment gives the client the ability to share or reuse new web services as they are developed. Robust functionality was configured into the solution to aid in workflow management, knowledge management and scripting. The solution featured a fully integrated, newly created campaign tool, with the ability to pre-load marketing leads and return the disposition of a lead.

By the client’s own measurements, the new system:

• Eliminated 14 databases and provided superior access control of data
• Put the generation of reports back into the hands of the business
• Enabled lead generation and tracking on each step of the call
• Gave the business unit a first time look at marketing campaign effectiveness
• Aligned efforts with corporate standards in architecture
• Accomplished data entry near-term reduction goal
• Dramatically improved morale within the call center and Telesales groups of all the affected business units

As a result of this implementation, SEH/TS successfully delivered to the client the customized contact management system they desired for use in tracking and cross-selling clients. SEH/TS integrated and aligned the processes of the five business units for the first time in their history, and successfully achieved all of the project’s near-term goals. Longer-term benefits are scheduled to be analyzed in 2005 and 2006, once enough measurable data can be collected.

 

 

 

 

CRM Software Implementation

The Problem

One of the top five financial services firms in the country had a significant problem affecting revenue generation and employee productivity. As a result of relying on an old, outdated contact management system, they were unable to:

• Share data with other parts of the company for full account profiling
• View a comprehensive picture of the clients, resulting in lost cross-sale opportunities
• Make upgrades to a brittle system that was no longer supported by the vendor
• Adhere to company IT policies and standards
• Free time of IT application support staff to make enhancements as business needs changed
• Service the increasing volume of calls and volume of home loans that a massive financial services firm deals with on a daily basis

Continued use of this contact management system was causing a projected loss of millions of dollars of revenue, as well as a steady increase in data entry and support costs. Something had to be done.

Temporary “fixes” were tried, but the result was always the same—an outdated, patched system that could not talk to any other system. Other possibilities were considered, including evaluating whether the contact management system could be used as the system of record for other business units, reducing some of the integration concerns. This possibility failed to overcome a number of business and technical hurdles, including:

• The amount of work required to customize the outdated, unsupported system was cost-prohibitive
• Data sharing and integration among the various business units (enterprise-wide) had not been attempted yet and using the existing system would make it even more difficult, if not impossible, to implement.
• The vendor could not offer any support for a customized, outdated software
• The contact management system could not operate on the company standard platform, Windows XP

The idea of implementing an “off-the-shelf” software solution without any changes was also considered but faced the following hurdles:

• Major differences in requirements among the call center, operations and service areas made this idea impossible to implement
• No company standard had been set for data integration and sharing yet

On top of everything else, the client faced different regulatory compliance requirements and varying levels of complexity among the mortgage, call center and banking business units.

The Approach

The client began by documenting the various business units’ needs. The goal was to select an “off-the-shelf” software that could be configured or customized to fit the differing needs of each business unit and still work within the enterprise platform. In order to find a software capable of becoming the system of record in the future, requirements were gathered and documented over an 18+ month period. Using these results, the client chose the software solution.

SEH Technology Solutions (SEH/TS) was chosen to implement the software solution. In addition, SEH/TS was charged to ensure the solution had the ability to accommodate future needs, such as expanding to other business units, and meeting new regulatory compliance issues. SEH/TS experts began by reviewing and quantifying the requirements, at a high level, against the capabilities of the selected software. They discovered that while the selected software was a step in the right direction, it did not meet the requirements the client had documented earlier. It was possible that without customization, the new software might not meet all the demands of the client any more than the old contact management system had.

Time was a factor. SEH/TS configured the software and initiated software acceptance testing using a BETA version of the software. While this testing was in-process, SEH/TS investigated the flexibility of the software for configuration and customization to meet the broad needs of the client.

Additional analysis and requirements gathering was done to measure the capabilities of the software and its configuration possibilities. Based on this effort, the following aspects were determined:

• The new solution would meet the corporate standard of Windows XP
• The solution could be configured to interconnect with the systems and solutions of four other business units and had the ability to expand to future needs
• The solution was able to seamlessly share data between the fourteen groups in the first business unit being rolled out.
• Extensive access controls could be put in place by the various business groups who previously used individual, separate databases to control access by users.
• Data was able to be maintained in a form that met regulatory requirements for all five business units and their numerous business groups
• The solution could handle the routing of calls based on agent skill set and availability and the type of transactions and leads different to each business group.
• The solution could expand to include telephony, website integration and a marketing campaign interface across multiple business units for the company and maintain enterprise standards
• The solution and pending configuration could meet the business needs for comprehensive reporting and lead tracking

By working and communicating closely with the client, SEH/TS adopted an approach that integrated the Business and Technical teams into a single cohesive, collaborative working unit—the Implementation Team. Using a comprehensive project plan that detailed both business and technical tasks and deadlines managed by the Implementation Manager from SEH/TS, the technical team communicated regularly with the business team. This integrated team approach allowed both the business and technical teams to maintain project oversight, maintaining the ability to evaluate and make decisions and course changes together, on short notice, with minimal impact to the overall project. This integrated communication proved to be an extremely valuable
aspect of the project for the client.

The project was scheduled to be completed and implemented for all five business units by the end of 2004. In addition to implementation, SEH/TS developed a plan for measuring the effectiveness of the solution, including:

• Tracking data entry efficiencies—how much faster is the data entered
• Validating data integrity—how much better is the data once entered
• Tracking levels of improvement in compliance and application quality

For more information or to talk with a technology expert about your own unique needs, contact Ella Knoop via email or call 612.758.6730.

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