start by getting customers. win by growing your relationship.grameenphone, a large telecom provider...

DECEMBER 2007

Start by Getting Customers.

Win by Growing Your Relationship.

See how TransPromo is changing the game

2 Pivotal Thoughts • December 2007

Bills and statements report past purchases, Bills and statements increase future purchases.

customers’ preferences and buying behaviors, which can be used to print more personalized messages and offers right on the bill or statement. For instance, a major credit card company used transaction data that pinpointed their customers’ frequent travel destinations to communicate special offers from retailers located in those destinations. This process of converting traditional bills and statements into a channel for generating additional customer revenue is referred to as TransPromo.

Businesses, from the smallest store to the largest global corporation, generate customer bills, but most businesses just see statements as a necessary cost of doing business.

This perception is, however, changing as more companies discover the unique possibilities of this document to generate substantial new revenue. By leveraging the information they have about their customers, these businesses are developing insights into their

London


The potential to increase future customer purchases is only one benefit of TransPromo documents. These documents can also lower costs by reducing the overall volume of promotional mail sent to current customers. And since these documents announce personalized offers right on the statement (where customers are more likely to see them) companies can also reduce postage and printing expenses associated with statement inserts. Finally, as we all embrace “green” strategies, TransPromo can help by significantly reducing the volume of paper consumed.

It’s no surprise that more companies are seeing opportunity in this overlooked customer communication channel — 95% of all transaction-related communications are opened and read each month,1 which is substantially higher than any other form of communication. Plus, customers typically spend twice as much time with their paper bills and statements as they do with the electronic versions.2

“Statements are being viewed differently today. In the past the focus was on cost per piece—now it is revenue generation and customer loyalty and retention.” John Schloff VP Global Strategy, Pitney Bowes

95% of customers open their bills…

and give them

MORE attention than other mediums


Purchase information

is specific to each customer,

Now, the marketing message can be too.

Grameenphone, a large telecom provider in Bangladesh, used Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software to connect their

customer touchpoints and convert to a TransPromo statement. The company relies on a dealer network of business-women living in small, rural villages and can now provide them timely tips to help them be more successful. To learn more, visit www.pb.com/PT2A

DataIntegration

The challenge in transforming bills and statements into a relevant marketing channel is getting a steady stream of meaningful customer insights. These insights come from connecting data points, so a single view of the customer emerges. But in most organizations, customer data is dispersed across multiple databases, in different formats, and across various parts of the organization. They are buried

in application forms, e-mails, web sites, call centers and, of course, billing systems. And for a truly holistic view, internal data should be combined with external customer data, such as address based profiling.

New software solutions are addressing this issue by providing access to customer data across systems on an as-needed basis and just in time for statement printing, without creating a new data layer or interfering with underlying operations. These solutions are so versatile they can be deployed in a variety of environments, without the typical issues of interfacing with legacy systems. Leading banks are using this software to incorporate tailored promotions into the hundreds of thousands of customer documents they send out every day.


These financial institutions have opened up a new marketing channel, one with regular access to their customer base.

Transaction data may be black and white,

But adding color will get customers

to buy even more.

While TransPromo is changing how companies communicate with their customers, the use of color is improving the TransPromoexperience. Relevant messages can be brought to life in color, increasing their effectiveness by as much as 80%.3

Digital color presses have not only dramatically cut the cost of producing full color documents, but when combined with the latest document creation software, they also allow companies to modify the content of these documents on the fly, reducing the lead time needed to develop the right customer message. As a result, analysts expect 33% of all transactional documents to be printed in color within two years.4

ProductionIntelligence

One of the largest producers of statements in the U.S., capable of creating over five million documents a day, chose Pitney Bowes Emtex Software to manage the production of their full-color, graphic-rich, variable- data documents. It gives them 100%

proof of accuracy and the ability to enhance and modify documents up to the last minute. To learn more, visit www.pb.com/PT2B


With better access to transaction information, demographic and behavioral data are being combined for deeper insights. Frequency of purchase, use of on-line and off-line, full versus sale price purchases, and mode of payment, among others, help segment customers into behavioral clusters. These groupings allow companies to assess the potential lifetime value of different customers and develop appropriate messages and promotions. This segmentation technique is ideal for TransPromo communications since this channel bridges past and future customer purchase activity.

Location data can be added to the mix to assess how purchase activity is impacted by where customers live. More data leads to better segmentation, which in turn enhances the effectiveness of TransPromo communications.

Working with Pitney Bowes Marketing Services, a large retailer realized it had overlooked the value of a small but highly profitable segment of its customer base that always bought at full price. This group received less attention than more frequent purchasers, who tended

to buy more sale items. But now the group could be targeted for special concierge-level treatment. To learn more, visit www.pb.com/PT2C

Customer Value

Segment customers by demographics,

Segment customers by behavior.

Advances in data integration, production technology and customer segmentation have come together to revolutionize the bill and statement channel. As companies leverage these advances, they will increasingly realize the potential of this channel to grow their customer relationships.

©2007 Pitney Bowes. Engineering the flow of communication, Pitney Bowes, and the Pitney Bowes logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pitney Bowes Inc. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Printed by Pitney Bowes Management Services in the United States of America.

Go to: www.pb.com/PT2 or contact: [email protected]

Coming in the next issue of Pivotal Thoughts: The need for innovation has never been greater, but the traditional processes of innovation have not lived up to the challenge. Customer-centered practices are turning these processes inside-out, leading to more productive and predictable flows of innovation.

Footnotes1 Info Trends, The TransPromo Revolution (p. 3)2 Pitney Bowes 2004 Group 1 Research (p. 3) 3 Eastman Kodak, Kodak’s Roadmap to Color (p. 5)4 Info Trends, The TransPromo Revolution (p. 5)

For more information

Pitney Bowes Inc.1 Elmcroft RoadStamford, CT 06926-0700www.pb.com

start by getting customers. win by growing your relationship.grameenphone, a large telecom provider...

Documents