ScotiaMcLeod, (www.scotiabank.com) is the investment arm of Scotiabank, one of Canada's largest financial organizations with over $280 billion in assets. ScotiaMcLeod's financial advisors specialize in helping individuals and small business customers plan financial solutions for trusts, estate planning, borrowing and banking services. ScotiaMcLeod has more than 800 financial advisors working in 84 branches across the country. According to Chris Carter, Associate Director and Branch Manager for ScotiaMcLeod's North Vancouver office, the financial services sector is a people-driven business where customer service is critical to success. Chris wanted the ability to turn every customer interaction into an opportunity to provide services to his clients. He wanted to know if technology - specifically a customer relationship management (CRM) system - could help him promote a professional image and customer-oriented business philosophy at his branch as a way of putting clients at ease and attracting prospective clients who are searching for financial advice.
Problem / Challenge
Chris knew he needed to be proactive in order to keep existing clients happy and to build his base of new customers. Since his team of financial advisers contacts clients often and tracks accounts daily, he also knew that he would need a more effective CRM solution. "A client may be worth up to $50,000 for professional consulting and ongoing management fees," says Chris. "If customers are not tracked and followed up immediately we could easily lose them to another financial institution."
Prior to implementing a complete CRM strategy, Chris and his team developed a rudimentary in-house system using Microsoft Access. Each call the team received was looked up and then manually recorded into their database. "Our team was becoming frustrated with this technology as it was limiting them from reaching out to our customers in a more proactive way and giving them the type of quality attention for which ScotiaMcLeod is known," says Chris. "It was becoming increasingly difficult to stream line our sales operations and we knew something better was out there. We asked around and learned about Maximizer, a contact manager that we purchased to help us keep track of records of in our databases, create customer profiles, and create 'hot-list' tasks in our calendars as a reminder to follow up with each customer. It worked so well that I soon started thinking about the other processes I could automate to deliver more service to my customers."
As Chris and his team started learning more about their customer's preferences and behaviors, he realized he needed a comprehensive strategy to retain key customers. In order to build and maintain solid relationships with his clients, provide his team with the appropriate tools to help them achieve their goals, and provide exceptional customer service, Chris started searching for a complete CRM system that would help him build and enhance the activities he started with his contact manager. In addition, Chris wanted a CRM system that would help him run more sophisticated marketing programs as well as reporting tools to evaluate their progress.
Problem / Challenge
Chris knew he needed to be proactive in order to keep existing clients happy and to build his base of new customers. Since his team of financial advisers contacts clients often and tracks accounts daily, he also knew that he would need a more effective CRM solution. "A client may be worth up to $50,000 for professional consulting and ongoing management fees," says Chris. "If customers are not tracked and followed up immediately we could easily lose them to another financial institution."
Prior to implementing a complete CRM strategy, Chris and his team developed a rudimentary in-house system using Microsoft Access. Each call the team received was looked up and then manually recorded into their database. "Our team was becoming frustrated with this technology as it was limiting them from reaching out to our customers in a more proactive way and giving them the type of quality attention for which ScotiaMcLeod is known," says Chris. "It was becoming increasingly difficult to stream line our sales operations and we knew something better was out there. We asked around and learned about Maximizer, a contact manager that we purchased to help us keep track of records of in our databases, create customer profiles, and create 'hot-list' tasks in our calendars as a reminder to follow up with each customer. It worked so well that I soon started thinking about the other processes I could automate to deliver more service to my customers."
As Chris and his team started learning more about their customer's preferences and behaviors, he realized he needed a comprehensive strategy to retain key customers. In order to build and maintain solid relationships with his clients, provide his team with the appropriate tools to help them achieve their goals, and provide exceptional customer service, Chris started searching for a complete CRM system that would help him build and enhance the activities he started with his contact manager. In addition, Chris wanted a CRM system that would help him run more sophisticated marketing programs as well as reporting tools to evaluate their progress.
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