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Two leading South African banks illustrate the benefits of customer intelligenceJohannesburg, South Africa (21 July 2008) – A recent customer intelligence (CI) business breakfast hosted by SAS Institute in Johannesburg revealed how Absa and Nedbank have used the SAS customer intelligence software to improve customer profitability and satisfaction. The breakfast, held at the Westcliff Hotel in Johannesburg last week, played host to delegates from a variety of industries including banking, auditing and telecoms. Featuring speakers Simon Marland, CIO retail banking for Nedbank, and Anthony Hlungwane, GM analytics and sector information officer for Absa. "We look to analytics to help us create the capacity to understand hidden truths about our customers," says Hlungwane. "Absa really recognises that its customers are its most valuable assets, our customer intelligence solution has helped us improve our customer satisfaction, resulting in staff motivation." In the financial sector specifically, customer analytics software strives to achieve three main goals, namely to acquire customers, to retain more customers and to increase customer profitability. However, apart from the business and ROI benefits customer analytics allows banks to better serve their customers, knowing what they want and being able to give it to them; resulting in improved customer satisfaction. "It really comes down to implementing client-centric activities based on your analytic models, and giving the customer tailored solutions," says Marland. Banks like Nedbank and Absa are often required to store around 10 years of data, which results in large amounts of customer knowledge for them to work with. However, as both speakers highlighted at the conference, implementing the software is only the beginning for them; the true value of CI tools lies in how you implement solutions based on the analytics and models that you derive from your data. "To get true value from any analytics software, the key is to follow through with models and implement changes in the frontline. This can be done by empowering your call centre agents and sales staff by giving them the information they need when dealing with your customers on a personal level," says Marland. SAS is holding a further three CI events between July and December, with the next event falling on the 25 July at the Westcliff Hotel in Johannesburg. It will feature international customer intelligence expert Phil Winters, the Managing Senior Partner at CI Agenda Inc, who will present on how to maximise the return on your marketing investment. "Our CI events are designed to let users educate users, by supplying a platform for our clients to speak on their own experiences with our solutions we are supplying an independent impression and allowing the truth to reveal itself through their own customer intelligence experiences," says Gerrit van Wyngaard, SAS Customer Intelligence.
SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at more than 44,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world
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