By Loren McDonald, Vice President of Industry Relations
Email can do more for your company's bottom line than drive sales. Email can also help you reach department or corporate goals and have those achievements measured in terms your executives will understand and appreciate.For Silverpop client Santander Consumer USA, email is a key driver for lower costs, higher revenue and improved data quality. Marketing Director Will Stacy IV estimates that sending one email costs one-sixtieth of the expense incurred by one call-center telephone call.
Which Metrics Matter?
Email's great advantage over other communication channels is that nearly everything about it can be measured by two sets of metrics:
Process metrics are diagnostic tools tracked over time to determine how individual elements of your campaigns are contributing to overall success. Examples: opens, delivery rate, click-throughs, unsubscribes and bounces.
Output metrics measure your email program's performance against your company's strategic marketing and business goals. Examples: revenue, cost savings, share of wallet, customer retention and leads generated.
Although both sets of metrics are important, output metrics will make the most waves in the executive office pool.
How Email + SMS Help Santander Boost Payments and Cut Costs
Santander Consumer USA, with more than 500,000 customers through its Santander, Drive and RoadLoans brands, is one of the fastest-growing automotive lenders in the United States. Its loan-servicing department employs about 800 people and generates 350,000 outbound calls daily.
The department has two major goals: to collect loan payments and have positive interactions with its customers. Santander also set specific objectives to improve the customer experience, reduce call-center expenses and increase on-time loan payments.
The marketing department designed a combination of email and SMS contacts and reminders using Silverpop Engage and Silverpop Engage Transact for payment reminders and confirmations, customer-service contacts, and welcome and program emails.
Santander Consumer USA's "Metrics That Matter"
Using output metrics, Santander could identify how its email and SMS strategies were helping to meet department and company goals:
Objective #1: Improve customer data quality, including correct telephone numbers and postal addresses.
Result: Customers with invalid telephone numbers or postal addresses were sent emails asking them to log into their online accounts to update the information.
Since January 2008, the telephone-update emails have generated a 35 percent increase in the amount of accurate phone numbers, while the postal-address correction emails contributed to a 75 percent decrease in the number of customers with incorrect or outdated postal addresses.
Objective #2: Increase on-time loan payments.
Result: Santander launched email and SMS reminders to reduce late payments originating from the email reminder. Of those customers who subscribe to SMS reminders, 3 percent pay over the phone using the telephone number provided in the text message.
Objective #3: Increase customer-service contacts via live online chat instead of through call centers.
Result: Email messages describing the benefits of online account servicing provide instructions for using online chat to contact a service agent. Since January 2008, those email reminders, as well as a growing customer base, helped to spur a 60 percent increase in online chat volume.
Objective #4: Reduce opt-outs from email notifications.
Result: Santander introduced a "Communications Preferences" page that gives customers the ability to choose which messages they want to receive via email. To date, more than 10,700 customers have used the page to modify their email preferences. This reduces opt-out from all email and, most likely, exposure to spam complaints.
More Resources Online:
- Webinar recording: "Email Marketing Metrics That Matter"
Will Stacy and I talk about using email to deliver substantial company gains and how to correctly measure the results. - Silverpop white paper: "Beyond Opens & Clicks: 5 Email Metrics to Boost Results and Prove Your Worth"
Marketers are being called upon to do a better job of engaging recipients, learning what messages they actually look forward to receiving. A key step in this process is to take measure of your customers and prospects. - Santander Consumer USA Case Study
Details on how Santander Consumer USA uses Silverpop Engage, Silverpop Engage Transact and Silverpop Integration Services.
