KBC: Lead-to-Sales Optimization

The Customer: 
KBC is an integrated bancassurance group. This is illustrated by the fact that its banking and insurance activities are not managed separately but in a fully integrated manner via business units that encompass both types of activity. KBC occupies leading positions in its home markets of Belgium (catering mainly for retail customers, small and medium-sized enterprises and private banking clientele) and Central and Eastern Europe, where it specializes in retail bancassurance and asset management activities, as well as in the provision of services to businesses. In Belgium, 18.000 staff service about 3 mio customers through 850 bank branches and 530 insurance agencies.

The project scope:    
KBC Retail asked 4C Consulting to analyze the key aspects of their lead-to-sales process and to design and pilot high impact improvement recommendations. More specifically KBC wanted to investigate:

• The overall effectiveness and efficiency of their marketing campaign process
• Alternative (smarter) ways for campaign targeting: is it possible to realize a status-quo in sales when drastically reducing target group size.
• The overall effectiveness and efficiency of their lead-to-sales process
• Alternative (smarter) ways for lead distribution and opportunity nurturing: How can we improve the process and boost our current branch performance?

KBC did not only want to have written recommendations on improvement, but also wanted proof that they would work. 4C Consulting was asked to implement the high-impact recommendations into a pilot campaign that would be tested, on a limited scale, against a traditional marketing campaign. The June 2007 “Pension” campaign was selected for the test.

The solution:   
4C Consulting applied a unique combination of lean six sigma for services and Elvis non-responder methodology. This was the first ever application of this combined methodology in a marketing and sales  environment in Belgium.

Lean six sigma for services is an internationally established and proven business improvement methodology that allows organizations to use lean speed and six sigma quality to improve services and transactions. It maximizes shareholder value by achieving the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfaction, cost, quality, process speed, and invested capital.

The Elvis non-responder methodology has been developed by 4C Consulting to provide marketers the necessary insight in the customer decision process: which specific reasons explain success and failure of a direct marketing campaign? Too often, only responders to a campaign (the part of the target group that did follow the proposed call to action) are studied. What about the majority of the target group: the non-responders? Why didn’t they do what you wanted them to?

The results of the project exceeded the expectations: the pilot campaign outperformed the industry benchmark on “appointment conversion” (i.e. the % of all targeted customers that agreed to an in-branch appointment), average target group size was reduced by 80% for equal sales, cost of sale was reduced by 1/3. 

Domains of expertise :  
This project is an excellent example of how the consolidated expertise of the 4C Consulting playing ground can make the difference in achieving break-through improvements. Multi-channel strategy and customer experience vision inspired the pilot campaign. Marketing, sales and customer service processes were integrated in a revised lead-to-sales process. Customer insights and market insights provided a solid basis for all key improvements. This was the first ever application of a unique combination of lean six sigma for services and Elvis non-responder methodology.