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Financial Services Industry Dominates Winners List in Peppers and Rogers Group 2nd Annual Awards Program

Twelve Companies Earn Top Honors as One-to-One Innovators

Earning their rank in the global CRM spotlight for their vision, focused approach and success in implementing customer-based business strategies, 12 outstanding companies have been recognized by strategy consulting firm, Peppers and Rogers Group, as the 2002 recipients of the 1to1® Innovator Awards. Sponsored exclusively by SAS, a leader in business intelligence, the awards program showcases leading companies that have implemented effective and creative customer-focused strategies with the goal of reaping clear and quantifiable business results.

Nominated companies cut across all vertical and geographical sectors, both consumer and B2B, and included both online and offline initiatives. Winning companies, however, overwhelmingly represented the financial sector, with 58% of the winning entries coming from that industry.

Selected by a judging team of business leaders, academics and CRM luminaries (see below) that included Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., the winning companies, in alphabetical order, are: The Dreyfus Corp., The Ford Motor Co. (Insurance Division); Hooked On Phonics; ING; Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive’s Mywashingtonpost.com; National Computer Systems; The PNC Financial Services Group; Scotiabank; Standard Chartered Bank; Tele2;  Telesp Celular and Visa International Asia-Pacific..
 
“CRM remains one of the most mis-understood business practices today,” said Don Peppers, partner, Peppers and Rogers Group.  “Advanced technologies have created a new dimension of competition and a promise of aligning a company’s operations around individual customer needs. Yet, many companies are frequently disappointed that these investments don’t pay off.  It is the companies that distinguish CRM as a successful integration of strategy, technology, training and culture change that will be rewarded with loyal, satisfied customers. Each year, this award recognizes a new and higher standard of excellence in CRM business initiatives and honors companies that have set in motion the most innovative and dynamic customer-driven solutions.”

“Every single company nominated for this year’s award has recognized and acted on the potential benefits of changing the way the entire organization thinks about customer relationships,” added Martha Rogers, Ph.D., partner, Peppers and Rogers Group.  “But, financial services firms are a bit ahead of the pack. They have extremely large customer bases and a history of direct and database marketing strategies that go back two decades. Not only have they used new technology to improve and streamline their business practices, they realize maximizing customer value is a logical and profitable next step.”


Meet The 2002 1to1 Innovators
·       Using the right blend of strategy and technology, The Dreyfus Corp.  http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_dreyfus.html (a wholly owned subsidiary of Mellon Financial Corp.) stabilized and improved the quality of its core base of customers in a highly volatile market, improved client retention and acquisition and developed the capability to predict customer attrition before it happened, enabling the company to impact the lifetime value of their most valuable customers.

·       Desiring to re-define the insurance value chain, improve close rates and allow consumers to evaluate and acquire the insurance products they want, when they want them, The Ford Motor Co. (Insurance Division), http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_ford.html, raised the bar in the Web-based insurance market by initiating a call center-wide effort to provide agents with the education, training, knowledge, tools and access to pertinent data necessary to cultivate and deliver live, real-time customer sales and service.


·       Hooked On Phonics, http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_hookedonphonics.html Web page was boring, cumbersome and non- personal, a far cry from the company’s well-known radio and TV ads. By implementing a new design and an initiative that tracked consumer preferences, shopping habits, and created a personalized interactive visitor experience, HOP recognized a 38% increase in revenues, 229% jump in member sign-up and 34% reduction in home page abandonment.

·       Facing major loyalty challenges with their agents, ING (Malaysia), http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_ing.html implemented a new business proposition and strategy designed to build trusted relationships with the customer and, at the same time, provide value to its channel partners and policyholders.

·       An enterprise-wide personalization initiative transformed a traditional online news source Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive’s Mywashingtonpost.com, (Arlington, VA)  http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_mywashpost.html to a savvy top-ten news and information site attracting major advertisers as well as more than 5 million unique visitors per month worldwide and 40% of the adults in the Washington DC area.

·       In a dynamic, enterprise-wide initiative to gain competitive advantage in its overseas expansion National Computer Systems (Singapore) http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_natcompsys.html  transformed itself from a service-centric to a customer-centric organization.

·       With a focus on customer needs, The PNC Financial Services Group,Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA) http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_pncfin.html saw a double-digit improvement in customer retention rates directly related to employee-customer communication by the end of 2001 and extending through the first three quarters of 2002.

·       A sales and culture shift involving employee recognition and incentives enabled Scotiabank (Canada), http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_scotiabank.html to support and reward superior customer service throughout all its branches and call centers.  

·       To achieve its goal to be the right partner for its customers and actively provide solutions for their needs, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_stdcharterbank.html is improving the Customer Experience through an incremental, yet integrated sales and service change process. This involves both the call center and front-line resources, enabling greater responsiveness to rising customer expectations.

·       With a focus on small business customers, Tele2 (Oslo, Norway), http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_tele2.html  implemented a three-pronged personalization and technology solution that reduced customer churn, improved customer care, and streamlined its sales and operational processes.

·       Starting with a high level, enterprise – wide strategic plan, Telesp Celular (Sao Paulo, Brazil) http://www.1to1.com/redirect/ia_telespcell.html - the leading cell phone operator in Brazil, owned by Portugal Telecom Group - engaged in a multi-year effort to change their focus from products to customers. Investments in technology and organizational change contributed to reduced subscriber acquisition costs, higher profitability of their overall customer base and stronger retention of their Most Valuable Customers.


The 2002 1to1 Innovators Award winners and their stories will be featured in the November/December issue of 1to1 Magazine and the December 9th issue of INSIDE 1to1, as well as on Peppers and Rogers Group’s Web site, www.1to1.com. Four of the winning companies were also winners in the Peppers and Rogers Group Asia 1to1 Innovator Awards announced this past July.

“We are pleased to once again sponsor the Peppers and Rogers Group’s 1to1 Innovator Awards, recognizing CRM pioneers," said Randy Betancourt, SAS’ director of global CRM. "A long-term commitment to adopting customer-centric strategies is at the heart of CRM. SAS has made an ongoing commitment to help organizations turn raw customer data into intelligence for stronger, more profitable customer relationships. We believe the lasting effect of this award will be to inspire more companies in the financial services and other industries to pursue innovative approaches to CRM."

In addition to Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., the judging committee included: Seth Godin, critically acclaimed author of Permission Marketing and The Ideavirus and founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, which was acquired in 1998 by Yahoo; B. Joseph Pine II, author, speaker, management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and co- founder of Strategic Horizons, LLP, a “thinking studio” dedicated to helping businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their business relationships; Julie Edell, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Fuqua School of Business at Duke University; John Deighton, Ph.D., Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School; David Goudge, Senior VP of Marketing, Boise Office Solutions; and 1to1 Magazine Executive Editor, Lynn E. Russo.

 
Editorial Contact:
Kathryn Kavicky
Peppers and Rogers Group
203-642-5307
kkavicky@1to1.com
 
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