Electricity 4 Business

"Capscan OnDemand has enabled us to build a quality database which not only ensures the bills get to our customers at the right place, but strongly backs up our sales strategies ensuring they are more effective.”

Sales and Marketing Director at Electricity 4 Business, Graham Paul

Background

A target market of over 1.4 million UK SME business customers requires a robust sales strategy. Electricity 4 Business, the business electricity supplier to UK SMEs, supports its sales efforts with field teams, telemarketing agents, a website and a network of 140 agents and brokers.

Electricity 4 Business prides itself on offering low prices and an efficient service to its customers. The integration of Salesforce.com into its back office billing system, the EDW Energy Retail Suite, enables the company to introduce real-time straight through processing that cuts costs.

Prospect data is captured and entered by into Salesforce.com, joining 380,000 records in the database. Salesforce.com integrates directly with Electricity 4 Business’ Internet-based POS (Point of Sale) system used by field agents, the Energy Retail Suite billing system and a corporate website (with Salesforce.com sending leads from the website straight to the telemarketing team).

Speed and efficiency of capturing prospect or customer data as well as accuracy is paramount to ensuring smooth and efficient customer service.

Sales and Marketing Director at Electricity 4 Business, Graham Paul, explains, “We rely heavily on accurate business address data to assist our sales and marketing strategies. Our field agents use postcode sectors – the first three or four characters of a postcode – for grouping sales leads into ‘field territories’, making postcode accuracy critical to an efficient targeted campaign.”

Data quality is also important, as Electricity 4 Business purchases many prospect data lists from third parties. Paul adds, “Without a way of validating the data coming in, duplicates could find their way into the system, with a risk of targeting the same business twice – whether this through the telemarketing teams or direct mail – potentially damaging our image.”

The Solution

Having previously used QAS software prior to installing Salesforce.com but finding it did not integrate with the new system, Electricity 4 Business wanted a more fluid way of validating address data as it was being entered without having to access another application. It also required the ability to enhance data with commercial data as it is validated, to add value to the database and assist targeting, especially for field teams. As Capscan OnDemand for Salesforce.com is priced based upon what Electricity 4 Business actually validates, it is more cost-efficient than investing in a full enterprise application designed for more frequent use, as well as requiring licenses for each of the 120 users of Salesforce.com.

“We selected Capscan OnDemand for Salesforce.com, as it was the only solution on the market that met our stringent specifications. Most importantly, it was designed specifically for use within Salesforce.com, so we knew that installation would be simple and quick,” says Paul.

Capscan OnDemand for Salesforce.com enables Electricity 4 Business’ sales teams to enter either a postcode or partial business address and return the full correct address in real-time. In this way a complete address can be captured with the minimum number of keystrokes. By comparing records to the 27 million addresses in Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF), Capscan OnDemand ensures that Electricity 4 Business’ customer and prospect database within Salesforce.com is only populated with accurate and up-to-date business address information. Electricity 4 Business also purchased access to additional business data sets including Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, telephone and fax numbers. SIC codes are used to identify and categorise types of industry and business in the UK and Europe, remaining an essential reference tool in the analysis, targeting and formulation of marketing strategy, particularly for business-to-business organisations such as Electricity 4 Business.

New records are entered into the POS system or website and then flagged up for entry into Salesforce.com and address validation using Capscan OnDemand at the same time. Paul estimates that a total of around 5,000 new business addresses are being validated a month as they are entered by users from all channels.

The Benefits

“Capscan OnDemand has met all our requirements and more. We are confident that bills reach our customers safely, money is not being wasted on duplicate direct mail or targeting the same prospect twice and with accurate postcode data we also receive discounts on our mailing. It all contributes to being able to offer our customers a low cost product,” says Paul.

Capscan OnDemand enhances Electricity 4 Business’ records with commercial data as they are captured to add considerable value to the quality and usability of the data held in Electricity 4 Business’ database.

The ability to append and expand records with commercial data has considerably increased the effectiveness of Electricity 4 Business’ marketing and sales activity, as Paul explains, “Sometimes when we purchase lead data or a field agent captures it using the POS system, it is not as complete as we would like. We use the commercial data sets from Capscan OnDemand to enhance the prospect records in order to perform customer profiling,” says Paul. “This indicates which segments we are better off targeting than others, or which is more likely to have bad debt or higher average sales values, so we know where to focus our direct marketing activity. In addition, information such as telephone or fax numbers which weren’t originally provided at the time of entry can be added, enabling us to target prospects via different mediums.”

“Speed of data capture is also a great benefit, with only a postcode or partial address needed to retrieve a complete and valid address. In turn this naturally reduces important considerations such as the telemarketing team’s call duration, further enhancing the customer service we provide,” says Paul.

He concludes, “Capscan OnDemand has enabled us to build a quality database which not only ensures the bills get to our customers at the right place, but strongly backs up our sales strategies ensuring they are more effective. Using Capscan OnDemand we work on a basis of cost avoidance – we know that each new address we enter into Salesforce.com is complete, accurate and valid, so not only is there less risk of wasted mail costs and brand damage, but we have the ability to add value to the data we hold.”

Click here to see this case study as it appeared in Data Strategy magazine. Reproduced from Data Strategy magazine with the permission of the copyright owner, Centaur Media plc.