11 Sep 2012: Conversational marketing technology provider Neolane today announced that Allianz Retail, a division of Allianz Insurance (UK), has implemented the Neolane Conversational Marketing platform. Allianz is using the software to build and sustain one-to-one lifetime dialogues with millions of its customers and prospects, seeking to improve customer experience, increase revenue and win new marketing efficiencies.

Supported by Neolane consulting services and integration partner Celerity, Allianz UK has implemented Neolane in its Retail Division, which as part of its range of products, provides pet insurance protection to over one million UK households. The insurer is using Neolane to drive personalised, relevant and consistent cross-channel marketing conversations by email, direct mail, web and via its contact centres. To define these conversations, Allianz uses Neolane to access customer data held in a centralised Single Customer View that was designed and built by Celerity. Extensive transactional and behavioural interaction is stored there, allowing Allianz to analyse the information and trigger the appropriate next-best communication or marketing action.

“Through our Big Data driven marketing strategy, we’re moving from broad policy-lifestyle driven campaigns towards tightly targeted, one-to-one relevant and engaging communications,” said James Horsburgh, marketing database manager at Allianz. “Our primary objectives are to improve customer experience, stimulate interaction and win more sales but we will also increase efficiencies from reduced direct mail and call costs.”

He continued: “We selected the Neolane Conversational Marketing platform for its proven and cross-channel functionality, and scalable capabilities for generating and managing very large numbers of individual dialogues. We were also impressed by its innovative workflow engine offering a simple to use graphical user interface to define campaign actions.”

Allianz is also considering implementing Neolane across its other UK retail business areas, including musical instrument, home and car insurance.

“In order to engage customers and drive greater results, marketers must deliver more timely, relevant, and interactive messages on a large and consistent scale across traditional and emerging channels,” said Martin Smith, head of marketing, Neolane UK. “Neolane provides brands with the performance they need to take advantage of every contact opportunity to propose the right offer to each individual at the right time, driving increased revenues and customer satisfaction.”

Celerity, part of the Howard Hunt Group, helped Allianz to define its business needs and solution requirement as well as to build the supporting database and implement Neolane. It continues to provide ongoing training and specialist support services to Allianz around Neolane and other CRM activities.