The situation
ClearView is a financial services company with a focus on insurance and wealth management. With the intent of supporting their customers’ long-term financial security, they are in regular communication with thousands of people in relation to a range of products and services. Every day, as many as 500 items of correspondence are distributed, many of which are highly personalised in nature.
The challenge
Until 2014, all of ClearView’s communications were done by hand: an administrator laboriously copied and pasted text into a word processor before printing, manually folding and placing the letters in envelopes.
This manual process consumed significant employee hours and in a highly regulated industry, created significant risk of human error. ClearView recognised the benefit that would come if they were to automate letter templates, data merging and distribution, and manage them all from one place.
But batch letters were only the beginning. They also wanted to be able to build on this initial digital implementation and eventually bring all communication processes on to one customer communications management (CCM) platform.
The process
After a thorough RFP process, ClearView chose CoTé’s CCM platform virsaic™, an end-to-end communications-as-a-service solution designed to manage all customer interactions across multiple channels and devices. For ClearView, it was the ideal way to bring their manual communications into the automation age.
Clearview Quality Assurance Manager, Deborah Vaga, explains how CoTé guided them through the process of deciding where to begin and also developed a proof of concept:
“CoTé worked with our IT and Operations teams to replicate complex letters in virsaic™. New communication processes were put in place to streamline outgoing letters while maintaining the high standards we required. CoTé helped us with the messages that we needed to deliver, with hard deadlines, for thousands of customers in one hit.”
“Within a few months,” Deborah says, “we went from none to having the majority of our batch letters automated. It was an amazing turnaround.”
The results
virsaic™ has transformed the way ClearView communicates. Deborah continued, “We used to spend 3 to 5 minutes per letter, and we would dispatch 400 to 500 letters per day. Automation has saved as much as 40 hours of manual labour daily, allowing those employees to upskill and contribute to the business in more meaningful ways.”
Deborah states the benefits have extended even further. “It’s not just a reduction in time,” she says, “but also an increase in brand consistency in our messaging and across the look and feel of the letters that we’re sending out.”
With 100% of outgoing communications now on one platform, ClearView is currently in the process of implementing other virsaic™ capabilities, starting with smart forms. These will allow ClearView to dynamically build correspondence with plenty of flexibility. “The business was very impressed with these particular smart forms, and they can definitely see the benefit once they’re employed into production.” ClearView are also exploring SMS functionality, to enable push notifications to be sent to customers making their service more responsive.
Proven success in process enhancements, efficiencies and quality deliverables created company-wide faith in virsaic™ functionality. “Now, anything that’s virsaic™ or CoTé-related, everyone thinks, fantastic, let’s do it.”
Deborah believes that having virsaic™ in place has been instrumental in allowing ClearView to grow their digital systems quickly—not only because of the platform’s ease of use, but because CoTé themselves have delivered proven value.
“They produce great work. But it’s not just the work, it’s also the people who work within that business. They’re all lovely, they’re all approachable, they’re all knowledgeable. Nothing is ever too hard.”
Working with CoTé is more like having a mentor than a business relationship, according to Deborah. Without a clear strategy for the future back in 2014, ClearView were able to rely on CoTé for guidance, assistance and true partnership.
“CoTé’s experience and knowledge has greatly helped us to understand exactly what was possible, and how to implement it within our business operations.”
Final thoughts
Ultimately the goal is to incorporate all outbound and inbound customer communications into one platform. With so many capabilities and configurations available, Deborah is confident CoTé can take them there:
“The CoTé team has helped us through our journey and taught us exactly what could help our business. Things that we didn’t even think of. They’re an awesome partner.”