Evolution of Business Model through Salesforce CRM

Slade Sherman, Chief Experience Officer, iSelect

Slade Sherman, Chief Experience Officer, iSelect

At iSelect, our vision is to help make Australians’ lives easier by saving them time, effort and money. When it comes to comparison, nobody does it better in Australia. We have a strong, recognisable brand, intimate knowledge of the many industries we serve and 19 years’ worth of data on millions of Australian customers.

When I joined iSelect in early 2018, I couldn’t understand why if I had already provided my details when doing a health comparison, I then had to enter my details again if I wanted to compare energy or car insurance. I soon discovered that iSelect had 9 separate tech platforms, one for each vertical, and more than 250+ applications running our environment. In the past we grew fast, added on tech without a great deal of planning and ended up with a fragmented tech stack that was built around optimizing single sale transitions.

This meant that we treated all customers like it was the first time they had visited our website, despite the majority of Australians having at least visited our site before, if not actually complete a comparison or purchased a product through us.

I joined iSelect because I saw so much potential in the company but understood that realising that potential would depend on making the right investments in our technological capability. Critically, these investments would need to be around shifting the focus to a customer centric model and a single view of the customer across each of the verticals we operate.

To this end there are a number of initiatives we have been focused on. Firstly, the implementation of Salesforce CRM has given us a stronger visibility of a customer across all verticals and we are building a range of services to improve cross-sell, up-sell and customer experience across our channels.

Complementing this, in our call centre, we’ve rolled out our new engagement platform Genesys Pure Connect which also seamlessly integrates with Salesforce and our website to improve consultant efficiency.

We’re also integrating WeSelect – our cross serve model – into Salesforce and rebuilding our unique propriety iConnect platform which matches customers with the most suitable recommendations and consultant for improved service.

We’re completely redesigning our web experience and online channels with a focus on customer ease. The enhanced website will feature intuitive user interfaces and won’t require customers to re-enter information we already know. It will provide a mobile-first experience and enable services such as live-agent chat. One of the most exciting changes happening within the next six months will the launch of a Customer Account that will show a customer their past comparison quotes and purchases.

Over the longer-term, our Customer Account will allow us to truly help Australians with the ongoing management of their bills and expenses. It will also enable free and paid subscription services and payment options to diversify our revenue.

A better understanding of our customers through the data they choose to share with us, along with powerful machine learning and data capability means we are well positioned to better predict when our customers’ needs change and offer services like auto-comparison and bill monitoring in the future.

Instead of a ‘one size fits all’ experience, our website experience will be tailored to the individual customer and their journey stage and enable us to offer more personalised recommendations. Recent improvements to our web experience are already paying off, with online conversion improving following changes to our health insurance funnel.

Customer Account will be further enhanced by the implementation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud to automate and hyper personalise our marketing communication. This will enable us to nurture ongoing, meaningful relationships with our customers. For example, we will be able to send communication based on trigger points such as like anniversaries of purchase, birthdays or moving home.

Together, Customer Account, marketing automation and our revamped website experience will encourage repeat visits and increase the lifetime value of our customers. These key technology projects – and many others that are going on behind the scene – will enable us to provide a seamless customer journey, a customer-orientated contact strategy and personally tailored recommendations.

We haven’t just invested in technology, but also invested in the right people to help bring our roadmap to life. Product, Design, Engineering and Data specialists now comprise 20% of the total iSelect workforce which demonstrates our Executive team’s commitment to our digital transformation.

These investments in people and platforms are the building blocks for the next stage of our technology transformation.

Right now, iSelect does a great job in helping customers find a better value on a particular household expense, such as their health insurance premium or electricity bill. But we don’t currently help them manage those expenses on an ongoing basis.

The technology improvements we have already made and will continue to roll out over the coming year will evolve the iSelect business model from one based on customer transactions to one which nurtures ongoing, meaningful relationships. And this will mean we really can make life easier for our customers.