Ikano Bank offers secure, simple financing solutions for consumers through its business partners.
"Our solutions enable people to shop directly and then make payments at a level that suits them. Or you can just save securely," explains Erika Hammarberg.
The purpose is to increase profitability, sales and customer loyalty for Ikano Bank’s partners.
"Here in Finland we have two key partners, IKEA and ST1 Oy."
Every month Ikano Bank sends out 30,000-50,000 invoices in four-colour.
"The invoice is one of our primary marketing channels. We try to use it as much as we can for the various target groups."
For example, they send a separate message to very passive customers or customers who tend to be late in paying invoices. As well as stimulating passive customers, competitions are arranged, and to reward active customers it is possible to target market communication locally.
"We’re the one sending the invoice, so we can also have a unique banner or insert for each unique group."
Until this spring, they performed all segmentation with the aid of Excel spreadsheets. But since this June they have been doing the same job in Stralfors’ new tool Stralfors Access.
And according to Virpi Vähämaa, Support Coordinator, there are plenty of benefits.
They can also use Access to target campaigns at unique locations or target groups, something they were totally unable to achieve previously. The system also allows Ikano to see directly on screen what a new invoice will look like when printed.
"If we see a proofing error, we can simply correct it," says Erika Hammarberg.
"Yes, the most common errors we used to make before Access were the usual slip-ups. A missing comma or an incorrect file name. These little things delay invoice mailings unnecessarily. These kinds of errors have now been totally eliminated," says Virpi Vähämaa, continuing:
"We set up rules and flows once, and then everything’s in place for the next invoicing run and we save a lot of time. All duplicate work has gone. That’s ideal for a small organisation like ours," says Virpi Vähämaa.
Thanks to Access, the time spent by Ikano Bank on invoicing and marketing campaigns has been halved. And with simple tools, the production of campaigns can now be transferred to the Marketing Department instead of being partly in IT, where it is now.
"All of a sudden, we can do whatever we want. So, with the foundations in place, it’s time to raise our sights. Now it’s up to us to be more innovative," says Erika Hammarberg.