Confused.com Delivers a Rewarding and Agile Price Comparison Web Experience with the Service Cloud

Case Study

Confused.com didn’t need to do much comparison before deciding on which customer relationship management (CRM) system the company needed. The British financial services comparison website was looking for an easy-to-use, cloud-based solution that would provide faster, more responsive multichannel service—including the social Web. It found the answer with the Service Cloud from salesforce.com. The solution creates and tracks cases, automatically routing and escalating what’s important, and integrating seamlessly with Confused.com’s back office applications. Conversion rates have increased since the Service Cloud was introduced, and the solution is helping to turn the price comparison business into a more agile, responsive, and satisfying organisation to deal with.

Compare prices on a variety of financial products

Confused.com was the UK’s first price comparison site for car insurance. Confused.com is one of the biggest and most popular price comparison services. Launched in 2002, it generates over one million quotes per month. It has expanded its range of comparison products over the last couple of years to include home insurance, travel insurance, pet insurance, van insurance, motorbike insurance, breakdown cover and energy, as well as financial services products including credit cards, loans, mortgages and life insurance.

Salesforce.com has a hand in that success. Traditionally, Confused.com’s Customer Services team had been relying on a CRM tool which had been deployed before the majority of the team had joined the company. The key problem was that the user interface was not considered easy to use—with the resultant impact that case management was delayed and reporting was unnecessarily complex. Moreover, the on-premise design of the solution meant that changes took an excessive amount of time to implement, Customer Services had to fight for resources to get changes made, and downtime was a way of life.

Confused.com found the answer in the Service Cloud from salesforce.com. The cloud computing model enabled the team to customise the system at will, making it instantly intuitive—without intervention from IT staff. The solution does not require any upfront investment in hardware, software or other peripheral technology. And most importantly, the Service Cloud enabled Confused.com to take back control of the customer dialog, turning the price comparison business into a more agile, responsive, and satisfying organisation to deal with.

Joby Russell, Head of Marketing Communications, Confused.com, explains, “Salesforce CRM offers Confused.com a Web-based CRM solution, rather than CRM software which requires IT support. The solution is easily customisable so we can make changes ourselves as and when we need using an easy point-and-click interface, rather than have to wait for IT resource. Overall, Salesforce CRM is significantly more user-friendly than our previous system, especially for reporting on case types and trends.”

The best experience in terms of speed and service

Confused.com is using the Service Cloud for case generation and case management to ensure that customers and prospects have the best experience in terms of speed and service. Problems associated with the Confused.com, forgotten passwords, or unsubscribe requests for example are logged and managed as a matter of urgency. The Customer Services team has two approaches to case management: one team that manages complex customer service issues, and another fast response team that deals with requests deemed to have an impact on commercial opportunities.

So how does it work? When a customer contacts Confused.com by email or by using the ‘Contact Us’ icon on the website, the email/web form is directed to the Service Cloud where a new case is automatically generated. The Customer Services agent replies to the customer within the case, and any further responses received from the customer regarding that query will re-open the same case (rather than create a new one) as long as the unique case reference number is kept in the email subject line. This makes it easier for Confused.com to keep track of customer contacts and resolve customers’ queries quickly and effectively.

Reporting is a key attribute of the CRM solution. Confused.com uses the Service Cloud to keep track of the type and volume of customer queries received per day/week/month, the number of responses sent per team member per day/week/month, the quality of the responses sent by each team member, and the length of time taken to resolve the customer’s query. Russell explains, “With price comparison sites, every second counts as people need to be able to get the service they expect. Using the Service Cloud, Confused.com has the flexibility to respond at a speed that satisfies the customer and potentially increases the conversion rate for the website. Overall, a 0.5 percent increase in conversion can be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds over the year.”

The next step for Confused.com is to automate the process behind converting web browsers to business opportunities, and minimizing drop-offs. In due course, the company may also integrate the Service Cloud with popular Web communities like Twitter and Facebook. As a result, Confused.com will be able to join conversations about the company, products, and services in places that have been out of reach for the organization until now. “Salesforce CRM has been a vital ingredient in the success of Confused.com; by answering customers questions and queries quickly and effectively, the cloud solution has helped the company gain a large slicer of the U.K. price comparison website market.”

Results

• Increased conversion rate for the website
• Helped turn price comparison business into a more agile, responsive, and satisfying organisation to deal with
• Provided faster, more responsive multichannel service
• Created and tracked cases, automatically routing and escalating what’s important
• Integrated seamlessly with Confused.com’s back office applications
• Enabled team to customise system at will
• Required no upfront investment in hardware, software or other peripheral technology
• Ease of use made the Service Cloud a popular choice with agents

Confused.com