{"id":12495,"date":"2025-08-11T08:57:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T08:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=12495"},"modified":"2025-08-11T10:27:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T10:27:24","slug":"hippo-co-za-digital-marketing-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/eu\/blog\/hippo-co-za-digital-marketing-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Outdated processes holding you back? Why Hippo.co.za said goodbye to follow-up calls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Is there anything worse than trying to sign up for a new service and getting bombarded with follow-up calls? When I switched phone providers, those calls made me feel hassled and rushed into making a decision. But they did keep it front of mind. We all hate it, but it gets results. So, companies keep doing it and alienating thousands of potential customers in exchange for a steady conversion rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was an all too familiar situation at Hippo.co.za. Here in South Africa, everyone knows and loves our iconic Hippo.co.za<\/a> puppet. But ask them what they think of our service, and they fall into two categories. One group loves us. They quickly and easily find the best insurance deal for them. Unfortunately, in the second group, words like \u2018spam\u2019, \u2018annoying\u2019, and \u2018stop\u2019 are too common. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or they were<\/strong>\u2026<\/em>before we turned our sales and marketing strategies upside down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Hippo is the worst idea ever! One simple request for a quote and they NEVER leave you alone. Stay away people!<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“This is a death by calls! Please find ways that I can send the same info to all [insurance providers] and they don\u2019t have to talk to me for so long, asking the same questions I answered on your website!<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“It would be fantastic if Hippo.co.za didn’t call like 100 times in a day.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

So, what went wrong, and crucially\u2014how did we fix it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing revenues, but at what cost?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Customers use our website to find the best insurance deals. They enter their details and we find them 12 quotes within minutes from our partners. Once they\u2019ve selected the most suitable one, we connect them to the insurer to complete the purchase. Simple, effective, and a great customer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When customers aren\u2019t<\/em> <\/strong>ready to buy, things get more complicated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leads are passed to our contact centre to call and close the deal. This gets results: a high conversion rate, which contributed significantly to our revenue. But the customer experience? Not great. People don\u2019t love unsolicited calls. We were making 5.5 million calls a year, and in return, we were getting more and more angry reviews about spam calls annoying potential customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know poor service is the biggest reason people don\u2019t return to our website, so we needed to find a way to stay front of mind for prospective customers without spamming them with follow-up calls. In short, we needed to turn sales and marketing processes upside down to put the customer experience first\u2014and retire methods that worked in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Converting customers using digital channels<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You know how it goes: if you need to radically shake up how you\u2019re doing something, start small, test it, and adapt it. So to start, we focused on car insurance<\/a>. Fun fact \u2014 fewer than 35% of cars on the road in South Africa<\/a> are insured, despite the potholes, dangerous drivers, and unsafe vehicles we encounter daily. The more people we can help find insurance, the better \u2014 for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to not<\/strong><\/em> annoying customers is to meet them where they are. We mapped the customer journey to find out where they prefer to engage and designed a digital journey to give the right information on the right channels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprising no one, customers don\u2019t see follow-up calls as part of their ideal experience, so we replaced 5.5 million annual outbound calls with an automated digital journey built on Marketing Cloud Engagement<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, customers can choose when they respond to our messages, so they\u2019re in control of how much they hear from us. The results have been astounding. The automated digital journey is 27% more effective than the call centre journey. That means we\u2019ve given our customers a much better user experience, we now help 300 more customers find the right insurance policies each month, and have increased the business we send to our insurance partners as a result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the kicker; by stopping outbound calls, we made an annual saving of R4.2 million (~\u20ac217,000), whilst managing to deploy staff into other areas of our business. We\u2019ve got happy customers, happy staff, and happy partners \u2013 the trifecta!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In stark contrast to the spam complaints, here’s just some of the positive reviews we received after making the shift:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“I asked for quotes on car insurance and the response was basically immediate. And not one, not two, but ten quotes with the relevant information I needed. I am very impressed, thank you for the speedy service! And I would definitely recommend Hippo to friends and family.<\/em>” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Would highly recommend, was able to get an offer allowing me to make a saving of over R500 on my car insurance. Amazing to have it all in one place!<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“I love that the options are explained in detail and as soon as you click \u201cI am interested\u201d a consultant phones you back immediately.<\/em>“<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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“Thank you Hippo, I managed to save R500 :-D”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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S<\/strong>triking the right note with customers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our campaigns are true to our brand. We inject a little humour into our communications to make them memorable and engaging. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n