“Salesforce will put our business in a whole new league. It will help us build greater customer trust and loyalty.”

– Rasmus Lynge; Chief Customer Officer

Danish financial services company put its customers first with more responsive services, joined-up sales, and personalised marketing

The insurance business has come a long way since Alm. Brand was established by royal decree in 1792. The company has remained successful throughout this time by adapting to meet evolving customer demands. In the 21st century, that means providing anytime, anywhere customer services across its banking, insurance, and pensions businesses.; “To remain successful for another 200 years, we need to be able to meet customers’ expectations in an increasingly digital world,” said Rasmus Lynge, Chief Customer Officer at Alm. Brand. “And that means being able to react fast, change fast, and to create digital solutions fitted to the customers way of life.”

With greater digitalisation comes greater reliance on multiple IT systems. As Tom Bo Frederiksen, Head of IT innovation at Alm. Brand, explained: “We want to be able to focus on business possibilities, not technical problems. We needed a unified platform that would bring greater agility and innovation to the organisation.”

It was this vision that led the company to Salesforce. As Lynge confirmed: “Salesforce will bring us closer to our customers and support our business strategy as we grow and evolve.”

Customer services, sales activities, and marketing campaigns will all be underpinned by Salesforce, which has been integrated with the company’s internal product systems for banking, insurance, and pensions.

Thanks to this integration, Alm. Brand’s users will be able to access all the data they need via a single platform. For example, its service agents will have a 360-degree view of every customer across every business line, including a record of any sales and marketing communications that they have received.

“With Service Cloud, we can empower agents to provide a faster and more joined-up response to customers.” Frederiksen continued: “This will help to reduce the duration of open cases, limit the volume of calls that are redirected, and enhance the customer experience.”

Managers will also be able to see when and why customer expectations haven’t been met, and take action to reduce churn, particularly in the first year of engagement. All of these factors will help improve Alm. Brand’s Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Making it easier for agents to serve their customers also improves staff motivation and satisfaction, enabling Alm. Brand to attract and retain the best talent in the industry. “We can only offer customers high quality services if we have high quality employees. Our people are central to our ability to grow and evolve as a business,” said Lynge.

Shorter sales cycle

Alm. Brand isn’t just transforming how it responds to customer queries it’s transforming how it sells to them too. “We’re changing our sales approach from product, price, and promotion to focus on the customer’s needs,” explained Lynge. “Sales Cloud provide us with greater insights into individual customer’s preferences and behaviours.”

Sales Cloud will support the entire sales process – from lead and opportunity management to meeting preparations and performance tracking – and will be at the heart of the company’s Customer First strategy. Armed with the Salesforce Mobile App, sales reps will be able to access and share information in real-time at customer meetings rather than having to return to the office. Lynge added: “With Sales Cloud, we’ll be able to shorten the sales cycle with fewer decision steps and faster referrals.”

By rethinking how it engages with customers and prospects, Alm. Brand will also be able to boost the potential for cross-selling and up-selling. “The customer journey is more complex today, the customer are switching between online and offline channels during their decision-making journey.

Our customers do their research online, but are likely to purchase offline,” explained Pernille Helweg, Head of Marketing at Alm. Brand. “This has led us to look at ways to engage and meet the customer more effectively across all channels and business units.”

With Marketing Cloud, Alm. Brand will be able to adopt a one-to-one approach to email marketing using customer segmentation, personalised messages, and common triggers during the buying journey. “Whether we’re targeting prospects or selling to existing customers, we’ll be able to anticipate their needs and test different content with Marketing Cloud,” said Helweg. “This will provide us with valuable insights into customer behaviour and target a more precise and relevant communication.”

“With Marketing Cloud the marketing, sales and service process merge together and support each other in order to give the customer the best and smoothest experience in their decision-making and buying journey,” said Helweg.

The capabilities provided by the Salesforce solution enable Alm.Brand’s marketing team to get more creative, as Helweg explains, “As it’s so easy to use, Marketing Cloud inspires my team to try out new ideas.”

Crucially, the team is able to evaluate the success of these ideas and its marketing campaigns, identifying what works and what doesn’t in order to maximise ROI.

“Marketing Cloud is changing the nature of how we connect with our clients.” Helweg adds. “We now have an always-on content strategy segmented by customer behaviour that enables us to be more proactive and improve engagement at every stage of the customer lifecycle.”

With Salesforce underpinning all key customer-facing processes, Alm. Brand will be able to think and act as one company. “With Salesforce, we won’t just be talking about putting the customer first we will be achieving it day in, day out. It will help us build greater customer trust and loyalty,” concluded Lynge.

“Salesforce will put our business in a whole new league. It will help us build greater customer trust and loyalty.”

– Rasmus Lynge; Chief Customer Officer

Shorter sales cycle

Crucially, the team is able to evaluate the success of these ideas and its marketing campaigns, identifying what works and what doesn’t in order to maximise ROI.