Banking on SAS® Analytics, Harland Clarke helps financial services firms improve campaign response rates, reduce churn

SAS® uncovers marketing opportunities in banks and credit unions, propels business growth

CARY, NC – Using SAS Analytics, from the leader in business analytics software and services, Harland Clarke delivers CRM solutions that help banks and credit unions acquire, engage, retain and grow relationships with customers and members. In the face of changing regulations and the continuing challenging economic environment, financial services institutions must work smarter to drive top- and bottom-line growth. Harland Clarke’s marketing services team uses analytics to help its clients more effectively target new customers, “onboard” new customers, and execute cross-sell/up-sell campaigns. The New Dynamics of Consumer Banking Relationships research study describes methods of applying analytics to improve marketing strategies and make better decisions.

Backing its industry expertise, direct marketing and analytical experience with SAS technologies, Harland Clarke excels in helping solve client challenges. SAS Analytics is driven by terabytes of rolling data stretching back as far as 12 years – data on products, services and millions of purchases. The company conducts portfolio analysis, defines market segments, identifies account holders with high propensity to purchase products, and recommends relationship strategies for individual account holders. Harland Clarke then delivers marketing services including direct mail production, email marketing and contact center to drive revenue streams for clients.

Reducing attrition through smart communications

“We use SAS to analyze all of the relationships the banking customer has with the institution,” said Sandeep Kharidhi, Vice President of Analytics and BI for Harland Clarke. “We know from our National Banking Industry Database that up to 22 percent of households will leave a financial institution within one year of opening a new account. That represents a significant potential loss in deposits and revenue. Customer relationships are our focus. The key to sustaining those relationships is to proactively engage account holders.”

To encourage bank customers and credit union members to use new products and services, Harland Clarke delivers tailored onboarding communications such as direct mail or online offers for a customer’s first 90 days to generate positive customer engagement. According to Kharidhi, Harland Clarke onboarding results are impressive, with customer attrition rates usually 20 percent below the benchmark attrition rate.

“Our analytics staff has a long history and deep experience with SAS,” Kharidhi continued. “SAS Analytics helps us expand our level of engagement with banks and credit unions, accelerating portfolio performance dialog with senior executives. We energize our company’s consultative sales process with the power of SAS. Using analytics, we develop new ideas and strategies for solving marketing challenges. When we recommend a solution, we even use SAS to predict the expected ROI. Showcasing value-add analytics differentiates Harland Clarke from competitors, helping us acquire new business and retain existing accounts. As a result, we’re seeing significant business growth.”

Innovating with analytics

Harland Clarke uses SAS Analytics for its Stratics suite of predictive models, built exclusively for banks and credit unions. Alternatively, large banks often prefer a custom approach, with Harland Clarke’s advisors tailoring a strategy to address unique challenges and opportunities.

“Once we have agreement from the client, they provide us with updated customer files, and we run that against our proprietary Stratics predictive modeling service,” said Kharidhi. “That assesses more than 600 banking behaviors aggregated into 60 predictive models that show which customers are most likely to churn, which customers are most loyal and which are most open to cross-sell or ’next-most-likely’ product offers. Then, for example, we might offer a loan or a CD to a loyal checking customer. Stratics has become a significant competitive strength.”

Next, Harland Clarke will implement SAS Business Intelligence. Before, it produced reports by analyzing data in SAS and then outputting the results to three or four software programs to get the final report. SAS Business Intelligence offers “one-stop reporting.” Reducing manual reporting steps increases productivity and speeds reports to decision makers for better answers faster.
About SAS
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions, SAS helps customers at more than 60,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know® .