Data Warehousing: KeyCorp's Data Mining Improves Prospecting

At KeyCorp, commercial bankers faced a familiar problem: Too many prospects, not enough time. They turned to new marketing recruit Trish Keane to solve the problem. While many off-the-shelf systems make sales- force automation easier, Keane's ambitions were greater. She wanted to build a system that helped relationship managers better qualify prospects, communicate with them and track results in business segments that had vastly different information needs.

Using the expertise of Epsilon, the company created PeTe-an acronym for Prospect Toolkit. Moreover, the closed-loop marketing system also captured every interaction between relationship managers and their prospects. Today, that wealth of information enables the marketing department to analyze prospects and customers for next-product selling opportunities and to measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts.

Solid early Returns

Epsilon's Richard Hale says that the system is already providing solid returns. The system is credited with a 20 percent increase in prospect conversion from the prior year. Beyond the new incremental revenue, the PeTe system has also driven down customer acquisition costs, giving KeyCorp an estimated return on investment that exceeds 500 percent.

The company begins by filling its database with Dun & Bradstreet files, which include information on the primary banking relationship of a business and UCC filings to identify leasing opportunities, including expiration dates. Then, KeyCorp overlays risk information and financial stress data.

The PeTe system is used by nearly 300 relationship managers and has drawn interest from other lines of business looking for a custom-built solution that frees up people in the field to bring in greater results. "The private banking group has recently incorporated this," says Keane. "It's being mimicked within the bank."

-J.Racine

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