âCustomers must be able to choose for themselvesâ

www.stralfors.co.uk

This is one of the challenges faced by Volvofinans Bank.
“Nowadays you must let the customer choose in which channel he or she wants to communicate,” says Ulla Höglind, the company’s Head of Marketing Communication and CRM.

The invoice is a channel used regularly by Volvofinans Bank to communicate with its customers.
“We send out about 650,000 account statements every month to Volvo Card customers. Most of them are private customers, but on the card side we also communicate with around 17,000 business customers and 2,500 haulage customers,” says Ulla Höglind at Volvofinans Bank, which not only manages the Volvo Card, but also offers financing for vehicles sold by Swedish Volvo and Renault dealerships.
For Volvofinans Bank, this way of communicating is nothing new. They’ve been using invoices for their marketing communication since the 1990s. Messages on the invoices have been adapted for the target group for about the same time.

Targeted offers

The Volvo Card offers discounts on anything from fuel to car accessories, but also gives the customer the opportunity to study all special offers easily in one place. Most of the targeted special offers accompany the monthly invoice.
“Our entire business concept is based on making car ownership simple, and the Volvo Card is an important cornerstone in this respect. It gives the customer an opportunity to keep all his or her car-related expenses together in one place,” explains Ulla Höglind.
Some special offers are printed directly on the invoice. The information here varies, depending on with which dealer the customer signed up to the card, the age of the customer’s car, the customer’s purchasing behaviour and so on.
“We don’t have total control over the special offers that come from the dealers, they’re adapted locally depending on what the dealers want to say to the customer,” says Ulla Höglind.
Other special offers are contained in inserts that accompany the invoice.
“We see challenges in adapting the communication even more closely to different customer groups and dealers, and packing it all together neatly. At the moment we have a lot of different items that all go in the same envelope.”

Digital challenges

Perhaps now more than ever, accessible customer communication is a challenge. The number of customers who want to receive their monthly invoice electronically is rising steadily.
“There’s been a significant increase in e-invoices in recent years. At present we have virtually the same information from us available for both e-invoice customers and for customers who receive physical invoices through their letterboxes. The difference is that we don’t send information from the inserts with the e-invoice, that’s accessible via our website,” explains Ulla Höglind, adding:
“With all the new communication channels, you must let the customer decide how she or he wants to communicate. Our challenge is to make it as simple as possible, whatever the channel. We’re looking closely at this, it’s a continuous process.”

New opportunities with colour

For a couple of years now, both printed and digital nvoices have been in colour.
“We’d been wanting to do this for a long time, so when Stralfors bought the necessary equipment the opportunity was there,” says Ulla Höglind.
This change means that they now have totallynew conditions and opportunities to work with images.
“We used to be limited to black and white photos that were suitable for this. We now have far greater opportunities available and have really had to fill our photo database. We’re convinced that invoices in colour create a better customer experience than black and white ones. Experience tells us that around 80 per cent of all customers read the invoices and the message that accompanies them. And now we can communicate with customers with the aid of photos and illustrations in a totally different way,” says Liselotte Duvander, responsible for Selekteringstanken, Volvofinans Bank’s own system for creating invoice communication. This is linked in to the company’s customer database, which is topped up with about 2.5 million new transactions every month.
She feels that that the customer database is the most important tool the company has. With the aid of the customer data collected, Volvofinans Bank can make sure that customers receive relevant special offers at the right time.
“We can create target groups in Selekteringstanken on the basis of the customer database’s parameters, which gives us virtually unlimited communication options.”

“Modern customers are well-informed”

Another challenge is that more and more customers are demanding package solutions.
“We can see this clearly. Many customers want a fixed monthly cost for their entire car ownership. Nor are they interested in spending their savings on a cash investment,” says Liselotte Duvander.
To deal with this, Volvofinans Bank works
together with Swedish Volvo and Renault dealerships to offer the opportunity to lease cars.
“Leasing cars has been popular for a long time with business customers. We’re now offering the same opportunity, in collaboration with partners, to private individuals too, through what we call Volvo Inclusive Private Leasing and Renault Relax Private Leasing.
“Some customers want to own their car, while others are happy just to pay for using it. There are very significant differences between different customer groups,” explains Liselotte Duvander.
She believes that satisfying customers’ needs is becoming more and more important all the time.
“Modern customers are extremely well-prepared. Many of them have already assembled and equipped their car online before they walk into the showroom. The new technical opportunities place totally new demands on all parties concerned – financing companies, car dealerships and insurance companies,” believes Ulla Höglind.

Which other digital channels do you use?

“We send emails and text messages as reminders and confirmations of campaigns. There may be a postcard with a targeted special offer, which we then remind the customer about via a digital channel. We also have a digital newsletter that goes out to around 14,000 company car drivers four times a year.”

Will the invoice continue to be a significant channel for your customer communication?

“Absolutely. So far paper invoices have made a good impact with their special offers. Demand for printed invoices probably won’t disappear completely, but it will definitely decline as more and more digital options emerge.”

What is your biggest challenge?

“Being suitable in our communication and reaching the right customers with the right message. Relevant communication is always the most important thing, whichever channel you’re communicating in.”