Dynamic composition and variable templating allows retirement planning business to do more with less.
The Challenge.
Maintaining hundreds of personalized customer communications can be a great challenge for many companies. Compound this with the rigorous compliance standards and state variations that go along with doing business in the financial service industry and the task becomes even more complex. With a very limited staff, the retirement planning group of this company was faced with managing an exponentially growing number of monthly letters, forms and reports — each customized for the individual and their plan sponsor. The need for these communications grew and diversified over time and, as a result, each had been created and maintained individually. The company began looking for ways to organize the manual, tedious process and its assets more efficiently — without adding headcount.
The Solution.
Intelisent’s Marketing Strategists and Production team worked with the company’s process owners to gain a full understanding of their marketing, business, compliance and legal requirements. During the discovery process, we learned that many of the forms and letters could actually be consolidated into a series of dynamic “templates.” In addition, each business need, as well as each client’s corresponding information, could by mapped to the communications using a set of predefined business rules. This new approach required extreme attention to detail and rigorous testing; however, once templates were developed and compliance safeguards were instituted, the cumbersome process was drastically simplified. This new approach was also designed with flexibility, allowing everyday changes and the addition of new variables to be easily integrated by the company’s users.
The Outcome.
- 17 communication themes, each with dozens of variations, were consolidated into 2 variable templates
- Disclosures and state variations were consistently applied and easily changed across all documents simultaneously
- Obtained ongoing monthly savings of over $100,000
- Reduced data and content defects to 0%
- Process owners now consistently deliver quality results for their business partners and clients in a timely, compliant manner