Amsterdam, 9th September 2002 - Extraprise, the international technology consulting company specialising in Customer Relationship Management, today announced it has implemented a new technology platform for Finansbank (Holland) NV (FBH) that will help transform its Retail Banking business. Based on technology from Siebel Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SEBL), the world's leading provider of eBusiness applications software; Genesys; and InterVoice-Brite, the system will help Finansbank to drive revenues by offering quicker, more effective customer enquiry handling, as well as a new range of financial products from simple high interest accounts and deposits to brokerage accounts, loans and insurance products. It will also pave the way for campaign management, customer self-service and full online banking. Extraprise carried out the engagement, which included project scoping, application deployment, integration and a change management/training programme in less than thirty weeks. InterVoice's partner VDS Communicatie Architecten was responsible for the implementation of InterVoice.
"We believe we're part of a real change in the CRM landscape," explained Gökhan Mendi, Executive Vice President, Finansbank (Holland) NV. "The availability of mid-market CRM applications tailored to the financial sector means that true CRM functionality is no longer the preserve of only global enterprises. To fuel the next stage of our growth, we wanted to offer our customers improved query handling, a diverse range of products and full online banking facilities. To do this, we needed a more sophisticated technology platform. Previously we only offered high-interest accounts and deposits. Now we're in a position to offer our customers an enhanced proposition, in terms of both products and service."
Finansbank (Holland) NV serves its 160,000 customers in The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium primarily through its multi-lingual call centre in Frankfurt. The call centre then transmits requests to operations staff in six locations (Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Antwerp and Amsterdam). The new system has already helped Finansbank to significantly increase the speed and efficiency at which call centre agents can handle customers' enquiries. As information is now available to agents through one application, the amount of transfers and call-backs have been significantly reduced. Customers are now able to apply for an account or other products or manipulate, query or terminate their accounts in one phone call.
Finansbank's retail banking arm began by offering customers highly competitive interest rates on savings accounts and experienced rapid growth as a result. However, the existing front-office system had been developed internally, was poorly documented, and was increasingly difficult and expensive to support as the business grew. It would have required extensive development work in order to support the new products so instead Finansbank selected Siebel eFinance, MidMarket Edition, Genesys 6.1 CTI and an InterVoice-Brite Interactive Voice Response solution to form the basis of the new technology platform. Siebel eFinance, MidMarket Edition is a comprehensive suite of eBusiness applications designed specifically for medium-size businesses in the financial services sector.
Extraprise helped Finansbank to scope the project, implemented the new technology and conducted a comprehensive change management and training programme. The enterprise integration challenge of linking the Globus back-office banking application, the website, and an ActiveX image viewer (for viewing scanned documents) was made possible by utilising the Siebel eBusiness open system interfaces, which also enabled the integration with the CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) components.
The training programme was conducted in three phases and two languages (English and German) to ensure that the 100 end users in The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium had the necessary skills and motivation to operate the new system. Phase one included a communication plan, content development for internal newsletters and the intranet, and demonstrations of the core functionality of the system to raise general awareness. Phase two entailed six days of core Siebel Systems' training and two days of training best practice sessions for the seven people who were identified as "product champions" because they were particularly experienced or enthusiastic. The final phase is ongoing "post-live" support, including continual evaluation and user support via the telephone, Internet and floor walking.
All paper documents are now scanned, so that Finansbank can track the flow of work through the call centre and back office. This prevents loss of paper, improves document tracking and enables the centralisation of staff. The technology is now in place to offer full Internet banking and campaign management when required. When the IVR application goes live later this year it will be able to authenticate users, offer self-service banking or the ability to transfer customers to a call centre agent. "We don't usually hire consultancy firms, but on this occasion we needed help from someone with in-depth knowledge of the contact centre environment, including complex CTI and integration skills. We also needed someone who could help us train our staff in English and German to use the new system. Extraprise rose admirably to the challenge and the speed at which they have operated, as well as the professionalism, expertise and flexibility of their consultants were very well received," said Mendi.
Extraprise entered the Netherlands market at the end of 2000 and has worked with leading organisations including ABN Amro, Autobar Holland, Finansbank, Nuon, Postbank and Wolters Kluwer. Finansbank (Holland) NV is a member of the international Finansbank Group, with operations in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Turkey, Russia and Romania. The group activities span over the whole financial and retail sectors. Finansbank (Holland) NV exists in three countries - Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium. For more details visit: www.finansbank.de, www.finansbank.nl or www.finansbank.be.
Extraprise® is a leading systems integrator and business process outsourcer specializing in customer management. The company's "Insight-to-Interaction" (or "i2i") solutions combine data management, business insight, demand generation, and customer management. Clients use Extraprise services to make their customer insights actionable throughout their marketing, sales, and service channels. Solutions are available on premise and as on demand services at the company's hosting centers. Extraprise is headquartered in Boston with offices in the U.S. and Europe. Extraprise is on the Web at www.extraprise.com.
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