SEDONA Conference Provides Strategies for Effective Customer Relationship Management
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 2000--Bankers from small-to-mid-sized institutions nationwide participated in the first-ever SEDONA(R) Corporation (NASDAQ: SDNA) (www.SEDONAcorp.com) customer conference -SEDONA eXchange Customer Conference 2000.
The conference - held in San Diego at the Rancho Bernardo Inn from November 2-4 - was designed to provide information about customer relationship management (CRM) trends, strategies, and implementation tips for financial services in the new millennium.
SEDONA is a leading provider of CRM solutions for financial institutions. Attendees at this year's SEDONA eXchange Customer Conference learned about the latest CRM capabilities including profitability, predictive modeling and segmentation, privacy and data enhancement from industry experts including Kathleen Khirallah, senior analyst with TowerGroup; Jennifer Barrett, chief privacy officer, Acxiom Corporation; Vince Bowey, vice president of solutions marketing at E.piphany; and Marco Emrich, CEO & president, SEDONA.
Ms. Khirallah discussed the issues shaping today's financial landscape and offered leading-edge CRM strategies necessary to compete in today's marketplace. Considered one of the nation's leading authorities on operational and informational CRM systems for retail financial services, Ms. Khirallah explained that, "CRM is a business strategy that relies on three key elements - people, processes and technology. Unless the financial services institution (FSI) addresses all three elements, success will be slow. The critical success factors in a CRM implementation include strong executive support, disciplined project planning and organizing the financial institution around customers."
In addition, "The Internet has really forced banks to look at their channel integration efforts," said Ms. Khirallah. "It has disrupted the status quo immeasurably. The results may not have materialized in terms of multi-channel integration, but the heat is on!"
Discussing "Data and Privacy: A Report From Capitol Hill," Jennifer Barrett, Acxiom Corporation stated that "the hottest news topic today is consumer privacy. Technology development is outpacing the business experience as it becomes easy to collect more data than we can use in the rush to capture market share."
"Marketers (and especially Internet marketers) are being aggressive with their collection and use of individual information, and the business community has lost the trust of consumers and legislators over how they use individual information. In fact, a recent study confirms that consumers distrust businesses now more than government. To combat this problem, the White House just last month announced a `Plan for Financial Privacy and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century'."
Ms. Barrett added, "There is a major knowledge deficit with individuals and legislators about how the current use of information provides benefits. Industry must do more to publicized benefits to the consumer. Legislators must be educated on the legitimate uses of data and self-regulatory guidelines must be publicized and strengthened."
SEDONA customers appreciated this information-packed session and the ability to understand how Intarsia can help them enforce the new privacy regulations within their sales and marketing programs. SEDONA executives including President and CEO Marco Emrich discussed SEDONA's strategy and goals as a provider of CRM solutions to small and mid-sized financial services companies.
"It's exciting to have so many financial executives participate in our first-ever customer conference," said Mr. Emrich. "Their support for and interest in maximizing the value of their CRM experiences serves to validate our strategy of providing new CRM capabilities including Internet-based solutions and wireless access for small-to-mid-sized financial institutions."
SEDONA recently launched Intarsia 2.0, a comprehensive Internet CRM solution that enables financial institutions to optimize their return on customer relationships by personalizing their customer interactions and ensuring that sales and marketing efforts achieve increased company profitability. Intarsia is specifically designed to help these organizations to enhance the relationships and profitability of current customers, find and acquire new clients, and uncover new sales and marketing opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed. |
