November 13, 2009
Chinatrust gets SAP CRM software in time for calamity loan upsurge
Chinatrust Philippines, which claims to be the bank that processes the biggest volume of personal loan applications, has recently installed a CRM (customer relationship management) software from tech giant SAP just in time for the expected increase in loan requests from victims of the recent spate of typhoons that hit the country.
The bank, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Chinatrust Commercial Bank, said it managed to activate the SAP solution last September, barely a few months after it signed a deal with the German software giant in March.
Officials said Chinatrust is the first bank in the Philippines to implement SAP's CRM solution, which is a notch lower than SAP's industry-leading ERP applications that big commercial banks in the country are using.
Chinatrust did not reveal the cost of the IT project. ''But the amount is definitely worth it,'' said Tony Robles, executive vice president and head of retail banking group at Chinatrust.
The CRM's implementation is an effort of the bank to improve its management of customer inquiries, minimize customer complaints, and better leverage on the bank's call agents.
Chinatrust said it needed the solution to better manage the tremendous increase in the uptake of its personal loan products. Instead of expanding its contact centre operations, the bank opted to look into automating its processes to improve productivity and keep investment and operational cost low.
As part of the automation project, SAP Business Communications Management (BCM) was implemented to act as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Customers can access Chinatrust Philippines through one common telephone number to access the bank, as all incoming calls will be routed to the most appropriate customer service representative.
Another application deployed at Chinatrust is SAP partner ECENTA's Telemarketing for Financial Services Accelerator. The application works seamlessly with SAP CRM, allowing the bank to segment customers based on complex criteria. The bank is also able to generate call lists, and exclude customers who do not wish to be called.
Prior to the SAP automation project, all calls were handled by the bank's live agents and call monitoring MIS was done manually using spreadsheets. This gave the bank unreliable capacity reports and did not provide basic information such as the number of calls received and handled by the agents.
The bank, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Chinatrust Commercial Bank, said it managed to activate the SAP solution last September, barely a few months after it signed a deal with the German software giant in March.
Officials said Chinatrust is the first bank in the Philippines to implement SAP's CRM solution, which is a notch lower than SAP's industry-leading ERP applications that big commercial banks in the country are using.
Chinatrust did not reveal the cost of the IT project. ''But the amount is definitely worth it,'' said Tony Robles, executive vice president and head of retail banking group at Chinatrust.
The CRM's implementation is an effort of the bank to improve its management of customer inquiries, minimize customer complaints, and better leverage on the bank's call agents.
Chinatrust said it needed the solution to better manage the tremendous increase in the uptake of its personal loan products. Instead of expanding its contact centre operations, the bank opted to look into automating its processes to improve productivity and keep investment and operational cost low.
As part of the automation project, SAP Business Communications Management (BCM) was implemented to act as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Customers can access Chinatrust Philippines through one common telephone number to access the bank, as all incoming calls will be routed to the most appropriate customer service representative.
Another application deployed at Chinatrust is SAP partner ECENTA's Telemarketing for Financial Services Accelerator. The application works seamlessly with SAP CRM, allowing the bank to segment customers based on complex criteria. The bank is also able to generate call lists, and exclude customers who do not wish to be called.
Prior to the SAP automation project, all calls were handled by the bank's live agents and call monitoring MIS was done manually using spreadsheets. This gave the bank unreliable capacity reports and did not provide basic information such as the number of calls received and handled by the agents.