Harland Clarke Receives International Acknowledgement for Database Marketing Excellence

National Center for Database Marketing Honors Harland Clarke with Gold Award for its Strategically Designed and Customized Account Holder Onboarding Program for Zions Bank

Harland Clarke Corp., a leading provider of marketing services, payment and security solutions to financial institutions, recently received the 2011 Database Excellence Gold Award. Presented by the National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM), the award was given in the marketing strategies category for Harland Clarke’s work with Zions Bank in developing a Rapid Deployment Intelligent Onboarding Program. The prestigious NCDM international awards program honors organizations that have demonstrated ingenuity and creativity in using customer data to produce measurable results.

The Rapid Deployment Intelligent Onboarding Program was developed by Harland Clarke for Zions Bank to reduce customer attrition, increase share of wallet and drive positive engagement with the brand. It combines insights collected at account openings with Harland Clarke’s statistical analysis and predictive modeling to drive intelligent multichannel communications and create immediate customer engagement. During a seven-month measurement period following implementation of the program, Zions Bank generated a return on its investment (in the cost of the customized onboarding program) of more than six to one, an average retention rate of 96 percent, and an increase in deposits of 40 percent when compared to the control group — exceeding the project goals by more than 200 percent.

“We know from our State of the Industry Benchmarking Analysis¹ that up to 40 percent of account holders will leave a financial institution within one year of opening a new account — and that represents a significant loss in potential deposits and revenue,” said Sandeep Kharidhi, vice president of analytics and business intelligence for Harland Clarke. “The key to sustaining that relationship is to be proactive, using immediate, ongoing and smart communications to engage account holders.”

“Zions has been tremendously pleased with the success of this collaboration,” said Matt Wilcox, director of interactive services for Zions Bank. “We knew that Harland Clarke had the industry knowledge and experience necessary for this project, but the results have surpassed our expectations.”

Harland Clarke and Zions Bank worked with Salt Lake City-based Richter7 to design a campaign that relied on behavior-driven messaging to maximize the relevancy of the customer communications. “The NCDM award is especially gratifying because this program is so measurable and has had such a positive impact for Zions,” said Tal Harry, partner at Richter7.

¹State of the Industry Financial Services Benchmarking Analysis, February 2011.