Tag: UK

Postcode profiling

Posted by | Dec 3, 2007 | |

A postcode can tell you a lot about your customers but too many retailers ignore this valuable source of demographic information

Most online businesses are content to grab email details for customers and use this as the basis of their subsequent email marketing, while a few others take it one step further and use the email address along with purchase information to slice-and-dice their lists. However there’s a host of information available from the users postcode that many retailers just throw away.

There are a host of statistical packages available to companies trading online which provide information on website visitor activity. These can show invaluable data such as number of visits, referring sites, keyword searches used, and hits by week, day and hour. However, without the use of lengthy surveys at point of purchase, which may put some buyers off, there is no way of finding out useful customer information.

Customer profiling and location planning consultancy Cartogen

(www.cartogen.co.uk) have come up with a solution to this problem. The Brighton based consultancy is making detailed consumer profiling available to Ecommerce businesses throughout the UK. Cartogen’s advanced systems can provide demographic, lifestyle and behavioural information based solely on postcode.

Cartogen uses Eurodirect’s CAMEO profiling system which assigns every UK postcode to one of ten groups and, within those, 57 categories. Available information includes brand preferences, leisure activities, newspaper readership and holiday destinations along with a wealth of other geodemographic and financial data. Standard information such as age, sex, housing type and income are also available. All that is required is the customer postcode, which is supplied with every transaction.

Cartogen’s service has helped a number of offline businesses in their customer profiling and marketing processes, clients including Shell Gas and Yates’s Wine Lodge, and now the company plans to change the way online retailers use their customer data.

For an annual fee companies can have their customer database profiled on a monthly basis. The service is described as “very affordable”.

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UK Research: Internet and direct mail remain key to financial services

Posted by | Dec 1, 2007 | |

UK Research: Internet and direct mail remain key to financial services
Internet and direct mail are the most popular source of information to UK consumers to find out about financial products. Over 50% claim to use the internet while a quarter say that they respond to personally addressed direct mail

Mortgages are the only financial product where an IFA is the dominant source of information. The top reason for purchasing a product directly, as opposed to using an IFA or buying through a bank or building society, was due to price – a perception that it was cheaper to go direct – across a number of products.

The findings are all part of a new research project undertaken by the DMA UK Financial Services Council in conjunction with NMG, to gain an in-depth understanding of the role of associated offers in the financial services sector.

The research also demonstrated that unsurprisingly price and the way information was made available prior to the application were key purchase decision influencers when buying life protection and income protection insurance whereas the brand of the provider is a significant influencer when buying private health insurance and personal accident insurance.

The tendency to switch products is very low with the majority of respondents not having taken out or switched providers for any financial products in the last 12 months. Of those that had switched, the most common product to be changed is motor insurance followed by home contents. With the exception of mortgages, the majority tend to purchase or switch providers by telephone or by applying online or in the case of home contents, direct mail appears to be very effective. However, nearly three quarters of respondents claim that they were not considering taking out or switching providers for any financial services in the next 12 months.

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Royal Mail's Compensation Schemes for Delay and Loss and Damage

Posted by | Dec 1, 2007 | |

Postcomm, the independent regulator for postal services, is consulting on Royal Mail’s current compensation schemes for loss, damage and delay which many customers are finding difficult to understand and use.

Royal Mail’s currently has four compensation schemes for loss and damage. Postcomm is proposing that Royal Mail introduces a single loss and damage scheme governed by a clear and simple framework of principles.

In December 2007, Postcomm outlined proposed changes to Royal Mail’s compensation schemes to make them fairer and more suited to customer needs. The regulator has conducted a public consultation and worked closely with Royal Mail and Postwatch to address concerns about the complexity of Royal Mail’s current compensation schemes for retail customers and some inconsistency in how they are applied.

Following this review, Postcomm is proposing to remove bulk mail from a regulated compensation scheme for delay. Competition for bulk mail customers has developed to a point where the regulator is proposing that it is more appropriate to move towards a market driven option allowing the growth of schemes which reflect the differing needs of large mailers.

Royal Mail’s retail customers should face less difficulty in pursuing their claims because, for retail mail that has been lost, damaged or delayed, the proposals aim to simplify and align the processes for making a claim, the evidence required to support a claim, and the compensation payments themselves.

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