How LocalTapiola increased yearly revenue by 200,000€ and saves over 1,500,000€ in customer service expenses

Key takeaways

• LocalTapiola is one of the largest insurance companies in Finland.
• In 2018, LocalTapiola Capital Region faced challenges with their sales and customer service and searched for a solution.
• Local Tapiola feeds Vainu's company data into their BI and CRM systems for data-driven decision-making.
• With the help of Vainu, LocalTapiola identified the most profitable target segments to focus their sales efforts on.
• To this day, collaboration with Vainu has saved them more than 1,500,000 euros in expenses.

The company

LocalTapiola Group is a mutual group of companies owned by its customers. LocalTapiola's products and services cover non-life, life, and pension insurance, as well as investment and saving services. For businesses, LocalTapiola provides services that help them face unexpected misfortune. "We give them more healthy years of life and help them reach economic independence," says Sakari Pehkonen, Financial Director of LocalTapiola. Using Vainu, LocalTapiola's sales and customer service teams have streamlined their processes, and the results speak for themselves.

The challenge

Pehkonen realized their sales and customer service were not running smoothly enough, threatening their core promise of service. From the customer experience side, the company's internal processes took too long, while customer meetings were inefficient: LocalTapiola employees knew too little about their customers. Secondly, booking new meetings was an area where they lost new sales opportunities due to a lack of information.

With the help of Vainu, both issues were solved by leading LocalTapiola to the data-driven era. Vainu has helped LocalTapiola Capital Region on two fronts. Read on to find out how.

The Solution

AI-powered customer data

LocalTapiola spent three months pinpointing the issue and ultimately understood they simply needed more data on their customers. "The solution we found was to start cooperation with Vainu," Pehkonen says. Vainu provides LocalTapiola with corporate data and analytics integrated with their own BI and CRM data. All this is then combined with an AI-powered technology called Vainu View, which provides a comprehensive look at the customer when contacted. "The solution brings us completely new ways to take care of our customers' needs," Pehkonen explains. "We now know how their business is going, what is written in the news, and whether or not they have, for example, new people coming into the company, all of which gives us a lot of information to talk about," Pehkonen summarizes the benefits.

Data-driven booking

For a sales organization, there's always a finite amount of companies to sell to. For some, there are tens of thousands of potential customers, and for others, only a handful. For LocalTapiola Capital Region, there are more than a few available, but not enough to squander. How do they make sure that every contact towards a potential customer is run smartly?

Jari Peltola is LocalTapiola Capital Region's Customer Relations Director responsible for a band of 70 insurance salespersons aiming to find new B2C and B2B customers. Daily, more than 500 staff hours are consumed on contacting new potential clients. Before Vainu, those hours were spent calling through static lists of companies, and the pitch from company to company was the same. For an experienced director, such as Peltola, the situation wasn't sustainable as several daily possibilities were missed due to a lack of customer knowledge. Something needed to change, and during a meet-up with Vainu, the solution emerged.

The solution was formed in cooperation with Vainu and LocalTapiola staff and started by identifying the most profitable target segments. Eventually, three distinct segments were identified, and salespersons were interviewed to find out the best ways to convince decision-makers at each segment. Based on the results, Vainu CEO Mikko Honkanen wrote three pitches to fit every target group. "It was a clear indication from Mikko's part that he genuinely wants to help his customers," Peltola praises. After identifying the segments to focus their sales efforts on, they now needed the list of companies, divided into the newly created segments. Using Vainu's state-of-the-art company information, this was an effortless operation.

Outcome: Millions in net benefit

Using Vainu, LocalTapiola's sales and customer service have improved their speed and quality and saved on expenses. "Our first call resolution has gone up from 75 percent to around 90 percent. Also, our contact volume has gone down about 20 percent," Pehkonen says.

On the booking front, salespeople have enjoyed having a crystal clear idea of why they are contacting each company. Starting from the first week of the new way of booking hit rate increased by 23 percent. Statistically, this means 40 more meetings per quarter for LocalTapiola Capital Region and an estimated 200,000€ increased yearly revenue with the current closing hit rate.

"Our net benefit can be counted in millions. And we're just getting started," Pehkonen finishes.