Case Studies & Testimonials
- Moneysupermarket.com
moneysupermarket.com works with CasePRO to configure flexible, robust workflow across online processes
Introduction
moneysupermarket.com, Britain's leading financial price comparison website, helps users find the best deals on financial products such as credit cards and mortgages. It offers similar services for those wanting to buy insurance, holidays and utilities such as gas or electricity. The company was founded in 1998 and since that time has grown enormously in stature and popularity.
Of course, a company of this size is continually reviewing and improving the service offered and offering customer choice continues to be a core objective. To this end a telephone based sales team was put into place in January 2004, initially, for mortgage and protection advice. This team was supported by manual systems, using spreadsheets to manage the workflows and to store details. Although this approach worked well to prove the viability of the business model, it was not sustainable in the longer term because it was unable to scale as the business grew. It was with this in mind that moneysupermarket.com went to the market in May 2005 to identify a case management system that would provide a robust and feature-rich workflow process and automatic MI capability for the telephone based team moving forward.
Finding the right platform
An initial tender process saw five companies competing for the moneysupermarket.com business. As well as CasePRO, large and well known industry suppliers and an incumbent provider responded to the ITT and prepared presentations accordingly. moneysupermarket.com created an assessment matrix through which to score the bids, measuring ITT responses against seven key criteria. The most important category was being "fit for business requirement" and the ability to implement within relatively tight "timelines". The other five criteria looked, in detail, at the technology to be implemented, and at the credentials of the companies involved. At the end of this process, moneysupermarket.com identified CasePRO as the preferred supplier and engaged with them to deliver the solution.
Building the right system
The implementation process began, aiming to deliver a system specifically designed for mortgage application management. moneysupermarket.com was in the enviable position of starting with a clean sheet rather than migrating from one software platform to another. The paper system was run in parallel for a period of time while all new cases were input directly to the new software platform. The CasePRO team worked onsite to build the workflow and to give training to the moneysupermarket.com developers. They were soon able to take control of the system design in-house, using the CasePRO team for consultancy only.
According to Louise Cuming, Head of Mortgage Services at moneysupermarket.com, "We chose the CasePRO software for several reasons, but one of the main factors was its configurability. It was essential that what we built met our business requirements very precisely. Also, the software is flexible and easy to use so it can be adapted quickly to our changing business needs and costs are kept down because training requirements are minimal. These features are so important to us because we operate in a highly regulated industry and we need to be able to respond immediately to regulatory changes. At the same time, our users must be able to respond rapidly and efficiently to customers as they apply. The ability to strip complexity from the user interface is key."
Moving forward at a pace
Since the initial implementation the development team has become self sufficient in CasePRO and is able to take on new projects with minimal input from CasePRO itself. So, when the company planned to introduce a new service for online loan applications its team was able to launch it in CasePRO, using only in-house resources. And, within the loan application system moneysupermarket.com was able to build XML feeds for automatic interfacing directly with partners' systems. This means that the process is streamlined and instances of data re-keying are avoided to ensure greater accuracy throughout.
A further extension of the company's service offerings into broadband and utilities is again being handled using CasePRO. In fact, as the company plans for continued accelerated growth through the addition of new services, and staff to handle them, so the scaleability of the system is coming under careful scrutiny. This is a key area for the system, which is currently handling as many as 30,0000 new client details each month, far greater volumes than could have been foreseen. This level of usage must be catered for by the systems and contingency built in for the future.
Louise Cuming comments, "As we have a sophisticated workflow around high level customer information and our requirements of the system have grown, system speed and response times have provided some challenges, but CasePRO have been incredibly responsive to our needs throughout. We remain bullish with regard to our performance for next year with this system in place and it growing with us. CasePRO continues to be incredibly configurable, flexible and easy to work with. We have built all manner of interfaces between our website and CasePRO to enable data to flow automatically between the two. This works well and has proved to be easy to achieve."
And into the future
The next stage in this development story is to extend the system once again to cater for new services. This time, moneysupermarket.com has moved into the debt market, giving help and advice to those struggling with their finances. The telephone based debt service is again supported by CasePRO.
Furthermore, in 2008, there are many plans for new services to be introduced into the moneysupermarket.com portfolio and the system will need to grow accordingly. Louise Cuming concludes, "CasePRO has a unique approach that is personable and customer-focused. They put our business needs first and met all deadlines and targets precisely. We have a robust system in place that we hope will expand with us for many years and services to come."
