Norway's mobile phone market is becoming increasingly competitive, and the bargaining power is shifting from the telecommunications companies to the customers. Telenor Mobil, the mobile phone division of Norway's leading telecommunications operator, Telenor Group, recognized that it needed to focus on customer loyalty to reduce churn, while increasing its market share.

Susan Hagerty, Dialog Marketing Manager, said, "We have been preparing for a more competitive mobile communications market and higher rate of customer churn. We saw this trend developing and knew we had to implement an effective strategy to prevent our leading market share from declining."

The solution was identified; Telenor Mobil needed to communicate with specific market segments - groups of customers with similar profiles.

Prime Vantage Achieves Maximum Marketing Dialog

After investigating the options on the market Telenor Mobil decided Prime Vantage, Prime Response's marketing automation solution, would best achieve maximum marketing dialog with its customers.

"We identified the requirement for a marketing tool that could operate on several levels. First, to be able to identify and group customers with similar needs that were suitable targets for specific product and service packages," said Hagerty. "Second, we needed to make provisions to develop opportunities for long-term schemes aimed at differentiating discriminating customers. Finally, we wanted to implement a decision support system to work for campaigns, pricing structures, and product development."

First, Prime Vantage was tested with a dummy database in an intensive series of challenging business and technical scenarios. Test direct-marketing campaigns were set up, which included automating and producing individualized letters to specific customer groups and responding to customer queries on these letters.

Next, the system was implemented and IT specialists developed the underlying database.

Third, the system was integrated with Prime Vantage marketing activities on a company-wide basis and with other customer-facing systems. This allowed information gathered by Prime Vantage to be used by all departments and also enable employee input.

The final stage was to create a department to design compelling marketing communications and processes to support the effective implementation of the entire marketing program. To achieve this, Telenor Mobil employed and trained 10 staff with the required spec