Analytics Drive Innovation

InfoCision
WINTER 2015
CREATING ONE TO ONE CUSTOMER INTERACTIONS
Analytics
Drive
Innovation
The Taylor Institute
prepares the next
generation of direct
and interactive
marketing experts
+
How gamification helps
boost performance
Call center analytics create
positive experiences
CONTACT CENTER
& DIRECT MARKETING
SOLUTIONS
WEB
CHAT
PHONE
EMAIL
MAIL
TEXT
The InfoCision difference
FIND, SERVE & KEEP your high-value customers for life
Curt Cramblett
VP New Business Development
330.670.5817 • [email protected]
|table of contents|
InfoCision
CREATING ONE-TO-ONE CUSTOMER INTERACTIONS
WINTER 2015
PUBLISHER
STEVE BRUBAKER
MANAGING EDITOR
SAMANTHA WELLS
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
ERIK CASSANO
DAVID SEARLS
PHOTOGRAPHER
JESSE KRAMER
MARKETING SOLUTIONS IS
PUBLISHED BY SBN INTERACTIVE
835 SHARON DRIVE, SUITE 200
WESTLAKE, OH 44145
(440) 250-7000
Marketing Solutions is solely intended
for general information purposes. It is
not intended to provide – nor should it
be used in lieu of – financial, accounting, legal or other professional advice.
The publisher assumes no liability
for readers’ use of the information
contained herein. The information was
obtained from sources believed to be
reliable, but such information is not
guaranteed as to its accuracy. Readers
should seek professional assistance
with regard to specific matters.
FEATURES
14 Analytics drive innovation
The Taylor Institute prepares the next
generation of direct and interactive
marketing experts
19 By the numbers
For more information on InfoCision’s
unique teleservices capabilities and how
they can work for you, contact us today.
InfoCision Management Corporation
325 Springside Drive
Akron, Ohio 44333
Phone: (330) 668-1400
InfoCision.com
Printed by InfoCision’s direct mail and
fulfillment department.
How InfoCision’s Marketing Analytics
team enables account teams to drive
client program results
DEPARTMENTS
4 C suite
5 Governance
The Data Analytics team finds hidden
value in call center numbers
22 Personalizing the customer
experience
Data warehousing and customer
intelligence enhance the quality of
every call
Infocision’s governance
department helps ensure great
service by defining guidelines
and measuring adherence
6 Call Center
20 All in the Details
Information and data analytics
drive the future of marketing
innovation
Using call center analytics to
create positive call experiences
8 Performance
Gamification motivates
InfoCision’s Communicators
and helps boost performance
10 Business
InfoCision Chief Technology
Officer Michael White and his
teams are using data analytics
to add significant value for
clients
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 3
|letter from the C-Suite|
Letter from the C-suite
INFORMATION AND DATA ANALYTICS DRIVE THE FUTURE OF
MARKETING INNOVATION
I
n 1982, our founders, Gary and Karen Taylor, recognized the value in providing clients with the
right information to make the best direct marketing decisions, naming their startup company
InfoCision.
Flash forward to today’s data-driven society, where the need for information is more
dynamic than ever. And the data are vast, with huge databases that must be broken down,
analyzed and understood in order to navigate marketing strategy at the ever-increasing speed of
business. Now with more than 30 years of success to draw from, InfoCision is at the forefront of
data analytics innovations. We’re partnering with clients to create valuable
marketing solutions customized for each customer or donor interaction,
resulting in strengthened brand reputation and higher ROI.
This issue of Marketing Solutions magazine
features our exciting new happenings in the
analytics space. As many successful leaders
celebrate multiple decades of experience in the
direct marketing business, it’s ever so important
that they remain connected to the next generation
of up-and-coming marketing experts.
Our feature story (page 14) spotlights The
Gary & Karen Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing,
a unique facility at The University of Akron that
educates undergraduate and MBA students in the
specialized techniques of direct and interactive
marketing, including social media, marketing
analytics, qualitative marketing research,
multichannel marketing campaign development and teleservices. The Taylor
Institute regularly engages with direct marketing leaders and practitioners
and provides a source of practical learning and innovation valuable to the
industry’s longevity and relevance.
Speaking of relevance, wouldn’t it be great if you could provide the exact program, product or
service at the right time and communicate it in a way that your customers or donors would be most
likely to positively respond to and benefit from? The challenge is knowing exactly how to execute
the best targeted marketing strategy to effectively engage consumers or donors, while maintaining
consistent branding. Now more than ever, InfoCision is uniquely positioned to help clients solve this
very challenge with the expertise of our Business Analytics team (page 10). Composed of teams
tenured in technology, business processes and analysis, the focus is on gathering and studying
transactional and other data to determine meaningful trends and maximize results for our clients.
We anticipate you’ll enjoy learning more about the specialized analytics areas – marketing,
performance and more, detailed throughout this issue of Marketing Solutions magazine. Feel free to
contact me at (330) 668-1400 or [email protected] to further engage with us on these exciting
opportunities and any of your call center solutions partnership needs.
Now with more
than 30 years
of success
to draw from,
InfoCision is at
the forefront of
data analytics
innovations.
Steve Brubaker,
InfoCision Chief of Staff
Publisher, Marketing Solutions magazine
[email protected]
4 | WINTER 2015
InfoCision.com
|governance|
Quality defined
INFOCISION’S GOVERNANCE DEPARTMENT HELPS ENSURE GREAT SERVICE
BY DEFINING GUIDELINES AND MEASURING ADHERENCE
S
etting the stage for a great
customer experience begins behind
the scenes at InfoCision. In
2014, InfoCision centralized the
monitoring of internal guidelines with the
formation of its governance department.
“It’s an important step, because now
there is an extra set of eyes focused on
operations to set expectations on key
performance indicator guidelines that need
to be adhered to and to identify outliers
based on those guidelines,” says Director
of Governance Mark Rodio. “At a high
level, most companies have teams of people
responsible for supporting clients’ needs
and expectations. Marketing, Sales and
IT all concentrate on delivering their part,
and these all come together to consistently
produce the overall desired results. A
formally established governance department
can focus attention on the whole of the
parts and on making sure we’re doing
what we say we’re going to do based on
measuring activities and results against
internal guidelines, contractual agreements
and legal requirements.”
The governance team collaborates
with InfoCision department heads to
develop the proper metrics and guidelines
by which each department should be
measured. Governance then conducts
audits of the targeted business processes
to identify outliers, which helps leaders
quickly see where corrective action may be
required in the process to quickly get back
into adherence.
“We also look at criteria required at
setup that is used to calculate results, such
as KPIs, goals, rates, etc.,” Rodio says.
“Auditing the input criteria ensures proper
results calculation and identifies outliers to
“We use different tools to
present data visually, ensuring
it’s easy to understand, and
identify what’s important.”
—Mark Rodio, Director of Governance, InfoCision
ensure that business-critical processes are
operating smoothly.
“There is so much data available, it can
be challenging for busy leaders to infer
what is going on in a concise fashion.
So we use different tools to present data
visually, ensuring it’s easy to understand,
and identify what’s important.”
Rodio’s team presents audit findings
in an easy-to-reference fashion, so
department leaders can quickly understand
and begin taking action toward
improvement.
In any business, leaders may sometimes
come to view the governance team as
existing only to point out what’s wrong.
Yet Rodio says his department has
developed a collaborative approach among
InfoCision departments, working together
toward a common goal of providing the
best possible service to customers.
“Governance isn’t pointing out what’s
wrong, per se,” he says. “It’s pointing out
where the opportunities are. It’s working
together to make the best possible end
product. We’re all about assisting the
company in making adjustments for the
better.”
As with his fellow Business Analytics
leaders, Rodio is a tenured employee and
brings previous IT experience and a global
view of system functionality within the
organization.
“I’m excited InfoCision has invested
in and formed this department,” he
says. “By having a dedicated department
that monitors the usage of systems and
processes, as well as desired results, the
value is added confidence for our clients as
they continue to do business with us.”
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 5
|call center|
connection
Making the
Using call
center analytics
to create
positive call
experiences
6 | WINTER 2015
T
he more that is known about the telephone habits of a
specific market, the better job an organization can do
managing communication with those specific customers.
That’s what’s behind Mike Shonk’s job as Vice President of
Call Center Analytics at InfoCision. His department tracks call
data to identify habits and trends that will assist Communicators
in placing and receiving calls that are less intrusive and more
effective, thereby providing consistent and positive brand
representation for clients
“What we’ve learned is the culmination of targeted effort and
years of experience regarding both inbound and outbound calls,
InfoCision.com
and then sharing our findings across the
enterprise through information analysis,”
says Shonk.
Narrow window
A prime call center goal is to make contact
in as few calls as possible to provide a
positive customer experience.
As Shonk explains it, “If we make
multiple attempts to reach someone at a
certain time of the day without success,
we’ll take notice and try an alternative
time.”
However, if the phone is picked up at
9 in the morning, this may be the ideal
time to talk with that particular customer
and record that data for future knowledge.
Just as business associates become aware
of their colleagues’ preferred time and
method of contact, InfoCision can apply
the same concept when making calls to
clients’ customers or donors.
This sort of individualized information
analysis belongs to the client.
“We won’t ‘cross-pollinate’ by using
that information on calls for other
organizations,” says Shonk.
Certain demographic information
also adds value. For instance, says Shonk,
“Retirees have a greater propensity for
picking up the phone throughout the day.
But they prefer to be called earlier rather
than later.”
Capturing this best time to call
information has become critical.
“We’ve seen over the last five or six
years that the rate of customers picking up
a random call has dropped considerably,
from as much as 55 percent of our
audience to as little as 35 percent today
in some time periods,” says Shonk. “Our
opportunity is to figure out when they’ll
be most receptive to the conversation.”
As more customers migrate to
cellphones as the primary point of contact,
“What we’ve learned is the culmination of targeted effort and
years of experience regarding both inbound and outbound
calls, and then sharing our findings across the enterprise
through information analysis.”
– Mike Shonk, Vice President of Call Center Analytics, InfoCision
new challenges develop. Cellphones
carry a “higher intrusive value” than
landlines, and cellphone users have a
greater expectation of privacy. “We’re
more accepting of multiple hits on a
home phone than we are on a cellphone,”
says Shonk. “We’re more aware of the
attempted call and the impact is greater
because it’s with you all the time — at
work, at home, at the kids’ soccer game.”
InfoCision’s ability to predict when
the customer is most likely to pick up
leads to a greater chance of a positive call
experience for the customer or donor.
Inbound call practices
Shonk’s department also accumulates
inbound calling trends in order to provide
the most responsive service possible.
For instance, while the customer service
phone lines for our client, Little Tikes,
are open Monday through Saturday, 66
percent of weekly calls are received by
noon on Wednesdays.
“Knowing that, we can make
sure our best and most experienced
Communicators work early in the week,
reducing the caller queue and helping
customers when they need it most.”
By leveraging the power of call center
analytics, Shonk and his team can help
InfoCision better connect with its
clients’ customers and donors, creating a
seamless experience and the opportunity
to strengthen their connection with the
organization’s brand.
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 7
|performance|
gameon
Gamification
motivates
InfoCision’s
Communicators
and helps boost
performance
8 | WINTER 2015
J
ob perks, gift cards and a little spirited competition can
make the workday a bit more interesting — and call center
employees measurably more productive and engaged at
work. That’s the theory behind “gamification,” as played
out at InfoCision. The concept, introduced as InfoRewards, was
successfully piloted at two call centers and was then introduced
corporatewide to all call centers and other areas of the business in
September 2014.
Gamification is defined as applying game theory to a nongame
environment. Employees accumulate points and earn rewards
through measurable achievement. This program is a natural fit
for the metrics-driven InfoCision call center environment, where
results are easily scored, point totals can be assigned and updated
regularly and winning performances are recognized and rewarded.
The man behind the numbers is Chris Vignali, InfoCision’s
Director of Performance Analytics.
“InfoRewards is a great way to motivate and incentivize
performance,” he says. “It’s about giving employees instant
feedback. We can create challenges at any level and instantly
award points for results gained.”
For the company’s Communicators, the InfoRewards program
starts with the kiosks located in each call center. During nonproduction hours, employees can call up their individual profile
pages, view point balances, window shop at the rewards store
and redeem some or all of their accumulated points. Points can
be spent on gift cards from Walmart, Toys R Us, Giant Eagle,
InfoCision.com
Chipotle, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Get Go,
Speedway and others. Employees can also
donate points to the company’s nonprofit
clients. Or points can be cashed in for
internal perks, such as preferred parking
spaces and job schedules.
“Assigned parking spaces are a big deal
around here,” says InfoCision Regional
Director Alwynn Mellen.
Mellen, who also manages the Green
Christian call center where the program
was piloted, thinks that gift cards are
more valuable than a slightly fattened
paycheck because they’re tangible proof of
accomplishment.
“When they get and use a gift card,
it lets people see the value of their
performance, whether it earns them a date
night with their spouse or a shopping trip
at a toy store for the grandkids,” she says.
Although she’s only seen early results,
Mellen thinks InfoRewards will be a winner.
“It’s definitely been a motivator,” she
says. “It allows our Communicators to be
more aware of key performance indicators
and to be awarded for achieving them.”
Anecdotally, Mellen says the program
has also had a positive impact on morale
and employee engagement.
“People love to check out their profile
pages and see how they’re doing,” she says.
“It’s a big topic of conversation.”
As part of the program, big screen
televisions are displayed on the walls
of each call center to help incentivize
performance. One half of the screen shows
point leaders for the day, week and month.
On the other side, Communicators can
achieve instant recognition as their names
pop up on the screen when they reach
certain performance marks.
“We’ve created mile markers along
the way so Communicators can see
improvements, so we have thousand-point
“We don’t pit people against people
because we don’t want that culture.
But we do have team challenges,
and people love to take part and do
their best for the team.”
– Chris Vignali, Director of Performance Analytics, InfoCision
clubs, 5,000-point clubs, 10,000-point
clubs, etc.,” says Vignali.
And while InfoCision uses the program
to motivate people, the aim is to keep it
positive in the spirit of friendly competition.
“We don’t pit people against people
because we don’t want that culture,” says
Vignali. “But we do have team challenges,
and people love to take part and do their
best for the team.”
The InfoRewards program is broken
down into three types of gamesmanship
levels.
• Ongoing campaign challenges are
the day-to-day, predetermined and
expected contests.
• Boost challenges offer sudden, shortterm point accumulation possibilities.
A one-hour challenge might suddenly
be called on an afternoon when analysts
see that performance is slow against
goals set for a client.
• Executive challenges can target salaried
and other employees outside the call
center, as well as Communicators.
This type of challenge could be called
to harness greater results from HR
recruiters, or to encourage training and
recertification efforts.
Any work performance that can be
measured can be assigned points and
used to nudge results toward earning a
reward. While the obvious beneficiaries
are InfoCision employees, clients also
benefit. In addition to being another way
to enhance performance and achieve or
exceed their expected sales or donation
results, the program can also put clients in
a positive light with employees who are,
after all, also consumers.
“Whenever we can, we use client
products as rewards and, in the case of
nonprofit clients, we can promote them as
recipients of donated points,” says Vignali.
“In this way, the program can be used as
an extension of clients’ own branding.”
While the program is too new to offer
much in the way of performance data,
Vignali has recently reported incremental
increases in results.
Employees appreciate being
recognized and materially rewarded for
their achievements, and when those
achievements boost client results, everyone
is a winner.
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 9
|business|
THE
POWER
data
OF
InfoCision Chief Technology
Officer Michael White and his
teams are using data analytics to
add significant value for clients
10 | WINTER 2015
S
ales success is a matter of numbers, the most important
of which is the quantity of contacts made. At InfoCision,
an array of numbers adds up to success for clients and
their programs. The raw data generated from every
phone dialing transaction is studied and used to improve future
transactions and boost the results of client programs.
To promote this data analysis effort, early in 2014, the
company created a half dozen closely interrelated working teams
— Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing, Performance
Analytics, Call Center Analytics & Command Center, Data
Analytics, Marketing Analytics and Governance — that perform
InfoCision.com
under the leadership of Michael White,
InfoCision’s 25-year IT veteran who heads
up the Business Analytics department.
The common denominator for most of
these new teams is analytics, and the idea
is to measure virtually every aspect of the
relationship between its clients’ customers
and the Communicators who either place
or receive calls.
InfoCision call centers provide a
wealth of information on every dialing
transaction, with hard data accumulated
on factors such as whether contact was
achieved, the duration of the call and the
outcome. Some of these new analytics
teams accumulate and analyze data
to study Communicator performance
while others acquire and analyze data
on customer habits and characteristics.
Still another analytics team has figured
out how to measure and reward
Communicator performance as a means of
achieving better results.
“What we’re doing is using data to
capture trend information and creatively
maximize results for our clients,” says White.
Learning more about the customer
One important element of the analytics
push is to gain greater insight regarding
the customer on the other end of the
line. By accessing a variety of public
databases, InfoCision marketing teams
can write more targeted calling scripts and
Communicators can gain access to a wide
range of demographic and psychographic
information about the customer that
can allow them to better personalize the
communication and widen its appeal.
“For instance, if we’re selling a cable
television subscription service and know
a customer has kids, the Communicator
might emphasize the children’s
programming that is available,” says White.
Similarly, if it knows that a customer
is a credit card holder, the calling script
“InfoCision is using data to capture trend
information and creatively maximize
results for our clients.”
– Michael White, Chief Technology Officer, InfoCision
might include a special credit card offer.
And by learning that customers are
repeatedly unavailable during certain times
of day, the call time can be altered until
a better time is found for reaching that
particular customer or fundraising donor.
By collecting data about inbound calls,
the reason for contact can be determined
so the call can be routed to the most
appropriate Communicator.
When it comes to nonconnected
calls, InfoCision clients can opt in to a
service to share that information with the
organization’s other clients. This can save
time and effort, as a customer or fundraising
donor who won’t answer the phone after
repeated calls for one program is unlikely to
respond to calls during the same time of day
for another client program.
“This is an entirely voluntary way of
refining a calling list, and no information
will be shared with other clients about the
results of completed calls. We’ll only share
nonconnect information for those that
choose to opt in,” says White.
Helping Communicators maximize performance
It’s not just the customer base that can
be studied in greater depth. Data analysis
related to the Communicator side of
the transaction can lead to performance
improvements on many levels, as
everything from the length of the call to
Communicators’ individual sales rates can
be measured.
For example, longer inbound phone
calls are costlier for the client, so data
analytics team members can time the calls
to find the longer calls and help maintain
the average duration for each type of call.
The typical completed call lasts about
four-and-a-half minutes, but when the
transaction is more complex, such as
an inbound call in which phone service
options must be explained and compared,
a call can last as long as 20 minutes.
“When calls go significantly longer
or shorter than the average, that could
signify a problem,” says White. “The
Communicator might be in need of
additional product knowledge or training,
or is struggling to maintain the flow of
conversation. So trainers can listen in and
offer additional coaching.”
The Governance team also makes
sure that Communicators follow internal
standards regarding processes, procedures,
policies and ethics, ensuring that call
center activity upholds clients’ good
images while delivering expected results.
As a result of their efforts, White and
his team are adding significant value to
call center operations and improving the
results of client programs through the
power of smart data analysis.
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 11
InfoCision helps you FIND, SERVE and
Our People
MATURE Average age is 41 years
DEDICATED 75% are full time
EXPERIENCED Average tenure is 4+ years
TRAINED Up to 120 day client-specific training
The InfoCision
Difference
• Turnkey Marketing Partner
• Highest ROI for Our Clients
• Lower Cost Per Sale
• Highest Conversion Rates
MOTIVATED Performance-based compensation
• Highest Quality Sales
• Longer Lifetime Value of Customer
COACHED 9:1 Agent to Supervisor Ratio
• Highest Customer Satisfaction Scores
Your strategic marketing partner, InfoCision provides multichannel
solutions to deliver you a higher ROI. Couple our data analytics with
contact center, mail and interactive solutions for superior results.
KEEP your high-value customers for life.
Industry
Experience
Contact Center
Solutions
For over 30 years, InfoCision has been
a trusted partner of leading nonprofit and
Fortune 500 companies.
We analyze data trends and apply
techniques across all channels to
maximize results.
• Inbound Sales & Customer Service
• Telecommunications
• Media / Cable
• Inbound Sales & Customer Service
• Direct Response
• Outbound Sales & Service
• Business to Business
• Energy / Utilities
• Direct Mail
• Financial Services
• Fulfillment & Print Services
• Consumer Goods / DRTV
• Rapid Response Routing
• Customer Service
• Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals
• Nonprofits / Fundraising
Curt Cramblett
VP New Business Development
330.670.5817 • [email protected]
• Business Intelligence
• Fundraising Solutions
• Online Services
• Lead Generation
Analytics
Drive
Innovation
The Taylor Institute prepares the
next generation of direct and
interactive marketing experts
By Erik Cassano / Photography by Jesse Kramer
I
n the 11 years since the founding of the Gary L. and Karen
S. Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing at the University of
Akron, the marketing industry has rapidly evolved. A model
that was once marketer-focused through single-channel
methods such as print, radio and television has become a
customer-centric model in which marketers must leverage the
power of social media and web tools in harmony with traditional
methods.
Current and future University of Akron marketing graduates
entering the industry must be flexible, adaptable and experienced.
That is where The Taylor Institute fits in perfectly to meet the
industry need, ensuring that students are prepared for what they
will face when entering the dynamic interactive marketing field.
“Since we launched in 2004, we’ve seen email marketing,
search engines and the explosion of social media,” says Jacob
Farrar, Director of the Taylor Institute. “We are always changing
and developing as the industry evolves,”
14 | WINTER 2015
InfoCision.com
Vanja Djuric interacts
with students at the
Taylor Institute
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 15
“The digital side
has really changed
marketing over the
past decade or so,
and it’s really what
differentiates our
program.”
— Jacob Farrar, Director, The Taylor Institute for
Direct Marketing
The Taylor Institute is a unique facility
that provides educational opportunities
to undergraduate and MBA students in
the specialized techniques of Direct &
Interactive Marketing, including social
media, marketing analytics, qualitative
marketing research, multichannel
marketing campaign development and
teleservices.
Rather than being a formal teaching
organization with a traditional curriculum
and full-time faculty, the facility partners
with leading industry experts to provide
students with hands-on experience in
developing, creating and launching
integrated marketing campaigns and
gauging the effectiveness of those
campaigns through insight and analytics.
“We primarily support the Integrated
Marketing Communications, or IMC,
major,” Farrar says. “It’s a major that
focuses on two areas of marketing:
developing the message and determining
the best channel to deliver the message.
16 | WINTER 2015
It requires a thorough understanding of
your customer through data and analytics,
and how to utilize the available avenues
to reach the customer. Those are the areas
we try to focus on in our applied-learning
laboratories.”
Getting into the lab
Direct marketing in the modern world
is strongly tied to integrated marketing,
which is the art and science of consistent
messaging across all communication
channels.
Integrated marketing is essential to
master for anyone entering the marketing
industry, ensuring that messages are
crafted in such a way that a television ad
can reach a middle-aged consumer and a
social media blast can reach a millennial,
and both can imprint the same message
about the same product.
“The digital side has really changed
marketing over the past decade or so, and
it’s really what differentiates our program,”
Farrar says. “We place an emphasis on
how to take a traditional marketing
campaign and use it in the digital realm.”
The need for integrated-marketing
experts in a new-media world has helped
drive the Taylor Institute’s approach to
hands-on learning. The institute strives
to offer a comprehensive experience to
University of Akron students interested
in studying marketing, allowing them
to practice designing and implementing
marketing initiatives across all channels.
The institute encourages participation
from freshmen through senior students.
“We have 25,000 square feet of
learning space, mostly applied-learning
laboratories,” Farrar says. “Our labs
are each dedicated to a specific area of
learning. We have a call-center lab that
is used by campus entities, in which
students can learn how to create successful
phone campaigns and learn the basics of
creating positive customer experiences.
We also have a social media lab in which
InfoCision.com
our students help to manage social media
for local organizations. The students
assist start to finish, from developing the
message to putting it out there.”
The idea, Farrar says, is to take what
is learned in the classroom and enhance
it by giving students the experience
of conducting real-world marketing
campaigns while still in the university
setting. This allows them to work
alongside the faculty members in the
marketing department, nearly all of whom
hold doctorate or master’s degrees in their
area of marketing specialization.
Not only does the combination of
classroom and hands-on experience help
students land jobs once they graduate,
it helps them secure internships with
prestigious companies while still in school.
“All of the marketing classes are held
in the same building with us, so students
have the ability to utilize all of our
resources whenever they want to,” Farrar
says. “We usually have about 700 students
on the class rosters in our marketing
department at any given time, and we
want to be a resource and a learning
tool that they can take advantage of
throughout their time here at Akron.”
Community involvement
Successful marketing requires global
thinking, but the Taylor Institute is
utilizing community resources, both
among Akron students and among the
larger marketing community in Northeast
Ohio, to accomplish it.
The Taylor Institute aims to serve as a
two-way resource, providing students with
experience and opportunities in the world
of marketing, and providing companies
with educated entry-level manpower in
the form of qualified Akron interns and
graduates.
“As a resource, we really strive to
achieve four goals,” Farrar says. “One,
we’re a place where companies can find
students who are capable and wellqualified for entry-level jobs in direct
marketing. Second, and hand in hand
teachable
moments
Vanja Djuric combines
teaching with the
business world as the
Taylor Institute’s Director
of Research and Analytics
The focus of the Taylor Institute is different from institutes and centers at
other universities, and Vanja Djuric is a big reason why.
Many campus institutions that partner with departments, colleges,
or other academic entities within a university mainly serve an academic
research purpose. However, the Taylor Institute, which works in tandem
with the Marketing Department at the University of Akron, is primarily an
educational and applied-learning organization, taking lab research into the
real world.
Djuric, the Institute’s Director of Research and Analytics, helps
promote that approach through a combination of classroom teaching and
analytics projects that benefit area businesses.
“Our labs focus on applied learning,” Djuric says. “We have lab
projects that focus on qualitative and quantitative research such as focus
group, analytics and usability. We’re contracted with companies that may
not have the resources to do that type of research themselves.”
Djuric manages the overall process of the projects, which are
assigned to teams of graduate assistants and undergraduate student
employees. The students are involved in every phase of the project, from
brainstorming the initial concept to producing the final result.
“A lot of what we do depends on the needs of the organization we’re
helping, but we are hands-on the whole way through,” Djuric says. “If a
company is interested in surveying their clients and/or consumers, we’ll
come up with the overall design of the survey, the implementation and the
analysis piece after the data is collected. It gives our students a chance to
look at the relationships between different questions and understand the
importance of finding meaningful connections and relationships.”
Djuric’s teams also maintain a portion of the Taylor Institute blog to
share thought leadership and best research and analytics practices.
“It’s an opportunity to demonstrate best practices, along with
highlighting the work we are capable of accomplishing,” Djuric says.
Djuric, who is also a professor of Marketing and Sales Analytics, ties
all of the students’ projects back to what she and the faculty at Akron
teach in the classroom.
“It’s a way to take the concepts taught in the classroom and dig
deeper,” she says. “Students get necessary experience, understand the
roles of research and analytics techniques, while utilizing that attained
knowledge to help regional companies. It’s really a win-win situation for
everyone involved.”
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 17
“We do conduct some research for the industry, but educating
and preparing students for a successful marketing career is
our central area of focus.”
— Jacob Farrar, Director, The Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing
with that, we provide a supply of qualified
interns. Third, we’re a place for thought
leadership, and fourth, we conduct
research — although our emphasis as an
organization is on education.”
The institute’s status as a resource for
marketing talent, analytics and thought
leadership has led it to become a valuable
partner for companies in and around
Akron, including InfoCision, for which it
has provided employees with tutorials in
the latest business analytics techniques to
keep them on the cutting edge of the field.
The Taylor Institute also serves as
a thought-leadership resource for the
regional marketing community through
events that bring leading industry experts
to Akron.
“This year’s annual Interaction
Marketing Summit drew about 150
people for the daylong event this past
June,” Farrar says. “Our keynote speakers
included Lisa Arthur, CMO of Teradata
Applications, who spoke about the use
of data in interactive marketing, and Joe
Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing
Institute, who spoke about content
marketing and social media. It provided a
18 | WINTER 2015
unique opportunity for local marketers to
hear from nationally respected marketing
innovators.”
Forward thinking
The Taylor Institute has cemented itself
as a critical resource for the evolving needs
of University of Akron marketing students
and for companies in Akron and beyond.
“We’re always looking for ways we
can grow, and our five-year plan involves
growing in a couple of different ways,”
Farrar says. “The first is to grow through
more corporate involvement. We want to
conduct more events that connect area
businesses with experts in the field and
continue to find more ways to facilitate
internships, which are mutually beneficial
to our students and business partners.”
“We want to become even more
involved with the IMC major here at
Akron and introduce new ways to give
those students hands-on experience,”
Farrar says. “We’re always looking for new
tools and technology that we can make
available to students for training purposes.
Education is our primary focus, and we
never want to lose sight of that. While
some university marketing centers are
primarily focused on research, we’re the
opposite. We do conduct some research for
the industry, but educating and preparing
students for a successful marketing career is
our central area of focus.”
In particular, the Institute is focused
on increasing student education on
marketing uses of smartphone applications.
Smartphone apps have powerful potential
as a direct-marketing tool — potential that
is only now being developed. Farrar says it’s
extremely important for next-generation
marketers to understand the role that
smartphone apps will play in marketing, in
the coming years and decades.
“Smartphones will continue play a huge
role in marketing moving forward,” he
says. “You phone is with you just about
everywhere, so people can know where
you are and market to you based on where
you’re located. Combine that with purchase
data analytics, and you have a tremendous
tool that can allow you to tailor-make
special deals and offerings to consumers
based on what you know about their history
and where they’re physically located.”
Success stories
The emphasis on comprehensive
education and training, both at the Taylor
Institute, and more broadly, in Akron’s
marketing department, has allowed
graduates to write their own career success
stories. Akron marketing graduates are
employed at scores of firms and businesses
throughout Ohio and beyond, including
corporate giants Amazon and Google as
well as fast-rising companies. Others have
gone on to start their own businesses.
“We’ve gone to the effort to contact
many of our IMC graduates who trained
at the Taylor Institute, asking them to relay
their experience training here and how
it has benefitted them in their careers so
far,” Farrar says. “There are so many great
success stories for our graduates, and it
speaks to their talent and to the work we’re
doing here at the institute. It’s something
we want to keep improving upon as future
classes walk through our doors.”
InfoCision.com
|marketing|
By the numbers
HOW INFOCISION’S MARKETING ANALYTICS TEAM ENABLES ACCOUNT TEAMS TO
DRIVE CLIENT PROGRAM RESULTS
D
ata drives decisions, and the
Marketing Analytics team at
InfoCision helps ensure that a
comprehensive pool of data helps
its marketing account teams drive the best
decisions that, in turn, provide the best
results for the company’s clients.
“We build interfaces through our data
visualization tools, which allow timely
access and provide in-depth views of
data,” says Mike Cook, InfoCision’s Vice
President of Marketing Analytics.
The Marketing Analytics team takes
the vast amount of data compiled from
countless customer interactions and breaks
it down by relevant categories. Data in
each category is housed in a separate file
in a large database maintained by the
Marketing Analytics department, and that
information can then be overlaid and crossreferenced with other data categories.
“That can be extremely useful as
far as picking out hot spots among
demographics,” Cook says. “If an account
team is prospecting, we can help that team
isolate which demographics have a higher
likelihood of responding.”
Cook’s team maintains numerous
demographic categories in its database,
including age, length of current residence,
net worth indicators, gender and more.
The vast quantity of sortable data allows
InfoCision’s account management teams to
accurately target high-yield demographics.
“Say we look at the last six months of
calls,” Cook says. “We can break down
the data, show trends that help drive
an improved response rate and build a
profile for success. This insight helps our
marketing account teams decide the best
way to invest money and resources.”
The use of marketing analytics can
also help InfoCision make sound vendor
decisions.
“Analytics is, boiled down,
the study of going from ‘we
think’ to ‘we know.’”
— Mike Cook, Vice President of Marketing Analytics, InfoCision
“There are a lot of great products
out on the market that we could use to
enhance our business, services that can
identify dead phone numbers or wrongparty connections before the calls are
made.” Cook says. “We can use analytics
to help our teams vet potential partners to
find the best vendor and product matches
for our business.”
The ultimate goal of marketing analytics
is to increase effectiveness and efficiencies
that InfoCision can pass along to its
external clients in the form of high levels of
responsiveness and customer service.
“It all comes back to finding innovative
ways to drive results and provide a better
product for our clients,” Cook says.
“We do that by promoting collaboration
internally and supporting our teams so
they are perfectly informed and able to
provide the best service to our clients.
Analytics is, boiled down, the study of
going from ‘we think’ to ‘we know.’ The
more you know about the people you’re
calling, the better the results you’re going
to be able to deliver.”
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 19
ALL IN THE
details
A
The Data
Analytics team
finds hidden value
in call center
numbers
20 | WINTER 2015
call center transaction is not a static event. Instead, each
communication reveals valuable information that can be compiled,
analyzed and acted upon. At InfoCision, the Data Analytics team
act as forensic investigators looking for hidden valuable details. They
scrutinize Communicator transactions and analyze available data to identify
trends, uncover information that can be used to enhance future calls and find
lessons learned that can be passed along to make the next call or program
more successful.
The data can reveal plenty, from individual performance to the overall
profitability of a program. Using the wealth of information that every call
center phone call provides, the team is able to make the connections from
which best practices can be formulated and acted upon.
InfoCision.com
written in-house by marketing account
teams. Two or more scripts are often
used in a marketing campaign to test for
effectiveness. The team can help pick the
script that’s pulling in the best results for
that particular project, even while the
program is ongoing.
Connecting the points
The team seeks to identify trends at both
project-specific and operational call center
levels. Project-specific findings are used
to improve Communicator performance
and call outcomes on a specific program,
whether that is by identifying minor ways
in which the program can be tweaked or
creating a major overhaul.
Operational analysis seeks out findings
and trends that can add value to future call
center activity overall.
“We dig deep into the numbers and
find points of interest — correlations that
can be used for future campaigns,” says
Mike White, Chief Technology Officer.
“For example, we can isolate the work of
individual Communicators and see who’s
making good sales calls and who needs
additional training.”
They can also compare sales results
against Communicator calling scripts,
Actionable data
While all of the findings generated by
the team may not be immediately put to
use, all data are compiled and warehoused
for further review. For instance, a
recent insight gained from the study of
data points regarding Communicator
commuting time and performance is more
curious than actionable so far, but a use for
it might be developed at a later point.
“We found that Communicators who
travel the farthest to and from work, work
the longest hours,” White says.
How was that kernel of knowledge
uncovered?
“One of our employees just said,
‘I wonder if distance traveled has any
meaning,’” says White. “So he got ZIP
code information and pulled up scheduled
work hours.”
By cross-referencing the two data
points, the team found the fact to be
consistent at every company call center.
“That’s how a lot of these trends are
revealed,” says White. “It starts with an
analyst saying, ‘I wonder if … ’”
The team can also study Communicator
success rates on client program types.
Those with above-average technical
aptitude may have a better success rate
selling cell phone services, for example, and
so the company can regularly assign them
to more tech-oriented programs. Other
Communicators with a proven instinct
for fundraising programs can be assigned
to campaigns on behalf of nonprofit
organizations such as the American
Institute for Cancer Research.
Knowing more about the comparative
strengths of individual Communicators
benefits the clients, as InfoCision is able
to assign each client the best call center
team possible.
Better understanding the customer
InfoCision subscribes to a database of
public information that includes ZIP codes,
home values, marital records, even data as
seemingly trivial as hunting and fishing
licenses issued. From this wide variety of
data points, InfoCision’s team can learn a lot
about customers and how the company’s call
center Communicators interact with them
— or uncover clues as to how they should.
“For example, we found that the more
educated a person is, on a spectrum
of some high school to grad school
completion, the less willing they are to
pledge a charitable donation over the
phone,” White says. “Yet with more
education they’re likelier to fulfill the
commitment if they do pledge.”
That disparity in results across groups
might cue call center managers to the
fact that even a lower response rate from
a more educated market might yield
promising bottom-line results. With this
data in hand, different closing approaches
can be considered for customer groups,
based on education level.
The bottom line is that all data
are important, and mining analytics
consistently yields valuable insight that
benefits InfoCision’s clients.
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 21
Personalizing
THE
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Data warehousing and
customer intelligence
enhance the quality of
every call
A
t InfoCision, Communicators are much more than phone agents;
they serve as an extension of InfoCision clients. On an outbound
call, the Communicator has only one chance to connect personally
with the customer or donor and achieve a positive outcome.
That’s why InfoCision does all that it can to provide Communicators with
customer intelligence that can make the call as efficient, productive and
positive as possible.
Doug Backus, Director of Data Architecture and Warehousing, takes on
that challenge.
“As information is generated from the dialers, it’s my job to create subsets
of that data for our marketing account teams,” says Backus.
InfoCision relies heavily on the data its analytics teams acquire. In its call
centers, Communicators are involved in hundreds of dialing transactions
each day, and every dial — whether it results in a customer contact or not
— can reveal critical information that will positively impact future calls.
The company focuses on developing and launching technologies that will
enhance the relationship between Communicators and customers or donors.
Data marts
Among his other related responsibilities, Backus manages the company’s
vast data warehouse. This involves the capture, storage and sharing across
22 | WINTER 2015
InfoCision.com
marketing account teams of client call
information that can yield critical feedback
and enhance the quality of future calls.
“For every number we dial, we can
learn the time the call went through,
the disposition of the call and other
operational metrics,” says Backus. “From
this, we create data marts, which are
smaller sets of data for our commercial
and fundraising clients. As we collect
and organize that data, we can use it in
subsequent phone calls.”
Backus can also provide data and
services that make it easier for InfoCision
to route calls in the most appropriate and
efficient manner.
Inbound calls from customers generate
an entirely different set of challenges
than outbound calls made from the call
centers. In this situation, the challenge is
in routing the call in such a way that each
customer receives the highest satisfaction
and the transaction reflects well on the
InfoCision client.
The data provided by Backus’s team
can reveal much about the caller before
the call is even picked up. For instance, by
knowing where it originates, it could be
routed to the call center that provides the
best geographic affinity to the caller.
Backus can also use his acquired data
to identify calls that might need special
attention.
“The system knows when a call from
the same phone number was placed
just the day before,” he says. “That may
indicate that the caller’s situation is more
complicated or that she might need more
in-depth help. When we know that might
be the case, we can automatically route the
call to a high-touch Communicator, one
who is especially adept at handling the
more challenging calls received.”
“We can use acquired data to identify
calls that might need special
attention and route the call to a
high-touch Communicator.”
—Doug Backus, Director of Data Architecture and Warehousing,
InfoCision
Heads Up
Backus and John Gill, Senior Manager of
Call Center Technologies, are also eager
to tout a new screen technology in the late
stage of development, Heads-Up Display,
slated for launch early in 2015.
To succeed in a phone call, a
Communicator must be able to quickly
make a positive connection with a
customer. Heads-Up Display is a new
tool in the effort to boost Communicator
confidence levels as calls are initiated.
Consumers are busier than ever and
expect personalized communication
from the companies they do business
with. “The development of Heads-Up
resulted from that shift. We can provide
detailed information that could serve
as conversation starters that help build
rapport and enhance communication,”
says Gill.
The new technology will enable the
display of potentially useful intelligence on
the customer, which will appear on-screen
along with the Communicator’s calling
script. This additional layer of information
should make the Communicator better
prepared to meet the customer and more
assured of a productive dialogue and
positive outcome.
Heads-Up Display will consist of
customer-specific information pulled
from a variety of public databases and
geared toward providing demographic
and psychographic insight in a short
amount of time, says Gill. Before the
customer has even picked up the phone,
Communicators might have already
gained a little insight into such areas as
marital status, political affiliation, local
weather conditions and whether or not
the household includes children or pets,
among other data points.
All of this will give the Communicator,
with little more than a glance at his or her
screen, additional opportunities to develop
ties. And this might only be the start.
“We think the next phase in using
this new screen technology will be more
dynamic scripting, the ability to tailor the
script based on what we know about the
customer,” says Gill.
It’s all about capturing, storing and
using data that can enhance the quality
of the call and provide Communicators
with the tools to customize each customer
conversation and leave people feeling good
about the client organization.
InfoCision Marketing Solutions | 23
InfoCision Management Corporation
325 Springside Drive
Akron, OH 44333
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