8/4/2010
By Neil Ainger
Hiscox is seeking to gain a better insight into its online customers' behaviour and preferences across multiple channels by installing Speed-Trap's customer insight software on their UK direct website. The aim is to track how users navigate about the site and increase marketing channel performance and sales conversion rates.
Hiscox has a long history and expertise in providing comprehensive buildings and contents insurance for homeowners via its www.hiscox.co.uk website; and also provides specialist business insurance to over 70,000 firms in the UK. It is hoping to gain more market share by deploying Speed-Trap's customer insight software on its site.
Speed-Trap's in-page technology can capture all online data 'events', such as selecting a check box, clicking an image, entering text or selecting a tab, as a real-time stream of rich customer-focussed data. Using the data collected, the insurer can drive the latest generations of real-time customer relationship management (CRM), personalisation and targeted marketing applications. Hiscox has access to all the data they need, down to the level of a single key-stroke or click, across all mediums including mobiles and PDAs if required, allowing a truly 360 degree view of every customer, and consequent tailoring of the website to deliver the best experience possible.
Explaining the rationale behind the deployment, Stephen Rumbelow, UK web manager at Hiscox, said: "In order to gain a complete and useful picture of online customer behaviour, we knew we needed an analysis tool that would enable us to look at our website from the customer's point of view in real-time. This had to go beyond merely tagging particular pages - we wanted to see the full customer journey, from clicking on an advert to purchasing an insurance policy and Speed-Trap has enabled us to do this."
Flexibility has been another key asset. "The simplicity of the Tag-Free data collection method in the software allows us to collect data without having to decide beforehand what site areas we should be collecting from, as no tagging is involved," continues Rumbelow. "Speed-Trap's customer insight software gathers all activity, on all pages, from all visitors, so if the questions we are asking of our marketing or site's performance change, we already have all the data to provide the answers."
The software has enabled Hiscox to gain an immediate insight into where people were dropping out of the quote and buy journey on its website, right down to individual fields on forms. "This knowledge has enabled us to make several enhancements to the customer journey, which has helped improve our conversion rate," explains Rumbelow. "We are also using it to define our strategy. For instance, we are starting to gain a deep and meaningful understanding of the contribution of different media towards driving quotes and sales. We are planning to use this data to improve marketing channel performance by delivering a more targeted search engine marketing strategy and tailoring content to suit different media. Speed-Trap is now a core part of Hiscox's online business, as we recognise that the best online businesses are data driven."
