SEDONA® Corporation develops web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and services. Our customers are both end-user organizations and banking and credit union software application and service solution providers that in turn support small to mid sized banks and credit unions. We are dominant in the financial services market particularly with community and regional banks and credit unions. Our Customer Relationship Management solution, SEDONA CRM®, enables financial institutions to increase the profitability of their customer and member portfolio. With its state-of-the-art technology and flexible licensing options, SEDONA CRM can help increase overall sales and client retention while reducing expenses often incurred with having to purchase multiple solutions in order to gain a complete CRM solution set. Because the system can be implemented quickly to deliver a rapid Return on Investment (ROI), it can help enhance overall shareholder value to both the financial services institution and partner solution providers.
The current economic climate brings a growing opportunity for CRM application solutions as banks and credit unions place increasing emphasis on effectively managing the relationship of, and interaction with, their customers. As a significant segment of the overall SMB market, small and mid-sized financial services organizations have identified CRM as a strategic initiative to improve the customer retention and profitability rates. These organizations, including community and regional banks, credit unions, savings and loans, brokerage firms and insurance companies and agencies, see CRM as a competitive weapon in an industry dominated by large national and international companies with greater resources, services and advertising power. We have strategically targeted small to mid-sized financial services organizations as the first vertical market to introduce the SEDONA CRM application solution.
Unlike most traditional, general-purpose CRM applications, SEDONA CRM is a vertical customer relationship management application solution specifically designed and priced to meet the needs of financial services insitutions. SEDONA CRM provides small to mid-sized financial services organizations with a complete and accurate view of their customers’ relationships and interactions. This enables them to gain knowledge about their customers’ preferences, needs and characteristics and build the appropriate strategies to more effectively target the right products to the right people at the right time. SEDONA CRM provides those organizations with the ability to effectively identify, acquire, foster and maintain loyal, profitable customers.
Marketing our Proprietary Solution to Target Markets through a Direct and Indirect Sales Distribution Channel
Within our indirect sales channel we have successfully signed OEM and reseller agreements with several leading software and services providers for the financial services market, and we continue to work to broaden our distribution channels, expanding our market penetration within financial services.
We have also established partnerships with a number of proven business and technical consulting services providers. This provides our distribution partners and their customers deep industry knowledge and expertise to assure a successful implementation of their SEDONA CRM solutions.
Removing the Barriers to Purchasing and Maintaining a CRM System
We offer our partners and clients two different implementation options. First, a traditional purchase option which allows our clients to purchase a license to use the CRM software and deploy it themselves on their own system and their own technology infrastructure.
Second, in recognition of the unique security, cost, and resource requirements for financial services, SEDONA also offers an in-house hosted implementation option. As one of the first CRM vendors to offer this hybrid implementation option, in-house hosting is quickly gaining popularity as the best of both SaaS and purchase licensing.
In-house application hosting is a licensing and implementation model that provides banks and credit unions with a fully integrated system. It includes all the software, hardware and services required for the deployment of a comprehensive, Internet-based enterprise business application, which resides at their own site, for an affordable, fixed monthly fee.
In-house application hosting is a viable alternative to the purchase and SaaS models because it is so cost effective, yet secure. It is especially attractive for small to midsize financial institutions that lack the financial resources and IT infrastructure to deploy an on-site enterprise business application such as CRM.
The in-house application hosting model is an extremely valuable solution for all our current and future OEM and reseller partners because it:
- Shortens the sales cycle by greatly reducing the financial barriers - software, hardware and ‘peopleware’ costs - and the resource requirements on a customer’s existing IT organization.
- Builds a rapidly recurring revenue stream, as the solution can immediately be made available to an existing customer base with a low monthly fee to stimulate volume deployment.
- Generates new revenue opportunities through the up-sell of new integration and training services as well as software upgrades.
- Results in achieving a positive return on investment more rapidly than traditional software licensing. The immediate availability of the application enables organizations to capitalize on its benefits right away.
The complete solution achieved by branding and integrating our SEDONA CRM technology into our partners’ core business applications, combined with their marketing strength, broad distribution channels and strong reputation, provides financial services organizations with the opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of implementing an enterprise-wide CRM application.
Staying in the Forefront of CRM Technology
SEDONA CRM provides banks and credit unions with a comprehensive customer relationship management solution that is tightly integrated with their business processes and back-end systems. It enables them to optimize their return on customer relationships by personalizing the management and interaction with their customers and ensuring that the sales and marketing efforts are strategically managed towards increased company profitability.
Exploiting the ubiquity of the Internet, SEDONA CRM’s comprehensive set of components provides financial institutions with a robust set of marketing analytics and operational CRM capabilities necessary to:
- Have a 360° view of the customer by integrating the front, back, and mobile offices into one, comprehensive database of information about customers and prospects.
- Analyze customer and prospect data enabling them to manage critical business performance such as profitability of customers (accounts, members and policy holders), personnel, households and products.
- Measure the effectiveness of the organization’s lead generation and marketing campaigns and ensure timely follow-up of referrals, customer requests, and sales leads.
- Improve coordination and communication between the bank or credit union and their customers, greatly enhancing the ability to deliver effective service and improve organizational productivity.
- Automate business processes that may be critical for the effective management and monitoring of the relationships and interactions with their customers.
SEDONA CRM seamlessly enhances the bank or credit union customer and prospect data with user demographics, behaviors, interests and preferences information provided by third-party content management suppliers or personal interactions. This enhanced data is then analyzed to create timely and precise information-on-demand. This information is then used by all of SEDONA CRM’s components in order to enable them to:
- Create “look-a-like” models to identify prospects effectively that share the same characteristics as their best customers, increasing their ability to acquire new customers.
- Help predict customer retention and make profitable cross-sell (next best product) recommendations.
- Generate alerts and automated processes to deal with critical changes in customer status or other business indicators.
- Develop personalized sales, marketing and services programs aimed at retaining their most profitable customers and turn unprofitable customers into profitable ones.
All this functionality is available to SEDONA CRM users via a standard web browser, over a wireline or wireless network, enabling both front- and back-office personnel to have consistent and timely information about customers and prospects. With mobile device usage on the rise, this capability will be increasingly critical as users become less tethered to an office location traveling, working at home, or conducting meetings at the customers’ sites.
Why is SEDONA’s CRM Unique?
- SEDONA CRM is a customer relationship management application solution specifically designed and priced to meet the needs of banks and credit unions. SEDONA has over 30 pre-built data extractors for many of the leading banking, credit card, investment, insurance, and trust systems. Using one or more of these standard integration components, SEDONA CRM can be installed in 6-8 weeks, delivering a fully integrated and tailored system. Administrative and end user training is 2-3 days. Overall pricing is based on the asset size of the institution and includes unlimited users. Typically, we are very competitive when compared to traditional horizontal or custom vertical CRM applications and last generation systems such as MCIFs or CIFs. Through reseller partners, SEDONA CRM pricing will vary between business partners since each has unique value-added integration and services.
- SEDONA CRM is specifically tailored for the vertical markets it serves: community and regional banking, credit unions and insurance companies. The product implementations are specific to the data and processes of each line of business and are fully integrated with each organization’s core systems. The system can accurately produce profit analytics for products, accounts, customers, households, employees and other internal groups such as branches, agents or tellers. The user interface reflects the vernacular of the line of business so for example, insurers manage policyholders, banks manage customers and credit unions manage members.
- SEDONA CRM uniquely supports multiple lines of business on a single platform. It allows organizations to accurately manage, report, analyze, and interact with customers who have portfolios that cross lines of business such as insurance and banking. Without a need for multiple servers, separate databases or additional application training, SEDONA CRM can support multiple lines of business simultaneously. Further, due to a carefully planned architecture, new lines of business can be added to the application in as little as 14 weeks.
- SEDONA CRM is a vertically specific application that is tailored from company to company bringing in the organization’s own operational data and processes. For example, one bank may use a 4-step prospect follow-up process while another uses a 3-step process. One bank may choose to calculate and see data about their customers’ lifetime value while another bank utilizes demographic data to note the presence of children and pets. These are all examples of how the SEDONA CRM application gets tailored yet they are all easy adjustments to the system that can be done without special coding or expertise and can be accomplished in a few minutes. SEDONA CRM includes highly tailorable components such as process management, campaign management, Point of Service, web based reporting, and a personalized portal for each user. Once installed, SEDONA CRM can be fully configured for each user reflecting his/her own system preferences, portal and dashboard contents, and security access.
- By working with leading core processing providers, SEDONA CRM is integrated right into several operational systems such as COCC's Insight and ShareTec core processing systems. Sold and supported by the core provider, the bank or insurance company has a single vendor relationship and point of contact. Systems share data more fluidly and product direction plans remain synergistic. Users learn one interface and can access all available data in one system. Additionally, SEDONA CRM has a web services interface allowing it to interact with other web service-enabled applications. This means that out of the box, SEDONA CRM can be seamlessly integrated with other key applications at a fraction of the cost and effort of larger, more proprietary solutions.
Focusing on Bottom Line Results
We at SEDONA are committed to providing high returns to both our distribution partners and to our shareholders. Every investment in new products, markets and personnel must provide a measurable return of investment and provide a clear path to increase profitability.
For more information on SEDONA call us at 1-610-337-8400.
