KIA: Greater Data Quality and Visibility

In recent years Kia has become a global player in the Automotive Industry, boasting an ever-expanding range of cars sold through 179 distributors and over 3,000 overseas dealers in 155 countries around the world.

A wholly owned subsidiary, Kia Motors UK currently has more than 140 dealerships with substantial plans to grow the network in order to support strong sales.

Like all manufacturers and dealerships operating in the Automotive Sector, Kia endeavours to co-ordinate sales activity for new sales, re-sales, and servicing and finance packages, with the aim of increasing sales and lowering costs.  Integral to this is the ability to be able to track marketing activity across all channels whether it be online, direct marketing, or footfall into the dealership; knowing how, when and why people want to be marketed to is essential.

The Kia Challenge

Kia identified the need for greater data quality and visibility.  As data had been managed externally, the key to achieving this  was to bring control in-house.

Having established this prerogative, Occam was tasked with the migration and development of Kia’s existing database along with the provision of an in-house facility to access customers and prospects.  This entailed the following set of challenges:

• The need for a single repository of clean, deduplicated, high quality customer information.  Integral to this is the notion of unique customer profiles (customers appearing once and only once in the repository), and the development of just a single version of the repository containing accurate and up-to-date data.

• Access to a range of information associated with this customer information including; all outbound marketing history, all Kia ownership details, and warranty claims, and all brochure requests.

• Establishing means by which users are able to analyse the data in the repository, perform counts, and then use these results to segment the repository and plan and execute campaigns.

• Given the limited time frame allocated to the data migration, Occam faced the additional challenge of delivering the above in a matter of weeks.

The Occam Solution

Occam proposed to host a solution and then provide access to that solution using a range of web-based tools.  The major components of this solution were:

• The Single Customer View (SCV) which is the core repository of clean, de-duplicated customer information.  The SCV includes individual, vehicle, and address level information and also includes full contact history at each level.  The core SCV is consistent across implementations, but has been tailored to meet Kia’s specific needs as an automotive retailer.

• Occam’s Core Processing.  All data containing name and address information will pass through Occam’s data processing facility to ensure that the data is cleaned, de-duplicated, and merged into the SCV with all the appropriate suppression information applied.  The core processing consists of a series of Occam common components together with the client specific business logic and file specific input and output modules.

• A Count and Campaign Tool which will allow users to perform counts on the SCV, segment the data in the SCV, and also extract customer data from the SCV.  The selected tool in this instance is the FastStats application supplied by Apteco.

• Interfaces between Kia’s systems and Kia’s suppliers’ systems.  The interfaces can be unidirectional (information just sent to Occam or just received from Occam) or bidirectional (a two-way interface).

• Modules to load campaign and response information.  Campaign information is updated directly by the count and campaign tools, whereas response information will be loaded from files provided by the fulfilment agencies.

• The provision of a high performance, user friendly data access tool.  This is a key component of the Occam solution, enabling users to navigate the systems easily and facilitate campaign management.

The Benefits to Kia

Where previously the incumbent supplier had managed the database and taken the responsibility for campaign selections, the Occam solution provided Kia with complete visibility.  Now the Customer Database Manager at Kia can perform all campaign selections using a high performance, user friendly data access tool.  As a consequence of this, Kia has greatly improved customer insight and benefited from the flexibility of managing campaigns how and when it wants.

Furthermore, the implementation of Occam’s core data processing components means that a high level of data quality is assured, thus increasing campaign effectiveness.  Not only are campaigns better targeted and therefore likely to yield improved response rates, but the costs incurred through campaign wastage have decreased.

“Occam’s implementation of Fast Stats has bolstered our marketing activity and contributed heavily to our retail sales which are currently up by 4% for the year.  Given the economic conditions, this is very positive.” (John Bache, Customer Database Manager at Kia)

Further Development

Soon after deploying the solution, Kia began to experience its benefits and have since begun to develop its scope.  Following the implementation of the original design, Occam has integrated a suppression tool that facilitates the cleaning of customer and prospect data against industry suppression products within the database itself.

Occam has also deployed twice daily cleaning routines for brochure requests ensuring that Kia’s fulfilment house are only processing cleaned addresses – something that was not done in the past.