Customer Stories - National Australia Bank ECAL increases ‘on-time’ payments by up to 12%!

Banking & Finance, Case Studies Jun 09, 2020

Customer Stories - National Australia Bank ECAL increases ‘on-time’ payments by up to 12%!

Challenge

National Australia Bank wanted to test how ECAL payment reminders would compare to SMS reminders.

Solution

ECAL’s solution worked to increase ‘on-time’ payments by up to 12% over SMS, and provide a better user experience.

1. Introduction

National Australia Bank, one of the ‘big four’ banks in Australia, engaged ECAL to test how payment reminders in the calendar stack up against SMS reminders.

Consumers find it very difficult to stay on top of their monthly credit card payments. They want an easy way to manage payments, and want to avoid ‘late fees’. Late payments also significantly affect your credit rating.

For banks, the cost of ‘bill chasing’ is a significant expense, so they want to avoid payments going into ‘collections’. More on-time payments means a reduction in costs associated with ‘collections’ activities and customer service call handling.

It also helps the drive to ‘paperless’ and keeps their customers happy – which is a vitally important success metric for banks.

2. Objectives

Test customer interest in a calendar reminder feature
Test effectiveness of calendar reminders against SMS reminders
Increase on-time payments by min. 2% (compared with SMS reminders)

3. Strategy

The project would target a cohort of bank customers who were prone to payment default and prone to entering ‘collections’. For the sake of the test, customers would receive an SMS with a feature link to sync payment reminders to their mobile calendar.

NB: In a full integrated rollout, the feature is integrated into the mobile banking app, and online banking portal.

4. Solutions

Participating NAB customers received two entries in their calendar for their upcoming monthly credit card repayment:

A ‘payment reminder’ event (2 days prior to due date), and
A ‘payment due’ event (on the due date)

Both entries appeared at 12 noon, and had an alert at 5 minutes prior to prompt response. Event details were limited for the trial, with a link direct to nab.com.au to make payment.

The test project would focus on Apple users as a priority.

5. Outcomes

The Participation Rate by banking customers in the project was 15%, extremely high and well above normal for bank project trials;
Payments by ECAL (Apple) users were the best performing overall, delivering:
- 65.79% cure rate by the due date (+3.64% better than SMS reminders);
- 81.58% cure rate at 2 days after due date (+12%);
The two-date ‘payment reminder’ entry for ECAL (Apple) users resulted in the biggest increase in payments (+37%);
The top two performing reminder methods were ECAL influenced.

Testimonials

"Thank you for your tremendous support this year, especially during the last few months as we pulled more rabbits from hats, fixture/season structure changes and unknowns than I think any of us has ever seen in sport. You helped us achieve a result that we are so immensely proud of, and have built a platform that can take us to heights that we thought impossible some 6 months ago. The WNBL is ready for lift-off! We broke the ECAL record for a season easily, and I can’t wait to see subscriber numbers jump again in 2021."

Rob Flude

Head of Digital Services @ Basketball Australia

"ECAL has proven to be a great channel for us at AVFC, benefitting sales and fan engagement more and more each season whilst providing data and insight for us to improve the fan experience as a whole. With the successful integrations of Women and Youth team schedules this season, we’re looking forward to what’s coming next!"

William Street

Digital Marketing Executive @ Aston Villa FC

"The ECAL solution allows Formula E fans to sync their local race or the full season race calendar to their personal calendars. The platform ensures that fans can easily find out where to tune in and watch Formula E live in their territory and it also gives us the ability to deliver targeted messages to users, based on location and behaviour. The team at ECAL are a great bunch and are always at hand whether through their fantastic support team to day to day management of our account and sharing new ideas. I would have no hesitation in recommending them. "

Tecwyn Davies

Senior Digital Project Manager @ Formula E

"ECAL has been a very effective tool for the England and Wales Cricket Board. Our audiences can download full competition schedules or individual team calendars for domestic competitions, as well as the England Men’s and Women’s fixtures. The events within the calendar provide information on where / when to tune-in to follow matches, and can also be used as a reminder for important ticket on-sale dates. The process to set-up was very straightforward and the support we receive has been great. We look forward to continuing to work with ECAL."

Rebecca Maskrey

Head of Marketing @ England and Wales Cricket Board

"We've engaged ECAL to deliver Fox Sports TV programming direct to our subscribers' calendar. It's a cool feature, and we believe our customers will really enjoy this service. They should never miss their favourite sports team again! We're also working with the team at ECAL to look at additional ways we can leverage the platform commercially."

Barney Glover

Head of Digital Delivery @ Fox Sports