The Big Cross-Sell for Grass Roots
Cross-selling and upselling for Grass Roots Group
Who are Grass Roots?
Grass Roots Group provides employee and customer engagement services. The product division focused on a suite of employee engagement products which included Cyclescheme, following Grass Roots’ acquisition of this market-leading Cycle-to-Work scheme.
The challenges
The Grass Roots management team identified an opportunity to cross-sell their products to existing customers. But each of Grass Roots’ suite of employee engagement products were managed by a separate team and customer data for each product was held in an independent database, so there was no single customer view. The teams were working in silos and although the account managers responsible for the big customers were liaising to do some cross-selling, the small and mid-sized accounts were completely siloed.
Our solutions
We were asked to propose an approach to cross-selling and up-selling between the product silos. We elected to take an iterative approach, starting with some test calls to batches of data from each customer group to see which approach gained the most traction.
When we started to collate the test data, it became apparent that we would need to create a simple, single customer-view database to work from. We designed a suitable application in our Quick Base relationship management system and imported and deduplicated the data, tagging it carefully, to show existing areas of crossover where one company had independently signed up to two Grass Roots schemes.
As soon as we started the calls, it was clear that we needed to treat this as a customer engagement exercise. Whereas larger customers were receiving personal attention from the account managers, system-generated email was the main means of communication with the small and mid-range customers so engagement levels were not as high as anticipated. As soon as we repositioned our calls as being from customer support, calling to see if there was anything they needed in relation to their existing schemes, the dynamic of the calls changed immediately. These calls revealed a technical issue with the info@ email address, which had resulted in slowed responses to some customers. It also highlighted some issues with the Call Centre, who are tasked with dealing with customer queries for the small and mid-range customers. In the main, we were not uncovering major problems, simply small niggles that were annoying the customers’ Benefits Admin team and undermining the customer relationship.
We were rapidly upskilled to be able to deal with basic problems and issues, and we referred any complex issues to the relevant client service specialists. Once the customer’s queries/problems were resolved, we were then able to discuss the other schemes which Grass Roots offer and move the dialogue towards cross-selling.
The results
In this initial tranche of work, we generated and fulfilled over 500 literature requests and scheduled meetings for the account managers to cross-sell. The largest single piece of business won from this project generated revenue in excess of £250,000. As well as campaign metrics and anecdotal feedback, we were able to offer insights which informed improvements to the customer journey, to the website and to the suite of marketing materials made available to customers for promotion of the schemes to their staff.
The success of this initial work lead on to a series of 14 other projects targeting all of the product silos.
Client testimonial
In 2016 I brought The Call Business into Cyclescheme to improve our customer sign ups. Our marketing had been effective and we had high volumes of employers registering to provide cycle-to-work for their staff. There was a high attrition rate between registration and full participation, with the employer launching the scheme to their staff, promoting it effectively and getting their staff signing up to buy bikes. We used The Call Business to call every new company that signed up to support them in getting their scheme launched and to gain insight on any barriers with the user journey.
The feedback we got was invaluable, it informed changes and adjustments to our internal process, our employer portal user journey and the collateral we provided to employers. The pilot was extended beyond the initial three months and in the first year of our engagement with The Call Business there was notable increase in transaction levels proving the engagement had positive effects.
The The Call Business team became a vital part of our customer engagement team working not only with Cyclescheme but with other schemes within the Hawk Incentives portfolio. They’ve worked on cross-selling, upselling, customer surveys, event management and appointment setting. They are professional and always deliver results . Great people to work with, amazing work ethic and value for money.
Julie Coxhill Product Director Hawk Incentives 2014-2019