The world's favourite all-purpose charge card strives to improve its Customer Relationship Management by introducing the electronic delivery of customers' monthly statements.
Not satisfied with excellence
Diners Club, recognised by nearly 4 million establishments in 175 countries worldwide, has an excellent reputation with corporate clients. Their Diners Club Corporate Card System allows cardholders the flexibility of using their facilities anywhere in the world. Diners Club is not alone in this field, however. The charge card market is growing fast and many people regard these cards as the bridge that will lead most consumers towards the adoption of e-commerce.
Executive Director, Adrien McGuire went looking for a way of differentiating Diners Club through superior service. Already, customers in this market segment receive a deluge paper mail through the letterbox - amongst them Diners Club monthly statements. As the world moves towards the electronic filing of information, these sheets of paper must surely become an anachronism.
"Today's cardholders are highly mobile and expect information at their fingertips. And that must include the high-tech delivery of statements," says McGuire. "It is becoming a world-wide trend."
Diners Club look at the options
E-mail and Web Presentation were two obvious solutions. Not only would information be available to Cardholders anywhere in the world, but would also prove to be a highly cost-effective and reliable means of delivery. Diners Club, however, was concerned with a number of issues, including security, marketing, customer acceptance and legal implications.
After due consideration and with confidentiality in mind, Diners Club chose e-mail as the route they wanted to pursue. This decision presented a choice between two secure e-mail delivery systems: encrypted mail and encrypted attachments.
The sending of encrypted mail involves the implementation of a full Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Although the system is very secure, Diners Club remained apprehensive because PKI is an expensive, time-consuming and cumbersome process, compounded by complicated installation requirements.
Instead, Diners Club chose to send encrypted attachments. This would enable them to deliver secure statements in a format that only the intended recipient would be able to open and read. With no requirement for costly key or certificate management, this method makes secure messaging easy to deploy, administer and use.
The E-mail Corporation enters the picture
Diners Club approached The E-mail Corporation - the leading specialist in electronic communication and messaging - with their list of requirements and concerns.
"We wanted to deliver encrypted statements to our client base via e-mail, with the confidence that only the intended recipient would have the ability to view their documents, " says McGuire. "This needed to be achieved without burdening our cardholders with complicated technical requirements."
Diners Club were looking for a 'one-click' installation solution for their customers. They required efficiency in terms of e-mail size, coupled with a robust mailing engine with the capacity to handle the delivery of millions of statements on a monthly basis. Full reporting functionality and bounce handling were essential.
And introduces the key to success
The E-mail Corporation introduced Diners Club to their FinMail product suite. FinMail is a fully integrated solution, designed to facilitate the delivery of secure documentation - from invoices and statements to payslips and corporate results. This delivery solution offers a high-speed alternative to web presentation and postal delivery. It ensures that customers receive their information timeously, accurately, and securely.
FinMail uses KeyMail - The E-mail Corporation's secure encryption module - to ensure that only the intended recipient can open and read the attached document.
Recipients use a small decoder to open the message. The one-click self-installation system seamlessly integrates into the existing e-mail systems without disrupting current desktops, network devices, directories, or application servers. This answered Diners Club's need to avoid the use of cumbersome and complicated digital certificates, while maintaining a high level of security.
FinMail's solution to Diners Club's marketing requirements was its ability to incorporate targeted marketing messages into the body of the mail.
The fact that The E-mail Corporation's invoice and statement delivery process and technology has been certified by the South African Revenue Services (SARS), laid to rest any regulatory concerns Diners Club might have had.
Implementation is in record time
After concluding that e-mail was the right solution for Diners Club, Adrien McGuire worked closely with Mike Wright, CEO of The E-mail Corporation, to implement FinMail in the latter half of 2000.
"FinMail integrated seamlessly with our existing systems," says McGuire, "and we were sending secure statements to our key corporate accounts via e-mail two weeks later."
Customer response is overwhelming
Customers found the process highly convenient and immediately adopted the process. KeyMail's one-click self-installation system proved hassle-free and easy to implement. Customers felt safe in the knowledge that their confidentiality had not been compromised, and have responded positively to marketing campaigns included with their statements.
Diners Club reported having received positive feedback that customers appreciated not having to wait for their statements through the mail. The immediacy of the information was well received.
Diners Club expresses management satisfaction
Diners Club was impressed with the easy implementation and continues to value the comprehensive management and delivery reports on each delivery. As opposed to traditional postal services, management now has information at their fingertips as to the mails that had been delivered and opened, and those that had been unsuccessful.
Wright believes that "the ability to know who received information and opened it, gives you valuable insight into user behaviour and technology adoption."
Diners Club has found this paperless delivery to be both cost effective and convenient. McGuire states that "FinMail cost us less than a third of what we had originally been spending on traditional postal methods."
"We look forward to rolling out an e-mail solution to personal card members in the future," says McGuire. "One day all statements will be sent this way."
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