Rx for reaching potential
Cigna Tel-Drug has embarked on a customer relationship management initiative to optimize the potential of its customer and prospect databases. A division of Cigna Healthcare, the prescription mail order company wants its marketing department to understand customer behavior better so it can improve efficiency and attract more consumers and pharmacists to its program.
The initial mission of the project is to bring more pharmacy members into the mail order business to help members reduce the costs of prescription drugs. Other goals include increasing satisfaction among pharmacists and consumers, providing supplemental education to customers to alert them to the mail order program, identifying eligible customers more readily, and tracking customers and their behaviors over time.
The project, which entails consolidation and centralization of 10 legacy systems, is fueled by CRM software and services from Harte-Hanks. That company will provide strategic support in managing the Cigna Tel-Drug database and will implement its Allink Xpert software as the CRM solution.
Says Aaron Crosson, CIO of Cigna Tel-Drug, “The pharmaceutical industry is a highly competitive marketplace so to compete successfully, we made a business decision to market to our existing and potential customers more effectively.
“We also made the decision that to do so expediently would require the expertise of Harte-Hanks to help us eliminate the anomalies in our customer data, create truly unique customer identifiers and assist in our efforts moving forward . . . We truly believe CRM is an integral part to driving increased revenues and sales.”
Cigna Tel-Drug wants to realize the value of its customer and prospect databases so it can develop a network of customer-focused strategies, channel programs and campaigns, using a combination of direct mail and call center services. Allink Xpert is delivered as a hosted CRM solution, coupled with analytic support. It is currently in the rollout phases at Cigna Tel-Drug, with initial results from the implementation expected in the new few months.
“Cigna Tel-Drug is relying on Harte-Hanks to make this implementation successful by building one central database from information pulled from 10 legacy systems, and conducting detailed analysis of the customer base through modeling, data mining and segmentation response analysis,” explains Kathy Calta, group president, CRM data services, Harte-Hanks.