How many of your customer contacts are turned into marketingopportunities? HealthNow New York, parent of Blue Cross Blue Shieldof Western New York and Blue Shield of Northeastern New York, feltit was wasting too many of those opportunities, but wasn't sure howto go about correcting the problem.

The first step was to bring in consultants from Xerox to conductan assessment-an easy choice, seeing as Xerox is headquartered inRochester, N.Y. Louise Lavere, director of communications forHealthNow, said the initial plan was to look at all documentprocesses, but the scope proved to be too large and shifted tomaking improvements in customer communication. “They looked at ourtechnology, our workflow and processes, and our content,” Laveresaid. What they found was that HealthNow wasn't personalizing theinformation it sent to customers. To improve the situation, Xeroxconducted a closer examination of the products HealthNow was using;products from Elixir and Compuset for reports and printing did notoffer the CRM capabilities HealthNow was seeking. It wantedsoftware that could offer highly personalized communications, couldhandle the scope of their documents, and, perhaps most importantly,be easy to use.

HealthNow's document assessment team recommended that thecompany establish a centralized department that would take dataabout members and use them to create personalized documents,including applications, new member kits, ID cards, providerdirectories, and benefit booklets. Lavere said that byincorporating customer data, each message could be targeted to thatcustomer.

Xerox business consultant Bob Butcher found information onExstream Software and its product, Dialogue, in an article inKMWorld. The software claimed to target customer messaging acrossvarious mediums with one tool. Butcher contacted Extream and thecompany made a convincing presentation. “When we looked at theExstream demo we found it could do what the others did, but itcould also be used by non-programmers,” Lavere said.

Dialogue allows users to store data in a common repository sothey can be shared across all applications and customertouchpoints. That means the marketing staff gains greater controlover campaigns without tying up resources in the IT department.Communication can be delivered through snail mail, e-mail, or theWeb without changes in design.

The product was put to a quick test. HealthNow was in the midstof a huge mailing to its customers on rates and otherstate-mandated information. “We took a chunk of the mailing and didit on Dialogue and it took 20 minutes, not the eight hours itnormally would have taken,” Lavere said.

The company was sold on Dialogue. After working about fourmonths to make it fit HealthNow's needs, it was installed. Thecompany felt Dialogue would be best used by the document processingstaff and licensed it for 75 seats in that department. “Some of ourreport people saw it and found it worked well for them as well,”Lavere said. “That was a utility we didn't buy it for, so thatturned out to be an unexpected advantage. We think it could be usedeventually in billing, too.”

Implementation went smoothly. “It was nothing beyond the realmof usual software implementations,” Lavere said. Exstream alsoworked closely to make the product work in ways it had neverbefore. “There were some publishing features that were notdeveloped yet,” she said. “Exstream put them on their plate rightaway and developed them.”

Having data and using it can be two different things. “We wantpeople to prevent illness from happening,” Lavere said. “We know alot about our subscribers and with Dialogue we're able to tailormessages just to them, and follow up with appropriateresponses.”

Xerox and HealthNow “stumbled across” Exstream in a magazinearticle. Sometimes you have to research things the old fashionedway before you can make decisions that will keep your businessgrowing.

THE COMPANY: HealthNow New York
TOTAL MEMBERS: $571,000
WEB SITE: www.www.healthnowny.com

THE PRODUCT: Dialogue from ExstreamSoftware
WEB SITE: www.exstream.com