Australian Central Credit Union Celebrates 5-Year Anniversary as Consona CRM Customer with Upgrade; Looks Back on Success

Consona CRM Deployment Integrates Customer Data to Enable Member Intimacy Through Streamlined Technology Systems and More Efficient Customer Service.

Indianapolis, IN (allCUnews.com) June 17, 2009 -- Consona Corporation (Consona), a worldwide leader in providing customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and services for companies of all sizes, today announced that on its five-year anniversary as a Consona CRM customer, Australian Central Credit Union (ACCU), one of the nation’s leading mutual financial institutions, has just completed an upgrade to Consona Customer Management Version 6.0. The upgrade represents ACCU’s commitment to its partnership with Consona, and follows a successful 5-year period, where the organization achieved significant improvements in customer satisfaction and customer service efficiency.

ACCU began its CRM initiative with Consona CRM In 2003 when the organization recognized its member information was fragmented across a variety of siloed systems. Data visibility inhibited frontline staff from delivering the best possible member experience, and instead monopolized their time in searching for information and completing low-level administrative tasks that delivered little value to members. Consona Customer Management, which interfaced with ACCU’s existing applications, assembled customer information from those disparate systems and provided an overarching front end that enabled staff to see the complete array of a member’s holdings and interactions with the organization across all channels. ACCU received immediate positive feedback from staff and members, praising the convenience and efficiency of the new system.

In the five years following the initial CRM rollout, ACCU continued to invest in refining and expanding its Consona Customer Management solution and realized a number of improvements, including a richer knowledge of member information that enabled a more sophisticated segmentation approach for sales and marketing purposes. In addition, the frontline staff’s role evolved to be focused on providing advice and solutions, rather than on administrative duties. Armed with more robust member profiles, ACCU’s staff was also better able to advise members, and direct them to the appropriate products or service, thus fulfilling the organization’s goal of continuous conversation.

Today, member intimacy is now a core component of ACCU’s competitive advantage, and the Consona CRM solution allows ACCU to:

* View members’ holdings and interactions across all channels of the organization at a glance;
* Easily locate or compose customized documents and correspondence in order to respond to an enquiry or provide customer guidance;
* Reduce and streamline manual and semi-manual work processes, enhancing productivity and providing a more effective audit trail functionality; and
* Expand its business strategy to adopt an integrated advice model and link members to personalized products and services.

ACCU updated to the most current version of Consona’s solution in November of 2008, and continues to employ the upgraded suite to the fullest extent. “I can’t overstate the value of our partnership with Consona CRM,” said David Hombsch, senior manager of technology services at ACCU. “Over the past five years working hand-in-hand with the company, we’ve succeeded in meeting our business objectives, and we continue to look to the system to support ongoing strategic initiatives.”

“What attracted us to Consona CRM was the solution’s ability to mould to our business processes, rather than us having to completely re-engineer the organization around the software. The solution not only met our immediate needs, but had the scope to meet our longer term growth requirements,” said Hombsch. “We have been able to do things we hadn’t specifically contemplated at the outset, but which significantly enhanced our productivity and, most importantly, the experience we provide our members. There is no doubt that the implementation has been a resounding success.”

About Australian Central Credit Union:
Australian Central Credit Union has more than 180,000 members, 29 banking and advice centres, some 500 staff across South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia, and more than $3 billion in assets under management and advice. It provides a full range of financial products and services to its members and clients, including every-day banking and savings accounts, term investments, home and personal loans, credit cards, general and risk insurance, and wealth management. For more information, please visit: http://www.accu.com.au/ [1].

About Consona Corporation and Consona CRM:
Consona Corporation is a worldwide leader in providing customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and services for companies of all sizes. Consona is dedicated to becoming a valued business partner by helping each and every customer continuously improve business processes over time. Toward this mission, Consona invests in the people, processes, technology and tools needed to provide its customers with a unique combination of customer care; product fit; a broad range of consulting, IT and business services; and industry expertise. Consona serves more than 4,500 customers worldwide and across a variety of industries. Battery Ventures and Thoma Bravo jointly own Consona. Consona CRM is a product line and operating division of Consona Corporation. For medium to large enterprises with customer service or technical support operations who need to both improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs, Consona CRM’s software product suite facilitates effective and efficient customer interactions and resolution of customer issues across all channels and communities. For further information on Consona CRM, visit www.consona.com/crm [2]. For further information on Consona, visit www.consona.com [3], e-mail info @ consona.com, or call (888) 8 CONSONA.