Startup to help businesses retain millions per year

Startup to help businesses retain millions per year

A new startup lead by an ex-CIO from Inland Revenue says NZ businesses lose hundreds of millions simply because customer contact details go stale.

Ross Hughson’s answer is to help people keep their contact details up to date effortlessly, without having even to remember where. His company’s new smartphone app, KeepMe, promises to do just that, potentially helping businesses retain millions per year in revenue.

In Hughson’s world, each individual should be the hub of their own personal information web, and corporate systems should be the connected spokes. A single change to the centre should allow each corporate system to be automatically updated.

At the moment, he says, each corporate system treats itself as a hub. And the problem with that is the lost millions. We the individuals don’t update everyone – we forget, we can’t be bothered, or it’s too hard. Contact with us stops, along with our money.

Hughson’s app solves this by allowing an individual to connect businesses to their own personal information hub, and to share just the information relevant to that business. From then on, any change at the hub allows all connected businesses to update their own records, on the instant.

This approach, Hughson points out, is what being customer centric should really mean. KeepMe allows a person to put themselves at the centre. Businesses supporting that experience will have a strong competitive advantage, he says. “Technology is moving so fast, and putting so much power in people’s hands. Businesses which make it easy for people to stay with them will keep customers. Making the customer do something special for you is no longer a competitive retention strategy.”

At the end of the day, says Hughson, it’s all about the data, but more about the people. “We need to be empowered as individuals to take control of our own information. It’s the only approach that really makes sense. And when we’re really in control, the data suddenly becomes great. And business gets to retain millions. Good deal all round!”

KeepMe is available in Apple’s NZ App Store.

KeepMe makes it easy for people to update their contact details

KeepMe is an NZ developed smartphone app that enables you to create a master record of your contact details (physical address, email address, phone number, etc.). You then connect to organisations listed with KeepMe and share your contact details with them. When any of your contact details change, you change them once in KeepMe and everyone you are connected to, organisations and individuals, gets the updated information automatically. Simple, Secure and Done Once.

Is your organisation looking for a cost effective way to maintain customer contact details?

Keep Me has over a dozen companies already registered on the KeepMe service. The more organisations that register for the service, the better it will be for everyone. If you are interested to hear more, then get in touch with us by calling 0800-KEEPME (0800-533763)

Where can I find out more information about KeepMe.

Please review our website for more information about KeepMe, Our approach to data privacy and security, and more FAQ’s - www.keepme.nz

Who is the developer of KeepMe?

KeepMe has been developed by the Wellington based team at Personal Information Management Ltd (PIM).

PIM is a graduate company of Wellingtons’ Creative HQ and development of KeepMe has been supported by project funding from Callaghan Innovation and a range of local investors. PIM is currently in the process of arranging further investment to enable scaling and growth of the business.

The opportunity PIM has identified is a global one and plans are already underway to expand the service to Australia and beyond.

Who is already using KeepMe?

The following organisations have seen the value KeepMe can offer them and their customers.

- Charities – UNICEF NZ, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Heart Foundation, (with more charities in the process of listing). Charities can spend hundreds of dollars in marketing and promotion to build a relationship with members, volunteers or donors. The life time value of an active donor is generally $2-4,000. Not being able to contact these people means lost revenue.

- Iwi – Waikato Tainui, Ngati Huia (with several more Iwi in the process of listing). The most important thing to Iwi is their people. If they cannot contact them they cannot provide support or information relevant to them.

- Providers of Wills – My Bucket List (Perpetual Guardian). Wills get out of date and are usually replaced several times in a lifetime. How does the holder of a Will still know they have the latest Will? How are Next-of-Kin details kept up to date etc.

- CRM Providers – VegaWorks. One of the problems of all CRM’s, is keeping the information about people stored in them up to date. We are working with VegaWorks (www.vega.works ) to integrate KeepMe to their system via API so their 200 customer organisations (Prostate Cancer being the first) can easily leverage KeepMe and enable auto updates of change contact information into the VegaWorks system.

- Clubs and Sports Teams – a simple way to keep the contact details of all your team members up to date. Our first user is Oriental Rongatai Righteous Brothers.

What are the costs of an out of date contact record?

When someone moves house (NZ Post tell us 1 in 5 New Zealanders shift house every year), or changes their email address or phone number, telling everyone who needs to know is a pain and inevitably, some of the organisations and individuals get forgotten.

When organisations send out communications, either physical or electronic, anything from 5-15% do not reach their target because the contact details are out of date. Not only do organisations fail to get their message through to their customers, but they have to deal with the cost of returned mail and resulting effort to update new contact details. The problem is more critical if you are an online business, as without the right contact details, you have essentially lost your customer.

- Cost of a “Gone No Address” letter – anything from $2 to $15, or more.

- 30-60 seconds added to contact centre calls to check and update contact details

- In the online world, if you lose the email address or phone number you have effectively lost the customer

- Poor customer satisfaction – you cannot contact the customer about things that are important to the relationship between you.

Security and Privacy.

KeepMe has been built for security and privacy. (We have followed international standards around Privacy by Design - https://www.ipc.on.ca/english/privacy/introduction-to-pbd/ ). We provide a service to the consumer that enables them to manage their personal information and helps them manage their digital lives. When a consumer registers for KeepMe, we verify their phone number with a code texted back to the phone, and after registration, all we know of the KeepMe user is their phone number. All other information is encrypted, with the consumer owning the key. Therefore PIM cannot see any of the other information stored in KeepMe, even if we wanted to, therefore we cannot, and would not, pass on that information to anyone else. The result is, the consumer is in control of their information and who they share it with. If they want to break a link with an organisation or a person, then they will be able to break the link and stop all further changes going to that connection.

The KeepMe service is backed by a highly secure centralised cloud based digital vault service (PIMVault). The PIMVault has been built with an open architecture making it a platform for integration of other services over time such as simplification of customer on-boarding. Similarly, as users start to store more information in KeepMe, the service can be used as a way of simplifying form filling, saving consumers time involved in continuously entering the same information to online systems time and time again.

How do you get KeepMe?

KeepMe for iOS is available in the New Zealand App Store; Android support will arrive third Quarter this year.

Other services available from PIM

PIM is also the NZ reseller of greenID, Australasia’s leading Online ID Verification service (including their mobile based biometric ID verification capability). NZ Customers of greenID include three major banks, NZ Post, and a dozen other businesses that are required to comply with the AML/CFT legislation.

ENDS

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