In today’s fast-evolving digital banking landscape, UnionBank is setting new standards in customer experience and operational efficiency. With remarkable growth to almost 15 million customers, UnionBank stands out as an industry leader. To effectively serve this vast customer base, the bank prioritizes exceptional service, which includes timely and relevant SMS notifications for transactions, promotions, and other interactions.

As UnionBank continues to grow and expand its product offerings, precise targeting in communications becomes crucial. This ensures that the right messages reach the right customer segments at the optimal frequency, maintaining relevance and engagement.

With everything we need to communicate to our customers–new product info, promos, advisories, OTPs and cybersecurity reminders–we had to step back to see if we are really getting our message across with the number of SMS messages we were sending or just adding to the clutter.

- Albert Cuadrante, Chief Marketing Officer, UnionBank

This presents UnionBank with a significant opportunity to enhance its communication strategy while achieving substantial cost savings. By adopting a more strategic approach to SMS sending, rather than relying on routine messages, UnionBank can target communications more effectively, ensuring that each message is both relevant and timely for its customers. This not only improves customer engagement but also leads to notable savings. By harnessing data insights and AI, this initiative aims to adopt a more targeted and less disruptive approach to customer communication while simultaneously reducing operational expenses. Notifications are now sent only when absolutely necessary and are highly relevant to the individual customer, mitigating notification fatigue and enhancing the overall customer experience.

With the continuous growth of UBO app users, the team can now reach customers via in-app notifications, providing a more efficient and cost-effective communication method. “We now have new tools like WalkMe that allow us to create better messages that are more targeted,” Cuadrante added.

A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO COST OPTIMIZATION

A dynamic and dedicated squad from Marketing, Product, Digital Channels, Fraud Risk Management, and Technology was assembled to spearhead this revolutionary effort. Understanding that SMS costs are driven by the cost per SMS and the volume and length of messages, the team embarked on several exciting initiatives.

The team implemented advanced marketing platforms that have revolutionized the delivery of targeted offers, ensuring that customers receive highly relevant promotions tailored to their preferences and behaviors. These platforms leverage AI to select the most effective communication channels for each customer, optimizing engagement and conversion rates. By designing with intent, such as being mindful of SMS character limits, these platforms reduce costs while maintaining impactful messaging. Continuous negotiations with partners further decrease the expenses associated with sending communications, making marketing campaigns more cost-effective. This strategic approach not only maximizes the impact of marketing efforts but also drives higher ROI for businesses.

COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS AND STRATEGIC INNOVATION

Team Dynamics and Strategic Evolution

The collaborative efforts of UnionBank's team were instrumental in shaping the project's success. Emphasizing a data-driven and detail-oriented approach, the team relentlessly pursued innovative solutions to reduce SMS costs. Their strategies evolved, becoming more refined and effective over time.

One of the main challenges was the high volume and cost of SMS associated with UnionBank's flagship digital platform, UnionBank Online. The team focused on optimizing notifications for this platform, which included identifying high-cost drivers such as login notifications. These notifications involved sending two separate SMS messages: one for OTP and another for successful login confirmation.

Applying the Identify, Reduce, and Remove framework, the team chose to reduce the length of these messages. By combining the messages into a single, concise SMS, they significantly cut costs. This reduction strategy, implemented in February, is expected to yield approximately PHP 88 million in cost saves.

ONGOING EFFORTS AND FUTURE INNOVATIONS

Ongoing efforts are crucial to maintaining the efficiency and effectiveness of these advanced marketing platforms. The dedicated task force continues to optimize communication channels, focusing on initiatives such as reviewing SMS costs and rationalizing notifications and alerts. This team ensures that resources are used judiciously without compromising the quality of customer interactions. By continuously optimizing these elements, businesses can adapt to changing market dynamics and customer preferences, further enhancing the precision and cost-effectiveness of their marketing strategies. This relentless focus on refinement and efficiency underscores a commitment to delivering exceptional value both to customers and the organization.

On top of delivering cost-effective marketing strategies, introduction of a sophisticated risk-based solution provides real-time device profiling to build comprehensive digital identities, enabling the authentication and identification of trusted behavioral patterns. This promotes a seamless customer experience in digital banking by minimizing friction through risk-based authentication, eliminating the need for SMS OTP. By accurately distinguishing between legitimate and suspicious activities, the solution enhances security while ensuring that genuine customers enjoy a smooth and efficient banking experience. This approach not only fortifies digital security but also significantly improves user satisfaction by reducing unnecessary verification steps.

Designing with intent reflects our Group's Great Transformation journey. By harnessing data-driven insights and embracing agile innovation, we are not only optimizing resources but also redefining the digital banking experience for our customers. This initiative underscores our commitment to continuous improvement, ensuring every Filipino enjoys a seamless, secure, and cost-effective financial journey. By reducing expenses, we reinvest these savings into creating a more inclusive financial ecosystem, paving the way for a brighter future for all.

This is how we're transforming banking, one SMS at a time.