NN Insurance

NN Insurance in Hungary is transforming a thirty-year-old sales paradigm with the help of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

With the system developed in collaboration with the experts from Attention CRM Consulting, the insurer can now automatically assign potential new clients from its database to sales partners on a daily basis—boosting both the company’s efficiency and its financial results. The outcome of this more than two-year partnership—carried out largely during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic—also complies fully with security requirements in the financial and insurance sectors, as well as with all applicable data protection regulations.

The Beginning

The partnership between Attention and NN Insurance began in 2019.

“We were looking for a marketing technology IT software that we could develop into a core element of our direct marketing system. We explored the market and found that while there were plenty of options, only a very small percentage met the security requirements that are standard in our insurance sector. In addition, we needed a solution that could be integrated—after some adjustments—into the many systems already in place at our company,” recalls Tamás Koscsó, Head of Digital Marketing at NN Insurance.

The tendering process lasted almost five months, eventually resulting in Salesforce Marketing Cloud being chosen as the winning solution. In Hungary, Attention CRM Consulting has the most extensive experience in implementing and operating this platform.

“This software is highly customizable, future-proof, and, together with Attention, offered a wide range of support services. We found that it could be fully integrated into our existing systems, aligned with our strict internal security policies, and comply with all other regulatory requirements as well,” says Koscsó.

NN Insurance Plc. has been offering life, supplementary accident, and health insurance services in Hungary since 1991. It is part of the publicly listed NN Group, a leading insurance and asset management company with operations in 11 countries across Europe and Japan. Founded in the Netherlands more than 175 years ago, the NN Group serves approximately 18 million customers worldwide, with over 14,000 employees. Currently, NN Insurance’s strategy focuses on developing digital solutions to provide customers with simple, flexible, online insurance services.

The Project

The joint project has unfolded in three phases so far.

In the first stage, after Attention won the tender and the contract was signed, the software was implemented by early 2021, and the first direct marketing emails were sent.

“We first had to make the history of prospects and leads available for CRM integration. These fundamental steps for the operational setup of Marketing Cloud proved to be a bigger challenge—more time-consuming and complex—than either party had initially expected. But our partners rose to the challenge, and we ultimately created a front-end interface embedded in the CRM,” says Koscsó.

Dynamic Solutions and Compliant Lead Scoring

The more complex part began in March last year and concluded in December.

“The main goal was to provide NN Insurance with a dynamic, tailored system—developed by Attention CRM Consulting—that significantly supports salespeople by legally assigning ‘score points’ to prospects likely to purchase life insurance, based on insights from direct marketing campaigns,” explains Bálint Kuka, Project Manager and Marketing Automation Consultant at Attention.

Individuals in the insurer’s marketing database can be identified as “warmed-up” leads based on their response to emails and their behavior on NN Insurance’s website, indicating interest in specific products. Their information is then transferred to a CRM interface—also developed by Attention—where a dedicated profile is created for the prospect.

Salespeople can then work far more efficiently using these profiles.

Integration Touchpoints Everywhere

For this to work, many of NN Insurance’s existing systems had to be connected to the new software—mostly through custom development.

“We had to ensure smooth communication between Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce Marketing Cloud and keep databases properly updated. While Salesforce products usually integrate seamlessly, in this case we needed constant custom solutions. When someone opens a direct marketing email, clicks on a link, and visits the insurer’s website, a lot of valuable user-specific data is generated—such as how long they read certain content. Our task was to ensure that only the relevant data—per client expectations and strict legal requirements—was unpacked by the system and forwarded to the embedded CRM interface,” says Kuka.

Fresh Data Every Morning

In the third phase, between August and early September 2021, the integration between systems was deepened.

As a result, the system can now store, filter, and summarize not only engagement metrics—such as how far prospects read an email or how they reacted—but also their current lead status: whether they have been contacted, what products were offered, and whether a contract has entered the signing phase.

“From a marketing standpoint, bombarding a ready-to-sign lead with more direct marketing emails is counterproductive. The system detects this and temporarily halts communication. Once someone becomes a customer, an entirely different type of relationship management is needed. Thanks to automation, the Marketing Cloud can now update the database overnight, so salespeople start their day with the most up-to-date customer statuses,” adds Kuka.

No Lead Left Behind

Attention also helped ensure that those who leave marketing emails unread are not lost from the funnel.

Meanwhile, NN Insurance trained its sales network to use the new system—with Attention also assisting in creating the training materials.

“Using digital footprints in sales and drawing conclusions from them—let alone querying the system—is not easy for salespeople less familiar with digital tools,” explains Koscsó.

Breaking a 30-Year Sales Paradigm

“This project is groundbreaking in the Hungarian financial sector. We faced many challenges in usage, appearance, and data collection. But the results have been transformative—we’re essentially breaking a thirty-year-old sales paradigm. Today, 5–10% of our tied agent network uses the system. Access isn’t automatic, so the percentage may seem low—digital maturity is required. Each time, serious training precedes access to the interface, which then allows users to extract highly valuable insights, such as predicting customer activity for specific products,” summarizes Koscsó.

Part of the Lead Ecosystem

From summer 2022, the system has been running at full capacity.

“We’ve gained remarkable new capabilities. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is now embedded in our lead ecosystem and can automatically generate and distribute leads to our salespeople. We’ve also started improving the quality of prospects and leads—reducing lead volume but increasing efficiency. This is exemplary, and our latest tests in early June showed highly promising results in terms of efficiency gains, even if lead volume is still too low for far-reaching conclusions. Nevertheless, Marketing Cloud has already delivered nearly all the benefits we expected. I’m confident that this development—part of our broader Digital Transformation project—will bear fruit,” concludes Koscsó.

According to him, Attention’s team worked exceptionally well in an agile environment, consistently overcoming unexpected challenges.

“With their help, we have essentially made prospect communication data-driven. Salesforce Marketing Cloud can now automatically assign new leads—potential new customers—to our salespeople, which will translate into measurable improvements for our company,” says Koscsó.

The cooperation between Attention CRM Consulting and NN Insurance will continue in the future.