First Data launches Usage Manager marketing tool
September 13, 2007
DENVER –First Data Corp. has launched Usage Manager, an analytical tool designed to help financial institutions better manage their marketing resources to increase card usage and manage attrition. Usage Manager, part of First Data's LIFT family of solutions, enables financial institutions to identify debit or credit accounts where usage is most likely to decline or increase. Armed with this information, financial marketers can make immediate decisions to adjust reward points and pricing to stimulate usage, or avoid overspending on incentives such as discounted pricing or rewards for accounts that are likely to increase usage without any additional incentive.
"One of the most significant differences between Usage Manager and other scoring products available today is that it is designed to be used by a line of business manager to improve their organization's business performance, not just analyze their business," said Max Narro, senior vice president, Marketing, Product and Industry, First Data Resources. "Traditional models are developed by sophisticated modelers who are often removed from the day-to-day business operations. But business managers are focused on taking immediate action to improve results. Usage Manager enables them to make 'decisions on demand' as well as take immediate actions to capitalize on the business benefit uncovered by the service."
Usage Manager analyzes a financial institution's data to provide an action score for each accountholder, based on the likelihood to decrease or increase usage over the next 60 days. Financial institutions can segment cardholders into test cells of usage score bands, based on marketing and risk criteria and then determine which overall pricing changes to implement or incentives to offer to which cardholders.