Following a merger of the Staffordshire and Portman Building Societies in December 2003, a mutual organisation was formed, with assets of more than £10 billion - making it the fourth largest building society in the UK. The Staffordshire is now the trading name of the Portman Building Society, with 39 branches across Staffordshire, Shropshire, Hereford and Worcester.
Tasked in March this year, with the job of launching new initiatives to drive and develop new mortgage business for The Staffordshire Andy McIlroy, newly appointed Network Sales Manager, began to look for gaps in the market. “We were very keen to ‘add value’, and to offer something over and above our competitors – and from that The Staffs affinity mortgage scheme was born. Essentially we’ve put together a package of employee benefits that we are able to take out and offer to large employers in the regions in which we already operate. We launched two initially, one for the Borough of Telford & Wrekin Council, and then the South Staffs Council.”
“Through targeted mailings in pay packets and via intranet, we offered their employees a host of added value benefits that they couldn’t obtain elsewhere – for example 20% off solicitors’ fees, 15% off estate agents’ fees, and also £50 worth of Kingfisher Gift Vouchers to spend in B&Q, Comet, MVC, Woolworths or Woolworths bigW. With each successful application we’re also making a £50 donation to charity.”
“We had to structure the package so that it would appeal both to the employer – to whom we had to sell the offer – and also the employee, in order to drive new mortgage business,” comments Andy.
The thinking behind the use of Kingfisher Gift Vouchers is clear. “We were looking for the most appropriate way to ‘treat’ new mortgage customers – with the Kingfisher Gift Voucher they have the option of diy, gardening and furnishing products at B&Q; entertainment at Comet and MVC; and housewares at Woolworths.”
In undertaking these initiatives, Andy’s expectations were to build relationships with major employers within local branch areas, and to build the profile of The Society and its branch managers. Quantifying the success of the affinity mortgage schemes is going to be fairly straightforward too, as it is expected that each separate affinity scheme will generate over £1 million of mortgage business within 12 months of launch. “Since March we’ve introduced another six schemes including one for Oswestry Borough Council and Asda. Our target is to get 14 affinity schemes up and running before March 2005.”
In conclusion Andy states: “We’ve never offered incentives before – the affinity schemes are a completely new initiative for The Staffordshire. But from our experiences so far, particularly with the Kingfisher Gift Voucher team, I think we and our customers are on to a winner. We’ve been encouraged and impressed with the level of support and service from the Kingfisher Gift Voucher team – so much so that we also trialled the use of the gift vouchers as a staff reward in August – normally a very quiet period for mortgages. By setting short term targets, with gift vouchers as an incentive, several of our branches have greatly outperformed our expectations. I now firmly believe that nothing can beat engagement of your team, and the satisfaction of making the award to a very appreciative recipient. We’ll definitely be running another before the end of this year.”
