Office Depot Europe launches into insurance with ground-breaking model developed in partnership with Quotall
Leading office supplies provider launches SME insurance offering; retains end-to-end control of potential client base of over 1.2 million small and mid-sized companies.
Owned by private equity company Aurelius Equity Opportunities, ODE operates in 13 European countries through two main trading brands: Office Depot and Viking.
The insurance service runs through ODE’s Viking UK brand, offering insurance to Viking’s 325,000 active small and mid-sized enterprise (SME) customers.
Branded Viking Direct Insurance, products on offer include business insurance, commercial vehicle insurance, construction insurance, motor trade insurance, and professional indemnity insurance.
End-to-end customer journey
The culmination of 18 months of planning and development, Quotall supported ODE in entering the insurance marketplace from the outset with extensive customer research, insurance supplier selection, and expert operational and proposition planning to support the project. This was coupled with marketing support to help ODE effectively communicate its new insurance service to target customers.
Critically, and uniquely, ODE retains customer ownership and end-to-end control of the client journey using the Quotall solution. This means that all the data stays in house, allowing their team to identify new opportunities and providing them with the agility to launch new products in response.
A strong start
Early performance results from the ODE SME insurance program have exceeded expectations, indicating that the findings of the market research and consultancy work were correct – there is strong demand for effective online insurance solutions from Viking’s SME customer base.
The next step will include the roll out of full etrading capabilities across ODE’s business to offer insurance services to their client base of over 1.2 million SMEs. The supporting broker for this insurance programme is Markerstudy Retail under its trading style of Insurance Factory.
Quotall CEO Simon Ball said, “We’re really proud of the commercial framework we’ve put together for ODE with Markerstudy. While there is a trend for big retailers to launch into insurance, many are dissuaded by issues over branding, customer retention and control of the customer experience. We believe it is the first deal of its kind which ticks these essential boxes for most retail businesses.
In taking this step into insurance, ODE is ahead of the curve. We know that almost half of all SMEs start their search for insurance online and having the right support and infrastructure to harness this is critical to success. The opportunity before ODE is significant – the scope for further growth, cross selling, and delivering an even better service to Office Depot / Viking clients is exceptional.
Quite simply, we are delighted that the ODE team chose to partner with us to realise this exciting project. We very much look forward to rolling out the service to deliver ODE’s customers the multi-channel user experience that they expect.”
Office Depot Senior Marketing Director Europe Morten Severon said, “Since our initial engagement with Quotall, we have been consistently impressed with the level of service they have provided and the industry and systems knowledge that they bring.
Without their experience and contacts, we would not have been able to make the progress we have with this important initiative. In an ideal world we look to control every facet of the customer journey as far as possible and the Quotall platform will enable us to achieve this. We anticipate a successful initial trading period and the extension of our partnership in line with our ambitions.”
Find out more about Viking Direct Insurance Services on the live portal: https://www.viking-direct.co.uk/en/insurance
About Office Depot Europe: http://www.officedepot.eu/