Prudential relies heavily on voice, mail and the web to communicate with customers and influence brand perception. Thunderhead's technology simplifies and speeds up the document generation process, ensuring that new customer communication can instantly be requested and delivered from across the business. This gives business users flexibility and full control of communication with their customers, including regulatory outputs such as yearly statements.

The previous systems used for generating customer correspondence demanded many thousands of individual document templates to be maintained. Through migrating documents to Thunderhead, Prudential has already managed to substantially reduce the number of templates. These are now maintained within a customer services environment, meaning changes can be made in a timely and cost-effective way. Previously, complex templates had to be operated and maintained by the IT team.

The IT team was also tasked with updating templates in line with changing Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulations. This includes the Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) regulation, which requires organisations to provide consumers with clear information before, during and after the point of sale.

"Thunderhead has allowed us to take control of customer communications across all channels," said Janet Hambly, document manager at Prudential. "New requirements, new regulations and business as usual changes can now be performed in days rather than months without us being dependent upon IT."

"Insurance companies need to ensure good communication links exist via every channel," said Glen Manchester, CEO of Thunderhead. "Consistency and accuracy must go hand-in-hand or communication is worthless. Transferring the control back to business users is therefore essential."

"With IT bottlenecks removed, businesses can revert back to the 'Just in Time' concept of production, saving both money and time," he concluded.