Chandini Sehgal, Head-Marketing & Corporate Communications at HDFC Credila, outlines the corporate communications strategy of the company:
Ravi Lalvani: Which are the key targets of HDFC Credila’s corporate communications efforts?
Chandini Sehgal: HDFC Credila’s key corporate communications is directed towards potential and current customers, which include both students (applicants) and parents (co-borrowers). The team’s activities cover business partners, media, customer and internal communications.
HDFC Credila funds higher education of Indian students, taking up 1500+ courses in 2500+ institutes, across 38+ countries. Hence, our communication has to be customized for a diverse set of higher education aspirants with customized loan solutions. The content is tailored to reach them with relevant and timely information, based on their life cycle and destination of study.
What are the key corporate communication activities for each of the segments?
As a specialist provider of education loans, our aim is to add value during the journey of students from campus to corporate and play a part in their journey towards achieving their dreams. Our corporate communications activities revolve around:
- Educating higher education aspirant about education loan benefits and finance. Also, providing value added services like information about upcoming global trends, credible insights about higher education abroad that can help them make informed decisions. We engage with students and provide them with valuable information for a period as long as 6-18 months before they fly out to their study destinations. The content is curated and compiled from experts in the education industry across the globe. These initiatives make aspirants relate to the brand as not just a loan provider, but also as an entity they can trust – a friend that understands them and their financial needs for higher education.
- Generating awareness among the business partners about the benefits of education loans and the unique benefits that we offer as they often advise students about financial planning for higher education
- Creating awareness in the media and among the public at large about the brand and the unique initiatives we take towards the ever-evolving ease of financing higher education through innovative products and value-added services.
- Providing information to relevant stakeholders about polices, guidelines, news and achievements of the company and also news about achievements of employees and their family to keep the bonding and motivation level high.
What are the key corporate communications channels used?
There has been a constant change in the way content, information and communication are consumed. The preference to consume information in quick reads and concise capsulated formats by the millennials has transitioned communication channels and formats. Articles have shrunk to paragraphs, video lengths have shrunk to 15 seconds, words have changed to infographics, telephonic calls to precise texts. Hence, our communication is punctuated across new age digital media channels, integrating value added information, knowledge and wisdom at each touch points.
In the first instance, we communicate with both millennials and their parents and hence it is important for us to communicate effectively. We understand that what millennials need is relevant, timely and personalized information and seamless experience that works across all communication channels. This is something that we try and provide to all, and not just specific to age groups or segments. We have a multi-channel strategy that constantly evolves with the ever-changing digital and social platforms. However, we don’t hesitate in using conventional methods like hard copies for select communications.
Secondly, most content and communications are now consumed over the phone. Hence, we often use digital mediums to communicate with our business partners and the public, as well as for the purpose of internal communications. As a brand, we strive to be seen as their friend and a sensitive and innovative approach towards their preferred channels never fails to deliver. The aim is to have the message not just delivered but also read!
What metrics are used to measure effectiveness of corporate communications for each of the 4 segments?
In today’s world, where most communications are through electronic mediums, be it advertisements or information, it is much easier to measure the effectiveness of any communication through available tools for in-depth analytics – to measure reach, relevance of audience and their engagement/response to the communications. We use analytics to also improve the future effectiveness of the communications. A smart marketer today measures at each level of the communications delivery and can improve the effectives of the reach, channel, content and also time it right.
Communications through traditional mediums are also moving towards options providing customization to ensure reach to varied demographics. We have often seen the customers walk into our offices with hard copies of communications we had posted to them, which reflects the success of knowing when to use print and electronic mediums.
What are the results achieved? And what are the future plans?
As a thought leader in this segment, the effort is towards creating awareness about the benefits of education as a smart financial decision. The growing knowledge about the attractive tax benefits, opportunity to build credit history, ease of processing loan, etc results in growing the market. The transformation in the change of perception over the last few years is a clear indication of the success of the efforts towards this communication.
Segmenting customers in the right bucket and planning the frequency and level of customization of content help build the brand without over communicating.
Challenges of reaching out to a variety of stakeholders like customers, co-borrowers, business partners and internal employees have pushed the company to be much more innovative.
We have over time explored and innovated mediums that help us connect with all stakeholders with more ease. We believe in communicating in a simple yet concise language that makes absorption of the key messaging an easy effort. Jargons are simplified. Content is non-pushy. Relevant, authentic and timely communications can make the customers reach out to you and look for content through you, rather than the brand chasing them with content. If you provide value, people value you – that is the formula we at HDFC Credila have adopted. Our teams are constantly keeping pace with the constantly changing and evolving world of communications. Customer centricity has been our core and that is something that remains as a constant as we create awareness about the brand as the trusted leader, yet an approachable friend!
