Business Services Industry

U.S. Bank Bolsters CRM Program With SAS Analytics

Business Wire, May 10, 2004

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2004

-- U.S. Bank To Streamline Marketing Process And Drive Revenue

With SAS(R) Marketing Automation, SAS(R) Interaction Management -

SAS, the leader in business intelligence, today announced that U.S. Bank, a division of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB), the eighth largest financial holding company in the United States, has selected SAS(R) Marketing Automation and SAS(R) Interaction Management to enhance its existing customer relationship management (CRM) processes. These two solutions from SAS' customer intelligence suite will help U.S. Bank better understand the needs of its customers and help strengthen the effectiveness of its marketing programs to retain and grow its customer base.

U.S. Bank has been a pioneer in applying CRM concepts to financial services and is recognized by Tower Group as one of the first successful CRM deployments among U.S. banking companies. SAS Marketing Automation will help U.S. Bank take their efforts to a new level by more precisely targeting customers for cross-sell and upgrade opportunities. The result will be increased revenue from existing customers, greater relevancy and improved customer loyalty.

Today's customers expect individualized attention and consistent treatment regardless of the delivery channel. SAS Interaction Management will enable U.S. Bank to track and respond to customers with a consistent message across all touch points, including call centers, branch sales and service personnel, direct marketing and the web - personalizing both inbound and outbound interactions at every opportunity. With SAS Interaction Management, U.S. Bank will be able to view each customer's behavior over time and act on significant changes immediately - when intervention is likely to have the most impact. This will accelerate sales opportunities and salvage at-risk relationships.

"We looked at a number of potential partners," said Rich Martino, senior vice president, Market Information & Research at U.S. Bank. "Our past experience with SAS and their commitment to making this effort a success separated them from the pack. They understand that this initiative is about supporting our company's organic growth objectives and they are dedicating their top resources to help us realize that goal."

"We are proud that U.S. Bank has been a SAS customer since 1980, and that they continue to place trust in SAS to help solve key challenges," said Jim Davis, chief marketing officer at SAS. "SAS will help U.S. Bank integrate their customer data into one source and then leverage this to achieve that prized 360 degree customer view that is the basis of all successful marketing."

The announcement came at the 29th annual SAS User Group International (SUGI) conference. More than 3,000 SAS users from around the world attended this year's SUGI in Montreal.

About U.S. Bancorp

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), with assets of $189 billion, is the 7th largest financial services holding company in the United States. The company operates 2,282 banking offices and 4,472 ATMs in 24 states and provides a comprehensive line of banking, brokerage, insurance, investment, mortgage, trust and payment services products to consumers, businesses and institutions. U.S. Bancorp is home of the Five Star Service Guarantee which assures customers of certain key banking benefits and services or customers will be paid for their inconvenience. U.S. Bancorp is the parent company of U.S. Bank. Visit U.S. Bancorp on the web at usbank.com.

About SAS

SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites -- including 96 of the top 100 of the 2003 Fortune Global 500 -- to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R). Visit us at www.sas.com.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.