Extra sales leads for issuer of credit cards.

A brief history

After Atos Origin’s acquisition of BCC and Banksys in 2006, BCC Corporate became an independent company under the control of the major Belgian banks ING, Dexia, Fortis Bank, and KBC. Three years later, this group sold it to an issuer of American Express credit cards in Belgium and Luxembourg. The company saw an interesting way to expand its ‘thin’ product portfolio: from that point on, companies had a single point of contact for their Amex, Visa, and Mastercard credit cards. But the incredibly different corporate cultures, the complex company structure (BCC Corporate remains an independent entity), and conflicting market segments have gotten in the way of turning this into a success story. So, in 2017, it was decided to relinquish BCC Corporate again.

Winds of change

This time, the buyer is the German AirPlus, a successful global player in payment solutions for business trips. With 182 million transactions per year for more than 50,000 customers in 60 countries around the world, Airplus offers BCC Corporate unparalleled growth potential. On the other side of the coin, the company gains access to a market segment that is perfectly complementary to its existing range. The win-win is practically tangible.

BCC Corporate had really suffered during the past years. This is a stark contrast to the praise used by AirPlus customers to describe their supplier: ‘utterly professional, very personal contact’, ‘the service is literally exceptional’, or ‘thanks to the insight that AirPlus provided, we were able to make some serious savings in our travel expenditures’. This is not intended as a reproach for the BCC Corporate team, which seemed to be up a creek without a paddle.

A young, dynamic, brand personality

High time to gradually replace those paddles with some high-performance, outboard motors. Energy-efficient, flexible, customer-oriented, and equipped with young, dynamic brand personality with which both the customer and our own team could (once again) relate.

A new website with valuable content

Parallel to this new image, we also worked on the structure of the new website since this had also been outdated over the past decade due to a lack of priority.

It became a result-oriented, logical setup that immediately made the visitor aware of what BCC Corporate had to offer. And more importantly, what type of card was most appropriate.

The fact that the time spent on the website was 12 times higher from the first day than before proved that our content was what it should be. The clearer content informs and keeps the visitor interested. The brand experience cannot be compared with the discarded old brand image.

An ROI that matters

The new brand personality first gave a major boost to our employees’ self-confidence and enthusiasm. The arguments for the acquisition turned out to be much more than just a lot of hot air. On the contrary.

In addition, the customers and prospects were pleasantly surprised by BCC Corporate’s new, professional appearance. The supplier that they worked with because that’s what they’d always done suddenly metamorphosed into a partner that they actively wanted to work with. Not just because of the new look but specifically because of the new dynamic.

A promising future

The acquisition of BCC Corporate is a part of AirPlus’ European growth strategy on the virtual and mobile payment solutions market. With this, the company wants to provide its customers with products and services that are internationally standardised and that make life easier, both professionally and privately.

The first small yet successful steps have been taken in this regard and Liswood & Tache is grateful to have been given the opportunity to contribute to this. We look forward to being able to continue to guide AirPlus on the long path still to be travelled.