DESPERATELY SEEKING SERVICE

Customers hoping to service their own policies oftenfind themselves in a maze with only one way out–a call for help. Byoffering better navigability and a stronger search engine, manycarriers are helping their policyholders find the answers they needwithout bringing in customer service reps to complete the task.Other insurers, however, still prefer the human touch.

BY ROBERT REGIS HYLE

Good customer service in-volves a smooth blend of having thecustomers help themselves and having quality personnel available tohelp on more difficult issues. Customer service experts generallybelieve in the 80/20 rule80 percent of customer service issues aresimple and can be handled without human intervention with theremaining 20 percent of issues a bit more complicated.

Companies address issues in an either/or fashion, says ChrisSelland, vice president, sell-side research for the consultancyAberdeen Group. Either the company puts people on all the[requests], which is usually a waste of resources for the 80percent of requests that are simple to solve, or the company sends[all customers] to serve themselves, which is frustrating for the20 percent [of customers] who have more complicated problems. Thereal goal is to blend self-service. If you try to push everybody toself-service, you usually wind up frustrating customers.

Bob DalSanto, vice president of e-business for Western &Southern Financial group, says his company has long believed theWeb is important in delivering service. The Web really has helpedus with one of our key strategies as a companywere looking to serveour customers anywhere, any way, and any time, he says. We need toserve the customers when they are looking to be served. The oldkind of insurance company service hours are not appropriate forwhat our insurance clients are looking for in 2004 and 2005.Western & Southern has tried to leverage its customers abilityto do the same number and type of transactions online they wouldperform if they were to call the contact center and talk to theinsurers customer service reps. Everything is customer focused,says DalSanto. We try to build the services the customers use themost. Thats what drives a lot of our development.

Doing It Right

To do it right, though, insurance carriers have to askthemselves a simple question: Who is your customer? Is it thepolicyholder or the agent? Depending on the answer to thatquestion, you will find different ways of approaching theself-service question. Many insurers want to provide self-serviceto customers, Cynthia Saccocia, a senior analyst in the insurancepractice at Tower-Group, believes, but there remain some strategicquestions to be answered as to what services [the carrier] wants toprovide in the self-service environment. Some still are gettingpush back from insurance agents who state, We dont want youproviding as much service to the customer, for fear they are goingto lose control of that customer, she says. There still is somestrategic work that needs to be done that keeps theagentsparticularly in the P&C marketat the center of thatrelationship with the policyholder, keeping them informed of anyself-service activities. Certainly, the benefits gained by givingclients the capability to submit information to the insurancecompany and for those clients to transact some business on theirown indicate a direction in which the industry needs to beheading.

On the Other Hand

Sharon Marburger, director of internal operations at PennNational Insurance, doesnt necessarily agree, though. Our primarycustomers are our independent agents, she says. If we are going todo something [on the corporate Web site], our first question isnot, What does it do to our internal efficiencies? It is more, Whatfunctionality and service does it provide to our agents? Wevealready made decisions that if [a project] improves only ourinternal efficiencies, we may not pursue it because our primaryfocus needs to be what we can do for our agents. We would rathersacrifice internally than have our [agents] sacrifice somethingthey need. Our primary driver is not always internalefficiencies.

As an example, Marburger reports Penn National is working on aproject it hopes to kick off next year. There are four [issues] weneed to solve, and one of those is internal efficiencies, but thatcame down fourth on the list of priorities, she says.

Agents may worry too much about falling out of the loop betweenthe carrier and the policyholder, Saccocia believes. That is thefeedback I received from a vendor that was working with aninsurance company on some self-service activity, she says. I was alittle surprised and frustrated to hear that. Quite frankly, agentsshould be focused solely on selling, and any time the insurancecompany can provide them with additional tools for service, that isa real benefit for [the agents]. It is important, however, for theinsurance company to send alerts or notifications to those activeagentsthose still working with the customer the carrier istransacting business withbut I dont think its imperative.

Issues Ignored

There are many aspects to self-service businesses have ignored.The general supply of information is one of them, according toSelland. An area of self-service that is drawing more attention, henotes, is the use of the search engine on the corporate Website.

One of the past requirements [to service] has been we structureour knowledge, he says. We had to put the answers to the questionsin a structure so people knew where to look for them, and we had tomake sure we answered the questions consistently. But as searchengines became more powerful, all you had to do for customers wasput up a box that says, How can we help you? Theyll search for theanswer, and if they dont find the answer, theyll want to speak to alive person. For most simple inquiries, Selland believes, thesearch engine can be enough. Search is evolving, in the long term,as probably the most important tool for self-service, he asserts.The more powerful the search engine, the less structure you need.There are a lot of good search engines out there.

Do What You Want

Many financial services institutions are creating an onlineenvironment, Saccocia reports, where customers can do almostanything they want by themselves. She cites examples such as makinga policy change, a transfer of funds in the case ofinvestment-oriented insurance such as annuities, beneficiarychanges, and address changes. Insurers need to look at the breadthof transactions customers actually can do in any givenpolicywhether its P&C or life and annuityand give them fullaccess to execute many of those transactions, she says. You canprovide cross-selling activities based on the customersdemographics or what the customer is doing at the time. If [thepolicyholders] are online in a particular path through the Website, the insurers can have rules engines behind that [path] thatwill have pop-ups to provide some guidance or some options as toother products a client might consider. Carriers can ask whethercustomers want to update their profile, and customers can provideadditional information about themselves, such as what types ofproducts they own. Saccocia notes information can be shared with anagent for cross-selling activity. At some point, [the carriers]need to provide [the policyholders] access to support. If thatsprovided online, you can have interactive online conversations asopposed to forcing a customer to pick up a phone and call a callcenter, she says.

Primary Customers

Penn National offers its primary customersindependentagentsaccess to more information than it provides itspolicyholders. An example of this is the policy declaration pages.We put those on the Web for our agents to see any of theircustomers they have with us. But the insureds cant see those pages,says Marburger. This service also could be given to thepolicyholders, but Marburger adds Penns independent agents dontwant the information readily available online. The agents say theywant the insured to call them because not only are they the agentsbut they can take the opportunity to check on the account andpossibly sell additional coverages, she explains. The agents dowant services online, such as a payment process, which are moreclerical in nature, according to Marburger. They want us to pushthat out to the insureds and let the insureds do that themselvesand take the agents out of the picture, she says. Policyholders canmake their payments online, see the status of their account, andget a good feel of what their payment history has been. They canmake simple change requestssuch as replacing insurance cardsorchange a mailing address. Penn National may get 100 such onlinerequests a month on those simple changes, reports Marburger. Thebulk of service requests, though, come through the agents. Thepolicyholders choose to go to an independent agent. They want totalk to an agent, so they go to them for those things, shesays.

Penns objective is to keep policyholders doing things throughthe agent because the carrier wants its agents involved. [Theagents] are the front line, states Marburger. They talk tocustomers and get to know them. In my opinion, I think insurance istoo complex for consumers to get comfortable doing on their own. Itis complex, and people choose not to learn it because it is notinteresting. They want to go to someone who will tell them whatthey need to do. There are simple things they will do onlinelikemake their paymentsbut other than that, I dont think [self-service]ever will take off.

Free Time

Western & Southerns self-service efforts are designed tofree up more time for its agents to be selling financial servicesand meeting needs of their clients. We dont think it is the bestuse of [agents] time to be doing beneficiary changes or some otherthings, says DalSanto. Plus, for many customers, it comes down tothe fact a lot of them expect to be serviced when they want to beserviced. Weve really extended our customer service hours withpeople. Consumers are expecting to be able to call their financialservices companies later and later at night, so were providing moreservices to those customers at night. He believes Western &Southern has a strong Web team. Some of the things were doing arehaving a real impact on our placement rates as a company, which isgood from an agents standpoint, a companys standpoint, and aconsumers standpoint, he says. If we can use these technologies toplace policies seven days earlier than they used to be placed,thats a benefit to a lot of people.

Service Link

Selland recommends carriers put some type of customer servicelink or a search box right on the home page, if not every page.Sometimes [companies] wall off [customer service] as a separatearea, and [customers] have to dig to find the customer service areato ask a question, he says. Putting it right out front can be veryhelpful. If people cant find the answer and they want a live answerfrom a live personwhether its e-mail, a chat, or a phone callyouwant to make that process smooth.

Too many companies structure their Web site by product line, heasserts. Insurers and financial institutions, in general, tend todo this, says Selland. Thats frustrating for customers. You want tostructure your customer service operations by how the customerwants to do business with you, not by how your business is set up,which often is by product line.

He also believes better search tools are coming. The technologyhas been played around with for a while. Customer acceptance iswhat drives it, he points out. In the end, its not about doing morecomplicated and cool things, its about doing simple things well.The important thing is for companies to be easy to do business withand easy [in providing] answers. Usually when people contact youfor service, they want to be done as quickly as they can. Thats whythey go to self-service in the first place. They want to get on andget offget their answer and go on with their lives. The more youtry to wrap them up in Flash, pretty UIs, and lots of impressivegraphics and music[increasing] the time it takes them to findsomethingthe less likely they are going to come back.

Tech Guide: Customer Service

Afni Insurance Services
Bloomington, Ill.
309-828-5226
www.afniinc.com

AIG Technologies
Livingston, N.J.
800-788-0144
www.aigtechnologies.com

Alterian
Chicago, Ill.
312-704-1700
www.alterian.com

Amdocs
San Jose, Calif.
408-965-7000
www.amdocs.com

AMS Services, Inc.
Windsor, Conn.
800-444-4813
www.ams-services.com

Aspect Communications
San Jose, Calif.
408-325-2200
www.htmect.com

Avaya, Inc.
Basking Ridge, N.J.
866-462-8292
www.avaya.com

Avolent
San Francisco, Calif.
800-553-5505
www.avolent.com

Benefits Technology Group
Hopedale, Mass.
866-315-7100
www.bentechusa.com

Best Software
Scottsdale, Ariz.
480-368-3700
www.saleslogix.com

Bristol Consulting Group
St. Louis, Mo.
314-743-1447
www.bristolcg.com

Captiva Systems, Inc.
Miami, Fla.
800-274-8300
www.captivasystems.com

CGI
Andover, Mass.
952-542-2145
www.cgi.com

CSC Financial Services
Austin, Tex.
800-345-7672
www.csc-fs.com

Diagenix Corporation
Norwell, Mass.
781-871-6624
www.diagenix.com

Duck Creek Technologies
Bolivar, Mo.
866-382-5832
www.duckcreektech.com

DWL
Atlanta, Ga.
770-325-4000
www.dwl.com

eAgency Systems
Newport Beach, Calif.
949-253-9131
www.eagency.com

eAssist Global Solutions
San Diego, Calif.
858-458-4188
www.eassist.com

EchoMail, Inc.
Cambridge, Mass.
617-354-8585
www.echomail.com

EDS
Plano, Tex.
972-604-6000
www.eds.com

Envoy WorldWide
Bedford, Mass.
781-482-2100
www.envoyworldwide.com

E.piphany
San Mateo, Calif.
650-578-7200
www.epiphany.com

Everture International Research
Berlin, Germany
+49 30 61202 873
www.everture.com

Exstream Software
Lexington, Ky.
859-296-0600
www.exstream.com

E-Z Data
Pasadena, Calif.
626-585-3505
www.ez-data.com

FileNET Corporation
Costa Mesa, Calif.
704-875-1934
www.filenet.com

Fineos
South Portland, Maine
207-879-0400
www.fineos.com

Firepond, Inc.
Minneapolis, Minn.
925-229-2300
www.firepond.com

Firstlogic
La Crosse, Wis.
608-782-5000
www.firstlogic.com

Fiserv Customer
Contact Solutions
Brookfield, Wis.
262-879-5000
www.fiserv.com

FMR Systems, Inc.
Palatine, Ill.
847-934-5566
www.fmr-systems.com

FrontRange Solutions
Colorado Springs, Colo.
800-776-7889
www.frontrange.com

Fulcrum InteTech
Napa, Calif.
707-224-7700
www.fulcrumit.com

Genelco Software Solutions
St. Louis, Mo.
800-983-8114
www.genelco.com

InterlinkONE, Inc.
Wilmington, Mass.
978-694-9992
www.interlinkone.com

Konexx
San Diego, Calif.
800-275-6354
www.konexx.com

LOMA
Atlanta, Ga.
770-951-1770
www.loma.org

London Bridge Group
Norcross, Ga.
770-810-8000
www.london-bridge.com

MarketSoft
Lexington, Mass.
781-674-0000
www.marketsoft.com

Mobitor Corporation
San Ramon, Calif.
925-552-8230
www.mobitor.com

Motion Computing
Austin, Tex.
512-637-1100
www.motioncomputing.com

NaviSys
Edison, N.J.
800-775-3592
www.navisys.com

Oaktree Systems
Calverton, N.Y.
631-369-0094
www.oaktreesys.com

onClick Corporation
Houston, Tex.
866-722-5425
www.onclickcorp.com

OneShield, Inc.
Woburn, Mass.
888-663-2565
www.oneshield.com

Pegasystems
Cambridge, Mass.
617-374-9600
www.pegasystems.com

PeopleSoft
Pleasanton, Calif.
800-380-7638
www.peoplesoft.com

Pragmatech Software, Inc.
Amherst, N.H.
800-401-9580
www.pragmatech.com

Robert E. Nolan Company
Allas, Tex.
972-248-3727
www.renolan.com

Roots Infocomm Limited
Punjab, India
www.rootssoft.com

S1 Corporation
Atlanta, Ga.
404-923-7637
www.s1.com

SAS Institute, Inc.
Cary, N.C.
919-677-8000
www.sas.com

Search Software America
Old Greenwich, Conn.
203-698-2399
www.searchsoftware.com

Siebel Systems
San Mateo, Calif.
650-389-1128
www.siebel.com

Skywire Software
Frisco, Tex.
972-377-1110
www.skywiresoftware.com

Steel Card, LLC
Santa Barbara, Calif.
800-553-9961
www.steelcard.com

Sun Microsystems
Santa Clara, Calif.
650-786-0662
www.sun.com

Teradata
Dayton, Ohio
937-445-5000
www.teradata.com

Terrace
Oakland, Calif.
510-836-3400
www.terrace.com

TIA Technology A/S
Denmark
+45 7022 7620
www.tia.dk

Tri Plus Technologies
Norcross, Ga.
770-817-9090
www.triplus.com

Touchstone Corporation
Costa Mesa, Calif.
714-755-2810
www.wintouch.com

Value One, LLC
Morrisville, N.C.
919-321-6146
www.e11online.com

Witness Systems
Roswell, Ga.
770-754-1900
www.witness.com

XDimensional Technologies
Brea, Calif.
800-789-2567
www.xdti.com

Xerox Global Services
Rochester, N.Y.
716-264-6550
www.xerox.com