Connecting the Dots
|Siloed systems and disparate customer data sources always havebeen inhibitors to creating the oft-cited 360-degree customer view.Here's how several insurers have made the crucial connections tocreate service strategies that are more than just the sum of theparts.
|Recently, I received a bill for my umbrella policy from myinsurance company–for a term that expired two years ago. I calledthe company, but the first service rep wasn't able to help mebecause she had access only to my auto and home policies, not theumbrella, because they were on different systems. (Incidentally,that disconnect also explains why I can pay for my auto and homepolicies via EFT, but I have to send a paper check to pay for theumbrella.)
|After being transferred to a few more call center reps–andhaving to explain the situation from the beginning each time–themystery finally was solved. When my insurer calculated the umbrellapremium two years ago, it hadn't included all the underlyingpolicies I had with the company, even though those polices haven'tchanged for years. Somewhere along the line, the company figured itout and now was looking to go back in time as far as it could andget some more money. The call center rep actually told me this wasto my benefit, since I had been able to keep my money longer ratherthan paying the premium that was due.
|Leaving aside the matter of unsympathetic call center staff–andthe questionable legality of asking me to pay for the company'smistake–my experience is the perfect example of the serviceproblems that have plagued insurers due to disconnects between thevarious systems and disparate databases that hold different bits ofinformation on the same customer.
|"One thing that drives system integration projects [forinsurers] is they need a single customer view," says Steve Craggs,vice chair of the Integration Consortium. "When I call, I don'texpect my broker to have to say, 'Wait a minute, I need to get ontoone system for your car and another system to find out about yourhouse.' That frustrates people."
|This is hardly a new problem, so why hasn't it been solved?Aside from a host of business-related issues (where to focusinvestment, who the ultimate customer is, or even whether goodservice really is important), complicating integration efforts isthe fact that when companies look to create a single picture of acustomer, they are dealing with not just separate jigsaw pieces butpieces that are from different puzzle boxes.
|"These systems never were built to communicate, and even if youdo the technical integration, data is in different formats," saysKimberly Harris-Ferrante, vice president of research atGartner.
|Smoothing the Seams
|Insurers have been doing a better job of realizing customersexpect to be offered several different channels of service. ButHarris-Ferrante indicates carriers haven't been good at integratingthose channels to provide a seamless service experience.
|"Each channel should be knowledgeable about the others, but mostcompanies aren't at that point," she says, meaning customers stilltypically have to start over when, for instance, calling theiragent after getting stuck halfway through a Web self-servicetask.
|One company that has removed this type of disconnect isBlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina (BlueCross). The carrieroffers healthcare providers several service options, including livecall center agents as well as self-service through an interactivevoice response (IVR) system and BlueCross' My Insurance Manager Webportal, which first was deployed in 2000.
|Today, My Insurance Manager provides doctors' offices withaccess to coverage information on patients and, by integrating withBlueCross' claims system, allows the company to open a claim andsupplies physicians with an accurate breakdown of the carrier'sclaim payment and a patient's responsibility while the patientstill is in the office. Genesys' computer telephony integration(CTI) solution enables the connection between the Web, IVR, andcall center applications, so that when users opt out of one channeland call a service rep, that rep can take over the processmidstream.
|However, BlueCross wanted to make the opt-out process evensmoother for users. In late 2004, the company added a Voice overInternet Protocol (VoIP)-based call-in feature from CrystalVoice tothe portal. The new service, which BlueCross calls STATchat, allowsWeb users to connect with service reps simply by clicking theSTATchat link (and having a headset plugged into their PC).
|BlueCross saw STATchat as an opportunity not only to improveservice but to reduce costs, as well. "There's nothing 'free' abouta toll-free call to us," says David Boucher, the insurer'sassistant vice president for healthcare services. "The valueproposition for us is to get users off the phone and onto theInternet."
|As an enticement to use the VoIP system, STATchat callers aremoved to the front of the call queue, virtually eliminating anaverage five-minute on-hold wait. STATchat usage currently is about350 calls per day and steadily increasing. Boucher says it's tooearly to project ROI accurately until calls reach the 600 mark.
|BlueCross hopes by making the VoIP feature more attractive thanthe 1-800 option, providers will use the Web as their primarychannel. "Our ultimate goal is 100 percent self-service," says AnneCastro, the company's chief design architect.
|Turning Service IntoSales
|"One of the [other] reasons companies have looked at integrationis to generate revenue by cross-selling and upselling," Craggspoints out. AAA Carolinas sees cross-selling as a potential benefitof an ongoing data warehouse development and service-orientedarchitecture (SOA) project designed to modernize and increase theinteroperability of its systems. AAA, which provides travelservices and personal auto insurance, is building out its SOA basedon IBM's WebSphere software and middleware and iSerieshardware.
|Even though the projects still are in progress, AAA has beenable to create marketing campaigns by mining new consolidatedsources of customer data. "Before, we had to run reports andmanually try to merge information together. Now, we are able to use[business intelligence software including] Brio [from Hyperion] andInfinium [from SSA Global] against our data warehouse," says HarryJohns, manager of insurance IT at AAA Carolinas. Also, by beingable to access information more easily from multiple systems viathe SOA project, AAA plans to do in-process analyses and identifynew sales opportunities in real time.
|This second activity, en-abled by effective systems integration,is a key point in bringing the service and sales processestogether, Craggs asserts. "Instead of just doing data mining, youcan spot events occurring, such as customers looking to insuresomething for a lot of money, which might give an upsellopportunity," he says. "If you provide more products [to acustomer], you're doing a better job of servicing thatcustomer."
|Yet for several reasons, effective cross-selling has remained anelusive goal for insurers despite any foundational successes oftheir integration projects. Carriers are reluctant to step into themiddle of the agent-customer relationship, a particular problem forindependent-agency carriers that can't control the technology oractivities of their agency force. Insurers worry about privacyissues. And Harris-Ferrante says there actually is culturalresistance to cross-selling at some insurers.
|"The performance [compensation] of executives often is based onthe number of customers in their product line, and therefore [theymay think]: I don't want the other sides of the business to'bother' my customer," she says. Those types of political feuds canboil over to affect service projects, as well.
|"There's not much resistance to system integration driven bystraight-through processing or transaction-based [objectives], butprojects around 360-degree customer profiles, where the next stepmight be mining the profile and marketing to those customers,that's where companies get a little more edgy. Information sharingwithin the company isn't easy because of those politics aroundcustomer ownership," she contends.
|Different Strokes
|There's no single integration approach that works universallyfor all companies. "A fair number of companies create a [new]system of record that's responsible for maintaining customerinformation and turn off the function in the administration systemsthat did that maintenance. Some companies have created an elaboratedata-warehousing approach, where information is captured and legacysystems are updated overnight," says Paul McDonnell, senior vicepresident and insurance segment leader at BearingPoint.
|GE Insurance Solutions is an example of a carrier taking acombination approach to system integration. (At press time, it wasannounced GE Insurance Solutions was to be purchased by Swiss Re.)Previously, GE service staff had struggled to respond to inquiriesfrom commercial lines property/casualty customers because thosecustomer records could exist on any one of 15 different mainframeand client-server systems.
|"We wanted to accomplish three things," says Greg Sovich,customer insights leader at GE. "First, to increase our first-callresolution. Second, to capture information about what issues wewere receiving inquiries on in order to mine that for additionalimprovements. And third, both to reduce transfers from first-tierto second-tier agents and to transfer call details more effectivelywhen calls did need to be transferred so that customers weren'tstarting from scratch with another agent."
|In 2003, GE consolidated a number of distributed call centers toone location in Overland Park, Kan., and deployed Siebel'sInsurance CRM solution, including a consolidated customer database,in support of that effort. Rather than bring together all customerdata, GE focused its efforts by identifying the most common servicequestions and loading the database to enable call center reps toanswer those questions without having to access legacy systems. TheSiebel system also serves as the new system of record for manycommon, cross-product service tasks, such as address changes,feeding those updates directly to the legacy system. For lesscommon changes and product lines, reps access the legacyplatforms.
|Today, 84 percent of customer issues are resolved on the firstcall, up from just five percent before the project. GE also hasreduced the number of transfers to second-tier agents by 60 percentand reduced call referrals to staff outside the call center (suchas sales staff or underwriters) by 90 percent.
|Ease of integration and increased automation are key objectivesof AAA Carolinas' IBM-based SOA project. As a direct writer, thecompany supports both agency management systems and insuranceadministration systems, but the two platforms had not beenconnected, meaning information captured at policy quotation had tobe rekeyed at policy issuance.
|"We were trying to eliminate that redundancy and opportunity fordata-entry error," says Johns. Furthermore, different systems thatcontain information on the same customer–such as policyadministration and AAA membership information–weren'tconnected.
|In early 2005, the company completed rearchitecting CSC-basedpolicy and claims administration systems as Web-services-basedapplications that can communicate via XML with agency managementand membership information systems. Johns reports the IBMarchitecture also allowed AAA to integrate more easily a newdocument management system from RJS Software, which in addition tohelping transform the formerly paper-based application process,reduced policy processing time from several weeks to a few hoursand produced a two-month return on the investment in the documentmanagement system.
|Also driving AAA's efforts is a future plan to target theindependent agent market where interfacing with agency managementsystems, particularly in personal auto, is becoming an increasinglyimportant service objective. Thus far, the company has been able toreduce policy-processing time from weeks to hours and hasexperienced a growth rate of 48 percent over the past 12 months,which Johns attributes to speed in processing.
|Securian Financial Group was comfortable with the existinginterfaces between its back-end insurance administration systemsand its customers' various loan origination platforms, but itwanted to provide better customer service for claims on debtprotection, credit insurance, and mortgage life and disabilityinsurance products.
|"We wanted to solve the problem of clients needing to usemultiple systems and methods to report claims and obtain claiminformation," says Diana Baumer, manager of financial servicestechnology at Securian, which included separate Web-based systemsfor reporting claims on debt and credit products and a manualreporting process for mortgage insurance claims. In August 2005,the company deployed a J2EE-based system, called e-Services, whichprovides customers single sign-on access for any type of productclaim and integrates with Securian's claims administration systemfor claim origination and inquiry.
|Securian projects a financial return on the system due toeliminating paper processing, although customer service was theprimary driver of the project. While claims portals readily arefound in other lines of insurance, Baumer says, e-Services givesSecurian a point of competitive differentiation in its industry."We are the only insurance company in the loan protection industryto be doing this," she claims.
|The Data Factor
|In solving customer service problems caused by disparatesystems, Craggs maintains carriers tend to overlook the problems ofdata consolidation that system projects necessarily entail.
|"The first focus always is on the train that's going to hityou–system integration–but if you look in the distance, the nexttrain on the track is data. Once you solve one, you're going to gethit with the other." Data integration is a topic in and of itself(see "A Well-Oiled Machine," Nov. 2005), but suffice it to say dataquality problems all are inhibitors to the 360-degree customerview.
|"We had a lot of problems from the policy processing sideaccessing information from the membership side," says Johns. "Inone system, [a customer] could be 'Robert,' and in the othersystem, 'Bob.' He could live on 'Road' or 'Rd.' because we haddifferent people entering the information. We're still cleaningthat up."
|Securian addresses the front-door data quality issue in the wayits systems interface with clients' loan origination systems."Because Securian can't control the systems banks and credit unionsuse, we have created a series of programs that perform data scrubsprior to loading the client files into Securian's productiondatabases," Baumer says.
|A Process of Improvement
|Improving customer service also doesn't stop when the systemsintegration project ends. First, by bringing together differentsystems, integration projects can allow for better visibility intothe service process. GE, for instance, went from not being able tomeasure such basic information as call time to now having dozens ofdetailed call measurements. "We have Six Sigma black belt resourcesthat are aligned to the service center," Sovich says. "If we haveprocesses going out of control, [the black belts] look at that, andthey talk to the call center agents to see whether anything unusualis going on. That data and anecdotal information turns into a blackbelt responding to the situation."
|At The Hartford, performance manage-ment within customer serviceis itself a story of system integration. The carrier's CustomerExperience Management Sys-tem (CEMS) is a combination of callcenter performance monitoring systems, PBX (telephone switch) data,a database of the results of opt-in after-call surveys completed bycustomers, stored recordings of all calls made to the call centers,and captured screens from all transactions made during a call.
|"From an integration point of view, it was significant," saysSaad Ayub, The Hartford's CIO of common business and subsidiaryapplications. "A lot of times people talk about integration only inthe application area. Here, it also was an integration withdifferent types of hardware–down to which device driver should beused on which PC."
|The system is designed to provide users–quality assurance staff,call center managers, and individual call center agents–bothsummary information of call center performance as well as theability to drill down into what happened during a particularcustomer call. Complicating the matter is to assess what may havehappened in an exceptional service situation (either good or bad),CEMS needs to reconstruct effectively history from data stored indifferent systems.
|"We have to integrate what was going on in the screen displaywith the voice recording, even though the voice recording wasstarted from an event within PBX and the screen capture wastriggered by the CTI system. That was a major task," says StanleyPrushinski, CEMS application manager at The Hartford.
|Also, the company wanted to make CEMS fast and effective foreight distributed call centers and 3,500 agents while not puttingan undue strain on a network that needed to support the remainderof the company, as well. "We had to have the ability to replay acall without taking up all the bandwidth," says Prushinski. TheHartford addresses the problem through a number of solutions,primarily involving the use of packeteers for network trafficmanagement and quality of service (QoS) applications forrouting.
|Since deploying the final component of the CEMS system in 2003,The Hartford has seen a 15 percent improvement in first-callresolution and a decrease of as much as 15 seconds in average calltime.
|Like it or not, the realities of the insurance business willcontinue to make system integration a necessary part of carriers'efforts to provide leading-edge customer service.
|"I often hear [companies say] they're going to solve theirproblems by going with one package–they'll go with SAP so theywon't have an integration problem or Siebel to solve all their CRMproblems," Craggs says. "The problem is, particularly in insurancewith all the different touchpoints and business partners, no matterwhat, you'll never be running a 100 percent Siebel or SAP shop.There is no silver bullet."
|Tech Guide: Customer Service Tools
|Afni Insurance Services
|Bloomington, Ill.
|309-828-5226
||Allfinanz
|New York, N.Y.
|888-824-2929
||Alterian
|Chicago, Ill.
|312-704-1700
||Amdocs
|San Jose, Calif.
|408-965-7000
||AMS Services
|Bothell, Wash.
|800-444-4813
||Aspect Communications
|San Jose, Calif.
|408-325-2200
||Avaya, Inc.
|Basking Ridge, N.J.
|866-462-8292
||Avolent
|San Francisco, Calif.
|800-553-5505
||Benefits Technology Group
|Hopedale, Mass.
|866-315-7100
||Bristol Consulting Group
|Shelby Township, Mich.
|586-992-9134
||CGI
|Montreal, Quebec
|514-841-3200
||Cincom Systems
|Cincinnati, Ohio
|800-224-6266
||CSC Financial Services
|Austin, Tex.
|800-345-7672
||Decision Research Corporation
|Honolulu, Hawaii
|800-836-6057
||Diagenix Corporation
|Norwell, Mass.
|781-871-6624
||Duck Creek Technologies
|Bolivar, Mo.
|866-382-5832
||DWL
|Atlanta, Ga.
|770-325-4000
||eAgency Systems
|Newport Beach, Calif.
|888-377-8200
||EchoMail, Inc.
|Cambridge, Mass.
|617-354-8585
||EDS
|Plano, Tex.
|800-566-9337
||Envoy WorldWide
|Bedford, Mass.
|781-482-2100
||Exstream Software
|Lexington, Ky.
|859-296-0600
||E-Z Data
|Pasadena, Calif.
|800-777-9188
||Fineos
|South Portland, Maine
|877-893-7904
||Firepond, Inc.
|Mankato, Minn.
|866-826-6344
||Firstlogic
|La Crosse, Wis.
|608-782-5000
||First Notice Systems
|Boston, Mass.
|800-310-4367
||Fiserv Insurance Solutions
|Cedar Rapids, Iowa
|800-943-2851
||FMR Systems, Inc.
|Palatine, Ill.
|847-934-5566
||FrontRange Solutions
|Dublin, Calif.
|800-776-7889
||Genelco Software Solutions
|St. Louis, Mo.
|800-983-8114
||Guidewire Software, Inc.
|San Mateo, Calif.
|650-357-9100
||Identity Systems
|Old Greenwich, Conn.
|203-698-2399
||InsureWorx, Inc.
|Emeryville, Calif.
|800-785-4526
||InterlinkONE, Inc.
|Wilmington, Mass.
|978-694-9992
||Konexx
|San Diego, Calif.
|800-275-6354
||MarketSoft
|Lexington, Mass.
|781-674-0000
||Mobitor Corporation
|San Ramon, Calif.
|925-552-8230
||NaviSys
|Edison, N.J.
|800-775-3592
||Oaktree Systems
|Calverton, N.Y.
|631-369-0094
||onClick Corporation
|Houston, Tex.
|866-722-5425
||OnlineBenefits
|Uniondale, N.Y.
|800-274-8300
||Pragmatech Software, Inc.
|Nashua, N.H.
|800-401-9580
||Robert E. Nolan Company
|Dallas, Tex.
|800-248-3742
||S1 Corporation
|Atlanta, Ga.
|888-457-2237
||Sage Software
|Scottsdale, Ariz.
|800-643-6400
||SAS Institute, Inc.
|Cary, N.C.
|919-677-8000
||Siebel Systems
|San Mateo, Calif.
|650-389-1128
||Skywire Software
|Frisco, Tex.
|972-377-1110
||SSA Global
|San Mateo, Calif.
|650-578-7200
||Steel Card, LLC
|Santa Barbara, Calif.
|800-553-9961
||Talisma
|Bellevue, Wash.
|888-462-3484
||Teradata
|Dayton, Ohio
|937-445-5993
||Touchstone Corporation
|Costa Mesa, Calif.
|714-755-2810
||Value One, LLC
|Morrisville, N.C.
|900-565-9598
||Witness Systems
|Roswell, Ga.
|770-754-1900
||XDimensional Technologies
|Brea, Calif.
|800-789-2567
||Xerox Global Services
|Rochester, N.Y.
|716-264-6550
|Want to continue reading?
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