Call centers are a well-established segment of an insurancecarriers customer service program, but many insurers have been slowto incorporate a true e-mail function that transforms a call centerinto a contact center. A new study by research and consulting firmCelent Communications, Multi-Channel Contact Centers in Insurance,finds carriers have not immediately recognized what is needed toexpand those customer service offerings.

Insurers understand what it means to respond to a call inquiry,says Matt Josefowicz, a senior analyst for Celent and author of thestudy. When e-mail was thrown into the mix, a lot of companiesstarted off treating it like it was a separate animal. He explainsan e-mail message often was printed out, placed in someones in-box,and then it wound its way through the intra-office mail systemuntil the right person got his or her hands on it.

There are several best practices for carriers to follow insetting up an efficient contact center, says Josefowicz: You needto use a forms-based system to capture sufficient informationwithout being onerous. Use an internal routing and tracking systemsimilar to the way calls are routed and tracked to make surenothing falls through the cracks. The over-arching best practice isto apply the same management discipline to e-mail that is appliedto calls.

The consequence of ignoring e-mail alternatives is many insurershave created customer dissatisfaction among some of their bestcustomers. E-mail is something knowledge workers use everyday atwork, and its something theyd like to use to conduct their personalfinancial business or personal customer service business, saysJosefowicz. These are affluent, savvy customersthe customers youwantand you are giving them worse service than you would if theypicked up the phone and called you.

Some carriers offer their customers an e-mail address such asinfo@company, Josefowicz adds,but such a generic mailbox is not likely to route the message bysubject matter, nor will enough information be collected from thecustomer to establish once-and-done interaction. A better practiceis to use a Web form that requires customers to fill out sufficientinformation to address the issuemaking sure customers enter theirpolicy information and what particular area this question happensto be aboutjust the same way you would on a phone tree, hesays.

There are insurers that would rather not bother with electroniccommunication, so they offer lengthy Web forms. Thats a deliberatestrategy to discourage e-mail, says Josefowicz. We advise askingfor just enough information to make sure the query gets routed tothe right person and that it contains enough information to resolvethe issue.

In terms of cost, insurers apparently dont realize much savingsin handling electronic communications instead of telephonic. Mostcarriers say the cost is about equivalent, says Josefowicz. Butinsurers cant afford to avoid it simply because it doesnt offerimmediate benefit to the bottom line. Theres a tremendous customerdemand for e-mail, and its coming from your most importantcustomers, says Josefowicz. So its not so much a cost-savings issuebut a meeting-customer-demand issue.

Demand for e-mail contact will continue to rise, Josefowiczbelieves. Within the next few years, 16 percent of all customerinteractions will be through e-mail. ROBERT REGIS HYLE