Customer Relationship Management Goes Beyond Tech
In the cover story for this edition, we take a look at customer relationship management software and systems as part of our regular series of "Technology Trends" special reports.
Insurance companies would do well to consider CRM carefully. Proper CRM can help insurers round out accounts and maximize their investment when acquiring new clients.
However, it is also critical that insurers not lose sight of two important points when it comes to a buzzword like CRM.
For one, software will never substitute for service when trying to maintain and improve customer relationships. Insurers have been sadly lacking when it comes to customer service, and no piece of software is going to change that unless the culture of the industry is altered as well. That means acknowledging that claimants are not the enemy, as well as that courtesy and efficiency are not mutually exclusive.
For another, insurers should not forget that they have two sets of customer relationships to manage. One is the ultimate consumer–a personal or commercial buyer. But the other is the independent agent, who is being asked to shoulder an increasingly heavy burden for a shrinking level of compensation.
Most times, insurers do an awful job in CRM when it comes to the agents who represent them in the market. That will require a cultural change as well. How about starting with giving up proprietary systems and implementing single-entry, multi-company interface once and for all (although, as we report in this issue, new tech developments might make this age-old agent gripe moot).
In any case, before insurers get all caught up in the magic and potential of CRM software, they should attend to their non-tech CRM duties.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, January 14, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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