New CRM Products Offer Easier Implementation And Customization

The product, which addresses the needs of life, health and property-casualty insurers and agencies, delivers a unified view of customers at all access pointscaptive agents, independent brokers/agents, call centers, and the Webwhich allows for more targeted product offerings, the company said.

PeopleSoft CRM for Insurance, released in December 2002, allows clients to view and administer policies; to facilitate policy sales via the Web, call centers and the broker network; and to view and file claims in real time.

All of PeopleSoft's products are based on a pure Internet architecture, which reduces customers costs by enabling easier integration with other systems, Mr. Siderio said.

He added that all PeopleSoft products can be hosted and managed through the company's eCenter or through its partner application service providers.

"There is no software to be installed on clients' desktops. The requirement is simply access to the Web or an Internet-enabled device. The benefits are reduced operating expenses and more efficiency," Mr. Siderio said.

The implementation can take four weeks or more, and the company said it offers full training and consulting services as well as product upgrades and around-the-clock support hotlines.

The price varies on a number of factors, including revenues, asset size and the employee count of clients, Mr. Siderio said. Actual pricing numbers were not provided.

Wintouch eCRM by Touchtone Corporation. The latest version of Wintouch eCRM, released earlier this month, allows users to keep track of activities and histories of customer accounts, as well as reporting and performing searches on the accounts, said Rich Hall, vice president of sales and marketing at Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Touchtone.

"Users can keep track of detailed, drilled-down information of the accounts, policies-in-force, claims, sales opportunities they are working on, and the sales forecast," Mr. Hall said. "Agencies can work with end-user customers, and insurance companies can manage agencies as well as end-users with Wintouch eCRM."

Mr. Hall emphasized that the biggest strength of his company's product is its ease of customization. "Users can do much of the customization themselves. They can customize each screen to meet their needs if they want," he said.

This browser-based software, available for installation on a customer's server or as an ASP, runs on an AS/400 operating system or IBM's iSeries operating system, he added. Touchtone generally offers a two-to-three-day training program to clients' on-site administrators. "We typically train the trainers. And they, in turn, can be our online contact people. We also have online user guides that users can reference," Mr. Hall said.

The implementation time ranges from two weeks to two months, and the price runs between $1,500 and $2,500 per user for the entire software package, including integration, data conversion and the initial setup. "It's an all-inclusive package, unlike many other companies that charge for each module," Mr. Hall added.

Enterprise CRM Platform by E-Z Data Inc. Introduced last November, Enterprise CRM Platform Version 3.0 is geared towards insurance and financial services and contains more than 20 add-on modules designed to address specific industry needs. These modules include online database analysis, insurance policy tracking and sales activity tracking modules that help carriers manage and assist independent agents working with their insurers and products. The target audience is life and health insurance and property-casualty providers.

Enterprise CRM Platform also offers a user-view capability, said Dale Okuno, president and chief executive officer of Pasadena, Calif.-based E-Z Data. "Clients can look up and see the portfolio of all of their coverage," Mr. Okuno said.

"We serve more than 40 of the largest insurance and financial services companies with some 90,000 seats installed globally," he added.

The program, which is fully Web-based, compatible with all servers and available as an ASP, usually takes four months to a year to implement, depending on systems integration and customization requirements.

On pricing, Mr. Okuno said the license fee is $699 per user, with the unit cost dropping dramatically as the number of client users increases. The cost for a full implementation, including systems integration and customization, usually comes up to about a half of the licensing fee, he added.

The company also offers ongoing maintenance and support services for about 20 percent of the licensing fee. E-Z Data teaches clients' trainers to use the system or offers individualized user instruction.

ilinkBRM Gateway by interlinkONE Inc. The latest version of ilinkBRM, (business relationship management) was introduced last November and expands on the company's ilinkCRM program to focus not just on customer relationships, but all business relationships, said Mike Lewis, director of sales and marketing at interlinkONE in Wilmington, Mass.

The Web-based software integrates relationships throughout a company via its partner, customer, supplier and employee-relationship modules, said interlinkONE.

The program, whose target audience includes both life-health and property-casualty, is designed primarily for use by carriers, allowing them to better communicate with agencies that are carrying their products, the company said.

The Internet-based ilinkBRM is available as an ASP and can take up to 60 days to install, the company noted. It has seven modules that include a marketing module, which assists clients with their online marketing and then tracks results, and a sales module, which offers the sales force automation as well as a contact management system.

Other features include online customer service, where customers can enter service requests and follow them up on the Web, and an online training module for salespeople. The implementation time ranges between 30 and 60 days, depending on the number of modules purchased and the number of users, said interlinkONE.

The company declined to provide pricing information.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, January 27, 2003. Copyright 2003 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.