Shining Star

Today, sales force automation (SFA) is about using technology to get the right information to the right person at the right time. By the right person, Paul Blase, co-lead in the insurance practice for Diamond Consultants, means those involved in the sales or service process with the customer.

"Historically, insurance has been bought through captive agents and independent agents," says Blase. "Going down the captive road, at the behest of the customer, the customer wants to use other channels–call centers, the Web–to purchase, research, or service insurance products. Traditionally, SFA would have been around the agent; we now see it has to expand and encompass these other channels to be useful."

It is important for carriers to determine how these channels fit into the distribution and agent management process, Blase believes. In addition, how are carriers creating a unified customer view behind the system that integrates all the customer data? "It's about integrating all that data to expose sales force automation to the channel," he says. Adds Jamie Yoder, Diamond's other co-lead in the insurance practice, "It's about keeping the agents in the loop, but it's also keeping the call center reps, the claims reps, and the Web in the loop from a customer perspective."

As customers turn to other channels to purchase insurance, carriers and agents have to react to the fact customers are requesting to do business with insurance companies via different methods. "[Carriers] have to learn how to use all the channels to augment and complement the services they provide to their customers," says Blase. "The ones that do it successfully will use [different channels] to provide lower-skill services: question-and-answer sessions, helping customers with research, etc. Agents then can use their time to cross-sell more products and perform revenue-enhancing activities."

Mergers and acquisitions have been known to affect insurance carriers in different ways, but for MetLife, the purchase of the Travelers Life & Annuity business from Citigroup in 2005 dramatically changed MetLife's distribution channels. "If you spoke to us six or seven years ago, you would have said we were mainly an affiliated [captive] company," says George Foulke, MetLife's vice president, enterprise systems solutions. "But post-Travelers acquisition, we have exponentially more reps now selling our products through the independent space, which has taken on a new priority for us."

The difference between servicing a captive force as opposed to independent agencies, according to Foulke, is with independents, the carrier is bound by the technology adopted by whomever the carrier is doing business with. "In the affiliated space, we provide all the technology–the infrastructure as well as all the tools," Foulke points out. "It is easier [dealing with captives] because there are processes around them."

What MetLife found with the independent space is the carrier deals with everyone from big banks, broker/dealers, and wire houses–where the carrier often can communicate in a paperless fashion with end-to-end automation–down to the broker/general agent, where automation levels vary. "We are able to supply a gamut of technology, depending on whom we are trying to do business with," says Foulke. "We can do end-to-end paperless straight-through processing all the way down to working with one of the industry aggregators to communicate new-business status and commissions. Or we'll take a paper app and send you a check at the end of the day. The complications come with the plethora or different flavors of the folks we do business with."

For the affiliated side, the technology accomplishes many tasks, such as supplying agents with leads for customers who either have shown interest through an ad, contacted the call center, or sent an e-mail through the carrier's Web site. MetLife also offers a contact management solution where the carrier provides the captive agents their full book of business, which is downloaded to allow the agents to get an image of a new-business application, communicate the status of something that's in the new-business process, and have access to every stage all the way through the payment of commissions, explains Foulke. "In addition to that, we supply lots of other sales tools and financial planning software we've written internally or purchased to fill our quiver of arrows," he says.

Pride in the MetLife brand also drives a compliance program that is part of a workflow solution, Foulke indicates. A rep wanting to send a mailer to a client or series of clients can get the mailer reviewed by compliance, marketing, and legal experts within the company. "We've got workflow engines that will facilitate that paper all the way through the house and back to the rep in an automated way," he says.

MetLife looks at every aspect of the agent's business, whether it is the initial contact through a lead, the management of the existing book of business, new business, or even the servicing of a post-issue policy that allows not only the agent but the consumer to look at the policy online and have a dialogue on where the customer stands financially. "We try to look at every aspect of the business in a vertical and ask how we can automate that end to end, and then we look at it from an umbrella perspective across the verticals so it is as low touch as possible," says Foulke.

When MetLife began working in earnest with independent agents, Foulke reports the company sought to determine what tools it had internally it could apply to this group of agents. "We had to develop a couple of different models based on whom we were doing business with," he says. "We had to determine how much of our technology readiness they could absorb and apply."

Foulke gives an example of where MetLife provides different technology capabilities depending on who the customer is. "For large banks, broker/dealers, or wire houses, for instance, we would transmit all the customer information back to the large firms so they can put it up on their account inquiry system," he says. "They will be able to show their customers our product as part of their system."

With a smaller financial rep, though, MetLife may well be dealing with someone who doesn't have the same amount of automation. "[The agent] would log on to the MetLife e-service site as a rep and see his entire book of business," says Foulke. "[The agent] could get on the phone with the customer, log in, and make sure they are talking about the same thing. We provide some automation capability to that little guy."

In the industry, the next strategy being pursued in the agent arena involves straight-through processing. There is a lot of data entry that has to happen in the insurance process, and Gartner's studies show insurance agents feel what's important for them in doing business with carriers is the ability to do one-and-done processing. "[STP] types of initiatives are very important," Harris-Ferrante contends. "As you look to the technologies to make your agents more productive and efficient, having that STP process is critical."

Some agents prefer to use aggregators, such as AgencyWorks, and MetLife is fine with that, according to Foulke. "If [an agency] was a little more predisposed to use technology, it might prefer its client information be sent to [an aggregator] on a monthly basis," he says. "We'll send [information] to you through a pipe if you can handle it; if you want it through our Web site, you can go there; and if you want us to send it to an aggregator, we'll do that, too."

If an agency has a specific need and MetLife knows there's another way in the marketplace that need can be filled, the carrier is not shy about offering advice, continues Foulke. "Independents might call and ask whether there is any way to get their other business on the e-service site so their clients can see everything in one place," he says. "We'd say no to that because that's a MetLife proprietary site; however, we would tell them they might consider contracting with [an aggregator] because [some aggregators] are affiliated with most of the other carriers. To keep the relationship strong, we'll guide and assist people to technology solutions whether we can provide them or whether they have to purchase the technology themselves."

Yoder supports the view that 20 percent of agents are generating 80 percent of the value for carriers. As carriers build out their portal technology, policy administration systems, and SFA solutions that reside within the portals, he sees insurers building the portal in a modular fashion so the insurer can turn services on and off for a specific agent. "[Carriers] are going to provide their best services to the best-performing agents," he says. "They also are giving themselves the option to operate in a pay-for-service type of model with some of these technologies and services."

Where Harris-Ferrante is observing investment by carriers is in more intelligent knowledge of their agents. Managing agents better is at the top of many insurance to-do lists, but carriers still are working on how to use data and information on the productivity and performance level of agents. "We've seen a wave of activity in companies that want to have some type of performance metric technology or distribution management," she says. Basically, carriers are seeking a technology that allows them to better analyze agent performance. "Even if one agent may be selling more policies, those policies might be high-turnover policies, less-profitable policies, or to customers with only one policy," says Harris-Ferrante. "Another agent may have fewer policies sold annually, but they are policies with a high rate of renewal or very profitable, or an agent may be selling multiple policies per customer. So, [carriers] are starting to change the way they are thinking about what is a good agent as [the companies] learn to assess the performance level and change performance metrics."

This activity is tied into commission projects, Harris-Ferrante points out, and is changing how carriers look at commissions–based on the value and contribution of agents and the value of their book of business, not just on the number of sales. "As companies make these technology decisions on commissions, you can see where they have to understand a lot more about performance levels and have these analysis technologies in place to make the commission technology do what it's supposed to be doing," she says.

Commission systems make things easier, but they also can lead carriers to wrong decisions. "If you automate your existing compensation plan without looking at what you are paying your agents to do, we hear a lot of stories about paying agents who aren't licensed to sell the products you are paying them for," says Harris-Ferrante.

For Jackson National Life Distributors, improving sales productivity through better communications with its independent agency force is an important part of the carrier's SFA strategy. Using a solution from Brainshark, Jackson delivers effective communications to its independent agents to promote products, promotions, and the carrier itself, according to Luis Gomez, vice president of marketing strategy for Jackson. The carrier delivers a consistent marketing message directly to each agent, which drives better campaign results. "We took some of our core stories–who we are, what we do, rankings, ratings, our discipline story, our rollover story–and we created these two-minute commercials to try to get a message across quickly," he says.

The longer the presentation, the faster Jackson loses its audience, reports Gomez. The carrier incorporates music and professional voice-over to create an entertainment factor to retain attention and get the carrier's message across to the producers. The producers can view PowerPoint presentations with audio over the telephone. "Agents like it," says Gomez. "We can measure results, and for the most part, 60 percent of our presentations get viewed completely. It's primarily because we keep them short and to the point and add that entertainment package to it."

Jackson integrated Brainshark into its sales force system, which gives the carrier more capability to measure the success of its presentations. Jackson's wholesalers can send the presentation from the contact management system to the agents. The system allows Jackson to determine how much of the presentation was reviewed, whether an agent opened the presentation, and whether an agent deleted it before opening it. "We can set up different filters," says Gomez. "If we determine the producer has viewed more than 50 percent of the presentation, that information is sent back to the sales force system, and a task is created for the wholesaler. It automates a lot of the tasks so the wholesaler doesn't have to check back," he says.

The regional or midtier carriers always have had a good relationship with their sales forces, Yoder asserts, adding insurers will continue to put a lot of emphasis on maintaining that lead via local knowledge and relationships. The larger carriers have to counteract that perceived advantage by offering better (and easier-to-use) technology for the independent agents. "[SFA] systems are making it easy for agents to react to carriers and their services," he says. "The large players are using [SFA] to drive more business, segment their agents, and determine how [agents] are doing business across the different channels."

Insurance companies are starting to collect more information about their policyholders through the call center, but Harris-Ferrante believes the "our customer vs. your customer" discussion between carriers and independent agencies still is a touchy point for the industry. "The independent agents typically don't share a lot of information with the insurance company and vice versa," she says. Where the investment and time is going today concerning the sharing of customer information is with channels insurers own and control, she adds.

"In today's world, [carriers] have to understand both [agents and policyholders] are your customers," Harris-Ferrante says, describing the arrangement as a three-legged stool where all three legs have to be standing for the stool to be stable. "You have to understand what the agent wants, you have to understand what the buyer wants and expects from the insurance company, and then you have to filter all that into a balance that provides good products for the policyholder, good experience for the agent, and also value and profitability for the insurance company," she sums up. "The day of arguing who the customer is should be long gone, and we should be focusing on how to support the business customers and the policyholders simultaneously."

MetLife has made a significant investment in technology devoted to its sales force, and Foulke states the carrier always is on the leading edge because it deals with captives and independents. "We are pretty nimble relative to our ability to react to what the marketplace needs," he says. "As our wholesalers and our relationship managers are out there dealing with these firms, we are able to advise our business partners where things are going." TD