CRM in Insurance: Capitalizing on the Customer Service Opportunity No, The Tech Skills Shortage Doesn¶t Exist By Frank Meister, Bill Chambers, Joe Fenner, Doculabs MAY 31, 2001 For insurance companies today, focusing on the customer is more important than ever. Getting closer to customers and effectively responding to their needs is a great way to boost their loyalty and encourage deeper business relationships and additional spending²and it is also a much more strategic route to success than cutting costs and improving efficiency.

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ReviewCam: Video Publishing Magnified Ericsson's Nortel Acquisition Getting Started with Cloud Computing: Amazon EC2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Insurance buyers have many more options for the ways in which they purchase insurance and interact with their insurance suppliers. They can work through agencies. They can work directly through insurance companies or brokers. They can purchase insurance through online sites or exchanges. And, no matter which approach is used, customers are now demanding multiple channels through which to interact with their providers²including face-to-face contact, phone, Web sites, e-mail, mobile devices, etc. This new business climate has elevated the role of customer relationship management (CRM) technologies into a highly strategic position within the insurance industry. CRM technologies focus on managing all interactions that the organization has with its customers, maintaining contact information and customer status in order to leverage the data in a variety of business applications. Clearly, vendors of CRM products are in a great position to capitalize on the customer service opportunity. Insurers know that if they can' t get their customer service acts together, they'll lose customers to the competition. And there's no shortage of CRM products to choose from. The problem is, the CRM market²just like the definition of the term "CRM"²is so broad that all sorts of different software products fall under its umbrella. For example, sales and field force automation, marketing analytics, e -mail response management, campaign management, personalization, and customer service are all legitimate application areas, and there are a va riety of CRM products on the market that handle one or more of these functions. Prioritizing Customer Service Of these areas, customer service is the biggest priority for many insurance organizations. While many CRM technologies can handle a range of applications, including sales force automation and marketing analytics, those that handle customer service applications are worth special attention because they are at the center of the customer's interaction with the business. Channels Are Expanding

Customer service is a tough area to tackle, especially as the channels of customer interaction have expanded from face -to-face or phone contact to include automated telephony systems, the Web, fax, e -mail, and even wireless devices and voice-over-IP. Consequently, many organizations are transforming their customer service centers from call centers into "virtual contact ce nters" that handle the myriad channels of contact in an integrated fashion. The goal is for the customer to have a consistent experience across multiple channels, and for the organization to have a common view of each customer's interactions and contact histories. Call centers are labor-intensive environments that have traditionally struggled with providing their customer service representatives with access to all the customer information and related information needed to quickly service incoming requests. For example, a customer service representative (CSR) may need access to customer records, policy information, billing systems, and other information that may be stored in disparate back -end systems and data sources. What's more, many customers now want to help themselves to that information. CRM products can help insurers serve their customers better by allowing CSRs or the customers themselves to access any information they need, whenever they need it, via whatever mechanism they choose. Customer service should be viewed as a comprehensive process applied across multiple e -business applications, rather than as an isolated process. Success depends on how well a customer service application enables an insurance company to change customer centric processes as emerging trends, customer demand, and requirements change.

From a CRM product perspective, these customer service needs translate into a wide variety of functional requirements, including: Support for multiple contact channels, with the ability to create a common view of the customer across all channels²From the CSR's perspective, it is important to have a single view of the customer. This means tracking the various channels through which the customer interacts with the carrier, understanding the information requests at each point, tracking the current status of any pending requests, and reporting on contact histories. With a common, unified view of the customer, the company can ensure consistent service and follow-up, no matter which combination of interaction channels the customer chooses to employ. Support for customer self service²Many customers want to help themselves to information rather than talk with a customer service representative. These users need access to a wealth of content to satisfy their requests, such as frequently asked questions (FAQs), recent bills and statements, policies and product documentation. By providing rich content around customer transactions and self-service activities, organizations can increase the value of their customer service operations to their customers. Many CRM systems provide a central online "knowledge base" to support customer self-service, while others rely on integrating the disparate back-end systems that may exist within the organization (see table on page I14). Integration with back-end systems and repositories of content and data²The content that customers may require often resides in disparate systems or repositories. A good CRM solution should provide a means to integrate this information for easy access by customers and CSRs alike.

Ability to automate the business processes required to deliver customer service²While many call centers already utilize technology for queue management and routing in order to effectively handle incoming inquiries, such capabilities must also be provided for the myriad electronic contact channels that customers may choose to use. A good CRM system should provide a unified mechanism for automating customer service processes and workflows across all channels. Personalization²Customer service applications should provide customers with content that is related to their current activities or navigation. For example, a customer that has recently moved and is looking at information for a new homeowners insurance policy should also be presented with information about a new life insurance policy. Personalization enables organizations to reach their customers with more impact, and to generate new revenue through cross-selling and up-selling. Detailed reporting and analytics²These capabilities allow organizations to leverage the information contained in their back-end systems, as well as in the CRM system itself, to identify key data such as customer trends, demographics, tendencies, and preferences²data that can be leveraged in personalization and marketing efforts Reducing program implementation cycle by almost 50% for a CRM package The client Our client is the world's leading insurance broker and strategic risk advisor The challenge The client's offices in different locations used diverse methods and applications for carrying out business processes like underwriting, policy management, claims management, etc. The result was fragmented data on multiple applications that required a significant level of manual intervention, This, in turn, led to human error, reduced productivity, increased turnaround time and employee dissatisfaction. The solution To improve performance and agility, our client decided to consolidate applications across offices with standardized packaged software that would support all core business functions. As a strategic partner, we have played a crucial role in the entire standardization process. This includes requirements gathering and gap analysis, defining configuration and customization needs, product configuration, integration, testing, quality assurance, data conversion, generation of custom reports, user training and post-implementation support. We also developed websites for each program and integrated them with the product in order to capture application data on the website. The new system supports the following core functions:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Application Creation Policy Marketing - Rate, Quote, Quote Comparison Policy Generation Document Generation

Notes & Diary Maintenance Claims Management Accounting Production Tracking Standard Reporting

The benefits

Our robust project management capabilities helped define a planned approach for program implementation. Extensive process documentation resulted in faster turnaround of all project deliverables Our domain expertise meant that we were able to quickly and efficiently gather requirements as well as provide business user training. In fact, our training modules help to train a person with no product experience in just 1 week. This has also helped reduce our client's dependence on the product vendor. The program implementation cycle was reduced by almost 50%, leading to increased employee productivity and customer satisfaction. We have now established an Extended Delivery Center (EDC) for this client

Aviva uses CRM to insure success What happens when you're late for a party and the fun has already begun? You catch up, as Aviva did. Helping it was Talisma's e-CRM suite, which the insurance company used to integrate its customerfacing departments According to TARUN PANDEY, Aviva went in for Talisma's suite primarily because it offered integration with the company's call centre operations-which no other vendor was offering There has been an influx of private life insurance companies in India after the liberalisation of the Indian insurance sector. When Aviva entered the country in 2002, it was one of the last players to enter the market. The key to success therefore lay in knowing potential customers better, and in bringing out products and services tailored to specific customer requirements.

A common platform

To do this, Aviva decided to go in for an enterprise-wide deployment of an e-CRM suite even before it launched Indian operations in June 2002. A stringent assessment exercise began, during which four vendors, including Talisma, were evaluated by a team of 10 people. This team had representatives from its IT department and also from customer-facing departments such as sales, marketing and customer services. Recalls Tarun Pandey, manager, applications, Aviva, "After a thorough evaluation process, we went in for Talisma's suite primarily because it offered integration with our call centre operations, which no other vendor was offering. The suite promised a common integrated platform for different customer-facing departments [sales, marketing and customer services] within the organisation."

Module this The implementation of the CRM suite was a smooth affair. The exercise began in December 2001 and went live six months later. Pandey explains, "Since we went in for the CRM suite before launching our business in India, the implementation was smooth. If an organisation is already in business the implementation exercise can be a prolonged affair." The suite has been deployed in marketing, sales and service, as well as in the partner and sales ecosystem (comprising bank assurance partners and insurance agents). Aviva has implemented several modules of Talisma e-CRM, such as marketing, sales, servicing and contact centre. The only component it hasn't used is the chat module. Today, there are 450 personnel using the e-CRM suite at Aviva. Multi-step campaign Pandey explains, "The implementation of Talisma e-CRM has helped us share real-time customer information across different customer-facing departments across locations. This has helped departments track customer details and respond to queries at short notice." The implementation has also facilitated quick analysis of Aviva's sales and marketing initiatives, which has, in turn, helped the company modify its products and services before offering them to customers. This has helped it win more customers and retain existing ones by offering them products and services that fit their needs. It has also helped Aviva develop multi-step marketing campaigns. Based on the type of response at each stage of an advertising campaign, appropriate processes can be triggered automatically in the e-CRM suite. Aviva's entire sales and marketing operation has been integrated through this deployment. The company's customer service team has successfully leveraged the suite to provide superior service across multiple channels. Aviva has made its mark in the Indian insurance industry in just two years. It has no doubt been aided in this by the deployment of Talisma's e-CRM suite that has helped it launch new products and services to differentiate itself from competitors. he Kotak Group has initiated a group wide implementation of Siebel CRM. The solution is expected to go live in the next six to nine months. "Kotak Life posted a hundred percent growth rate in the last financial year. We also see a huge business potential as eighty percent of India¶s population is still not insured. As a result, to cope up with the increasing scale of operations we are deploying the CRM solution," says Dhiresh Rustogi, executive VP-IT, Kotak Life Insurance. Siebel Proved To Be A Functional-Fit For Kotak As part of strategy, instead of running multiple applications and then integrating them with the CRM, Kotak Life decided to go for a system that will not only fulfill the integration needs but also serve as a single repository for data. Additionally there is also a possibility of failure in case of integrating small applications. The application integration will not be pointto-point but through an EAI layer, changing the way different applications communicate with each other. So how is Siebel a functional fit for Kotak? Rustogi expresses "Kotak Insurance is a part of a large group. We were looking for a CRM that can cater to non-life insurance productsservices offered by Kotak Securities and Kotak Bank." Siebel will facilitate the Kotak Group

to focus not only on customer prospects but also agents and external vendor prospects, thus the solution is configured to fit into any customer relationship and prospect management needs. Coupled with this Siebel will enable Kotak to capture typical data about cold leads, existing, former and prospective customers, and Sales Force Automation. As a result the solution offers wide scope for interaction not only with the existing customer but also with former and prospective customers and agents. Standardization Of Processes Is The Key Benefit As of now the business processes are mapped to fit into the individual systems and applications in place. The challenge before Kotak is to chart a standard set of processes for handling customer, agent, marketing and campaigns, however the sub-processes can be different in the standard processes. Standardization of processes will be the key benefit after the solution goes live. "The customer experience will be standardized across all the group companies. Financial benefits will start rolling out after we initiate the analysis of all the data captured in the system because we are looking at this product from a long term perspective," Said Rustogi. "We are also looking to buy additional applications that would equip further automation, as and when the need arises they will be integrated with the CRM," concluded Rustogi.

MANTRA MANTRA CRM MANTRA FOR LIFE INSURANCE INDUSTRY R. Baba Krishnamohan & K. Muralidhar Business Consultancy Group VBU Insurance Satyam Computer Services Ltd As the Indian economy is quickly integrating with the global economy we are seeing a number of multinational companies begin their operations in India. This scenario unfolds the kind of competition that was not experienced by most of the Industries including Insurance. It is quiet evident from the success of these multinationals, that the key factor distinguishing them from others is the sophisticated customer service standards and practices that they meticulously adopt. Not to be left behind in the race, a number of Indian companies are moving forward and have identified the magic mantra - CRM CRM the acronym for Customer Relationship Management is a strategic business initiative, which goes beyond traditional selling and customer contact programs. It is an integration of technology with activities of employees and business associates to deliver faster, more customized service to customers. CRM is a method for long- term management of customer relationships, which is backed by a defined and focussed business process. CRM solutions not only offer value to businesses, but importantly the main attribute " scalability", ensures that it can be implemented in various stages of increasing complexity and value. While total CRM solution is desirable, the insurance companies can also deploy the solutions at different stages in line with their growth and yet the same can be a part of the total solution. Life Insurance and the need for CRM Life Insurance is a service business, which is highly data dependent and sensitive. The winners in this business are those who ensure customer delight. As competition opens up, this sector poses immense challenges and provides varied opportunities. Listed below are some of these challenges and opportunities. The Low penetration of Insurance vis a vis the huge insurable population The plethora of policies (in the case of some companies)

and a few policies with many options and riders (in the case of most of the new insurers) The necessity to deliver policies and service them across wide and geographically spread locations. The complexity of pre and post sales operations like generating product awareness , policy management, claims management and agency administration The necessity to control costs in marketing and administration Converting a one time transaction into a long term relationship To meet these challenges the Life insurer must implement the following processes Online linking of the various distribution channels upto post sales service which gives an edge over competition. Online help desks and communication assistance to respond to the demanding customer and his information requirements. Net working the various offices and transmission of various statistics and financial returns on a real time basis to enable prompt and efficient service as well as data integrity. Controlling costs and avoiding delays due to the large geographical spread of offices and population in a subcontinent like India The following components of CRM would enable achievement of these parameters Networking Data warehousing Data mining E enabling Call centers Phased implementation in the above order or complete implementation and integration of all these components would result in highly effective customer centric approach, substantially improving the business bottomline and ensuring customer delight. Let us look at the important features of each of these components and see how their implementation would impact the functioning of a Life Insurance organization. Networking Full-fledged Datawarehousing and Datamining process can be accomplished only by having proper Networking in place. Networking is a process, which ensures the connecting of all the offices through delivery media such as leased lines, Internet, VSAT, and DSL lines. This will enable data capture and retrieval from different access points. As the communication infrastructure is growing day by day and the cost of communication is coming down, an efficient networking should no longer be difficult to implement Data Warehousing In Life business, the data required to be captured is substantial from the proposal stage to settlement of claims. It is not only the capture and storage of data from various sources, locations and data bases but also retrieving the same in the desired output formats. The complex aspects of the business make this difficult because of the legacy of data, data integrity, wide distribution of data and need for collating the entire data as per the requirements of the Insurer. Further the data is to be maintained throughout the life of the policy. It is also mandatory to comply with regulatory mechanisms, which stipulate the need for maintaining data for a specific period. In the case of Life business Datawarehousing typically captures different data including those of the policyholders and agents/advisors spread across geographic locations to one centralized database. It also enables more sophisticated analysis of various performance parameters such as business growth, claims settlement and profitability. The carefully collected information is finally consummated by the policyholders either through Internet, Call centers or Servicing offices. DataMining Once Datawarehousing is implemented, its offshoot Datamining enables a Life Insurer to utilize the data to achieve the essential objective of maximizing sales and ensuring customer delight. Data Mining entails looking for patterns in the customer data. The data for data mining can come from the insurers transactional history of customers. It enables drawing correlation and patterns from easily accessible data on all the functional areas including the trends in customer preferences, payment of premium, queries from customers, performance of agents/advisors. This not only simplifies but also puts an efficient process in place for the managers. Call centers greatly benefit from Datawarehousing and Datamining and quickly attend to the customer requirements. Data centers can be located at various places to provide support to the call centers and functional offices. E enabling Internet is emerging as

one of the key marketing and distribution channel with a vast potential, wide reach, and long term prospects. It creates a strong, powerful idea and is

impacting people. It also ensures brand loyalty to be fostered by reflecting the organizations core values online, and enables quick and convenient transactions. By e enabling their key functions, Life Insurers provide greater visibility, rapid access to data and quick service to new prospects, policyholders and agents/advisors. Internet enables interactivity and interoperability by offering product information, comparative analysis, advisor/agent location, service corner, and premium payments for people across the country. The benefits are enormous as the prospects can access product information and other relevant details "Any Time, Any Where". The life of agents/advisors would become easier as the prospect is well informed and the time to close the transaction is extremely minimal. The Service corner helps the policyholders obtain information / status to most of their queries. Few value adds like auto responders for queries, risk profiling, investment and tax calculators, email alerts for premium payments, new product information, and gestures like birthday/anniversary wishes can be easily implemented enhancing the image of the organization and also bonding the ties with the customers. Agents/Advisors can also be trained through e learning modules and product information can be quickly disseminated. Agents can be quickly accessed on the net. Call Centers Finally successful Call centers are the benchmark for the total and proper deployment of customer relationship management. They help in providing "single point access that ensures " customer delight" the focal objective of a Life insurer. It is imperative that a well-planned and defined road map is worked out to open and operate call centers in all strategic locations. These will be the primary access points for all the policy holders/prospects to call for their queries and requirements. Tele marketing is also a major utility provided by Call centers. Action Plan Following are the suggested action points for the implementation of CRM solutions Finalization of �the Technology strategy which is aligned with the Life insurers goals Sta� ge wise plan with time lines �Identification of a competent IT end to end solutions provider with a strong insurance domain competence , quality processes , and proven technology alliances Clear documentation of the �requirements and ensuring adequate understanding of the business processes Enabling Wide area and �Local area Net working Appropriate and cost effective networking support systems like, communication,� hardware and uninterrupted power supply Identifying strategic locations for Datawarehou� sing and Call centers To conclude what else could be the right strategy than the "CRM Mantra" for it can revolutionize the business and customer service approach and ensure that the Life insurer is not only visible but is distinguished and sought after. As a testimony to its requirement we have the example of the Life insurance leader, the Herculean LIC, who is implementing CRM at all its offices. It is to be seen how the competitors would meet this challenge.