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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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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 (C‘M) technologies into a highly strategic position within the
insurance industry. C‘M 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 C‘M 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 C‘M products to choose from. The problem is, the
C‘M market²just like the definition of the term "C‘M"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 C‘M products on the market that
handle one or more of these functions.

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Of these areas, customer service is the biggest priority for many insurance
organizations. While many C‘M 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.


   

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 (CS‘) 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.

C‘M products can help insurers serve their customers better by allowing CS‘s 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:

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From 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.

`

 


 
Many 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).


    

 

 

   The 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.
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While
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.


    Customer 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.


 


     These 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  ! package

The client
Our client is the world's leading   
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:

Ê Customer Relationship Management ( !)

Ê Application Creation
Ê Policy Marketing - Rate, Quote, Quote Comparison
Ê Policy Generation
Ê jocument Generation
 Ê —otes & jiary Maintenance
Ê Claims Management
Ê Accounting
Ê Production Tracking
Ê Standard Reporting

The benefits

Ê Our robust project management capabilities helped define a planned approach for
program implementation.
Ê ëxtensive process documentation resulted in faster turnaround of all project
deliverables
Ê 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.
Ê The program implementation cycle was reduced by almost 50%, leading to increased
employee productivity and customer satisfaction.
Ê We have now established an ëxtended jelivery Center (ëjC) for this client

Aviva uses  ! 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- ! suite, which the   
company used to integrate its customer-
facing departments

According to There has been an influx of private life   

TARU— PA—jëY, companies in India after the liberalisation of the Indian

Aviva went in for   
sector. When Aviva entered the country in
Talisma's suite 2002, it was one of the last players to enter the market.
primarily because it The key to success therefore lay in knowing potential
offered integration customers better, and in bringing out products and
with the company's services
call centre tailored to specific customer requirements.
operations-which
no other vendor was
offering A common platform

To do this, Aviva decided to go in for an enterprise-wide deployment of an e- ! 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  ! suite was a smooth affair. The exercise began in jecember
2001 and went live six months later. Pandey explains, "Since we went in for the  ! 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   
agents). Aviva has
implemented several modules of Talisma e- !, 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- ! suite at Aviva.

Multi-step campaign

Pandey explains, "The implementation of Talisma e- ! 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- ! 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   
industry in just two years. It has no doubt
been aided in this by the deployment of Talisma's e- ! 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  !. 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  ! solution," says
jhiresh Rustogi, executive VP-IT, Kotak Life   
.

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As part of strategy, instead of running multiple applications and then integrating them with
the  !, 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  
of integrating small applications. The application integration will not be point-
to-point but through an ëAI layer, changing the way different applications communicate with
each other.

So how is Siebel a functional fit for Kotak? Rustogi expresses "Kotak   

is a part of
a large group. We were looking for a  ! that can cater to non-life   
products-
services 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.

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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  !," concluded Rustogi.

MA—TRA MA—TRA
 ! MA—TRA FOR LIFë '`( ï') I—jUSTRY R. Baba Krishnamohan & K.
Muralidhar Business Consultancy Group VBU   
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   
. 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. —ot to be left behind in the race, a number of Indian companies are
moving forward and have identified the magic mantra -  !  ! 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.  ! is a method for long- term management of customer relationships, which
is backed by a defined and focussed business process.  ! 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  ! solution
is desirable, the   
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   
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   
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
"



 


* 
  
  



 


 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. —et 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 "
 


 ! 
 
 





 

 '
    
 
        )
    

 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
  
organization. '
  Full-fledged jatawarehousing and jatamining process
can be accomplished only by having proper —etworking in place. —etworking is a process,
which ensures the connecting of all the offices through delivery media such as leased lines,
Internet, VSAT, and jSL 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   + 
   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 jatawarehousing 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.   !   Once jatawarehousing is implemented, its offshoot jatamining
enables a Life Insurer to utilize the data to achieve the essential objective of maximizing sales
and ensuring customer delight. jata 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 jatawarehousing and
jatamining and quickly attend to the customer requirements. jata centers can be located at
various places to provide support to the call centers and functional offices. )
  
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.
 

 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. ï   Following are the suggested action points for
the implementation of  ! solutions ‡ Finalization of the Technology strategy which is
aligned with the Life insurers goals ‡ Stage wise plan with time lines ‡ Identification of a
competent IT end to end solutions provider with a strong   
domain competence ,
quality processes , and proven technology alliances ‡ Clear documentation of the
requirements and ensuring adequate understanding of the business processes ‡ ënabling Wide
area and Local area —et working ‡ Appropriate and cost effective networking support systems
like, communication, hardware and uninterrupted power supply ‡ Identifying strategic
locations for jatawarehousing and Call centers To conclude what else could be the right
strategy than the " ! 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   
leader, the
Herculean LIC, who is implementing  ! at all its offices. It is to be seen how the
competitors would meet this challenge.
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