"We believe Infinity Insurance obtained a return on investment in 6 weeks. The elimination of microfiche and telephone call back costs, together with the reduction in customer service labor requirements, were far beyond our expectations. Customer service representatives have higher morale being relieved of the drudgery of searching microfiche and calling customers back sometimes 2 or 3 times per inquiry."

 

Infinity Insurance is one of the largest 2nd tier casualty insurance companies in the Eastern United States, with an annual growth of over 15%. Over 400 customer service representatives reply to over 7,000 daily inquiries regarding policy activity. Management had to decide how to handle the growth and increased workload to keep customer service and customer satisfaction levels up. The number of policy changes was increasing, the Customer Service budget was growing fast, and the level of customer satisfaction was falling. The increased amount of data required additional magnetic storage and microfiche storage and retrieval was slow and inefficient. As a result, telephone callback charges were astronomical. In addition, there was growing demand from agents and brokers to access policy information via an extranet.

Management set the following objectives to upgrade the customer service function:

• Archive 200mb data daily
• Next day availability of policy information in Customer Service department
• Enable agent/broker self-service to policies and customer correspondence via an agent extranet portal
• Accommodate 10,000 inquires daily
• Eliminate telephone callbacks
• Eliminate archaic microfiche operation
• Reduce Customer Service budget
• Increase customer satisfaction level

Management decided to implement a fixed content management solution within the Customer Service department based upon problem definition and solution, data storage alternative analysis, high volume centralized archiving functionality, and Return on Investment analysis.

Infinity Insurance was looking to use a full featured fixed content management solution to dramatically improve customer service while reducing its operational overhead and improve efficiency by replacing a paper and microfiche based system. Other goals were: standardizing processing procedures, improving quality of customer service, reducing duplication of work, increasing staff productivity, providing self-service to documents for agents and brokers, and reducing the cost of providing customer service. To achieve these goals business operations were restructured and Infinity Insurance decided to introduce electronic storage and retrieval technology. After extensive evaluation of technologies and vendors, Datawatch's Content Suite was selected.

ACHIEVING GOALS

Based on its ability to manage high-volume document archiving and retrieval, easy integration with the Infinity Web portal, and easy, instant access to documents by call center agents, the Radiant system fit the bill for Infinity Insurance.

As a result of the implementation of the ClearStory solution, the following objectives were achieved:

• Improved customer service
• Initial survey indicated 90% customer satisfaction
• Customer Service budget reduced
• Service representative staff reduced by 30%
• Enhanced service levels to agents and brokers
• No additional magnetic storage required to handle increase in business
• Costs and inefficiencies associated with policy copy requests by agents, tape handling, transportation, delays, distribution, customer service workflow
• Customer Service callbacks virtually eliminated
• Over 95% customer inquiries answered on customer call-in

The Datawatch Content Suite paid for itself within a matter of months. The on-going savings were significant to corporate profits. The system helped business grow. There was an identifiable reduction in lost clients, new customers, Customer Service representatives were more productive, and more inquiries were satisfied by fewer people. There were fewer turnovers among Customer Service representatives due to higher self-esteem related to their working procedures. With the increased capacity to handle additional customer inquires, Customer Service staff was reduced. The report mining capability of the system enabled the creation of additional, more effective management reports, which made management more efficient. The Datawatch system gave Infinity Insurance a competitive advantage in customer service efficiencies.

SECURE AGENT PORTAL

Best of all, agents get tremendous value from the Infinity Insurance secure agent portal. Through seamless integration with the Datawatch suite, agents have instant access to all customer-related information. Not only are they able to access monthly reports, but agents can also view policies, customer correspondence and any documents that were mailed to their clients. With Datawatch, Agents have a 360-degree view of all customer documentation for dramatic service improvements.

A MESSAGE FROM THE VP

"We believe Infinity Insurance obtained a return on investment in 6 weeks. The elimination of microfiche and telephone call back costs, together with the reduction in customer service labor requirements, were far beyond our expectations. Customer service representatives have higher morale being relieved of the drudgery of searching microfiche and calling customers back sometimes 2 or 3 times per inquiry."

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