Online customer self-service

Rough Notes, Jul 2001 by Ashenhurst, John

SOUND INTERNET SOLUTIONS

Allowing your customers to serve themselves through your Web site can improve their satisfaction and save you money

According to consumer attitude surveys conducted by the Independent Insurance Agents of America, about 80% of consumers want online access as one of their insurance service options. Allstate has taken online service seriously, making it available to its policyholders and integrating it with agency and call center channels.

Interestingly, agents are much less inclined to believe their customers want online access. Are the agents being practical and the consumers fantasizing? Do agents know that people ask for all kinds of things they never use? Or are agents out of touch with their customers?

Other financial service providers have been more aggressive than P&C agents and carriers in providing online self-service and they seem to be having some success. It's commonplace now for consumers to handle many of their banking and securities activities online.

And why not? Online self-service may be a little more work for the customer than delegating the task but the customer gains control-completing the task in one sitting and at a time and place most convenient for the customer.

It's not only the customer who benefits from online self-service. The agency has a great deal to gain as well. Certainly satisfied customers are more likely to continue being customers. But customers who use self-service, at least some of the time, are likely to be better, more profitable customers for an agency. Online self-- service can reduce some of the service burden an agency faces, leaving CSRs more time to provide more value to the customer. And online self-service sessions can be an ideal venue to cross-sell what's relevant to the particular customer.

What's not to like? Online self-service is an obvious win for the customer and the agency. This column is intended to provide some insight into what might make sense to offer and where to get it.

What might be included?

What elements might be included in a self-service offering? That depends to some extent on your agency-its current automation and business focus. For instance, some agency management systems provide a leg-up for online self-service, others don't. Or a commercial lines agency with contractor customers might want to provide access to online certificate issuance but a smaller, personal lines agency wouldn't have the need. (See sidebar.)

Ultimately, an agency must find out from its customers what they want. That insight can come through surveys, focus groups, and/or customer response to service offerings.

How can you provide online service?

Online self-service looks attractive but how do you actually do it? What should you do yourself? What help can you get from your existing vendors and their offerings? Where can you look for additional sources of out-facing services?

A useful way to look at online selfservice functions is to break them down into three categories:

General information

Customer specific information

Requests for service

So, for instance, information about your agency or carriers is general information, a schedule of insurance is customer-specific information, and a vehicle change request an example of a request for service.

Sources of general information include your agency, third party insurance content suppliers, and generic content suppliers. Customer-- specific information can come directly or indirectly from your management system or a completely separate service. Requests for service can occur via e-mail or forms, for instance.

General information The Rough Notes Company offers a demo site (www.roughnotes.com/onlinedemo) which provides access to an insurance dictionary and a set of personal lines relevant articles. IMMS (www.imms.com) with its reorganized and expanded service provides three dictionaries, newsletters, and a number of financial and other services that can be imbedded into agency Web sites. JCRS (www.jcrs.com) has created a library of consumer jewelry information that can make better jewelry consumers and insureds.

A few rating vendors supply online comparative rating services that can be delivered through agency Web sites, among them FSC (www.gofsc.com) with WebFSC and TowerStreet (www.towerstreet.com, formerly Rating Services) with QuoteNETWorks.

Customer-specific information Customers, typically, may want access to billing and payment information, policy detail, and the status of various agency open service items. Where would this information come from and how would it appear on the agency Web site? Most likely it would come from agency management and carrier systems.

Today, as far as I know, there are four different approaches to providing (at least some of the) agency account, policy, billing/payment, claims, and activity status information into an agency Web site: extensions to the management system provided by the vendor, real-time interaction with the management system provided by a third party, duplication of the agency database by a third party, and access to carrier systems.