Online customer self-service

Rough Notes,  Jul 2001  by Ashenhurst, John

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

1) Agency management system extension

Both Applied Systems (www.appliedsystems.com) and AMS Services (www.amsservices.com) provide Web-enabled, customer access extensions to their management systems. The customer receives current content from the management system but doesn't actually use the management system itself That level of insulation makes a great deal of sense.

2) Real-time interaction with management system

At least one third party, NSG (www.gonsg.com) provides real-time interaction with agency management systems (in this case AMS' AfW). Unbeknownst to the customer, the agency Web site links to the NSG site, which formats and presents the information. The NSG site, in turn, uses the Internet to communicate with the agency's system-requesting and receiving information-almost as a CSR would.

The NSG alternative is in some ways better integrated with the management system than the primary vendors have chosen (thus far) to implement (free-form e-mail) since service requests become part of the CSR suspense system.

3) Duplicate database

A third approach, offered by idNET (www.goidnet.com), is to duplicate the agency database regularly (daily or less often) to their Web site and provide customer information access there. idNET supports Applied's TAM and AMS' AfW and Sagitta systems. Though the data access isn't real-time, a nightly update is probably adequate in most cases. And idNET provides a 24x7 service center function to provide high-touch interaction to supplement the online customer access capability.

4) Carrier system access

A fourth approach is for the agency to provide access through its site to information contained in a carrier's system. For agencies that don't keep policy detail, this can be an attractive approach. And it may be the only way to access up-to-date direct bill information. But click-through to a carrier-hosted customer self-service Web page has some disadvantages, not the least of which is that it disintermediates the agency from the customer service transaction. Some agencies may want to get out of the service loop, but for those that believe that account retention depends on it, click-through to a carrier may not be attractive.

Requests for service Agencies can avail themselves of at least five different approaches to providing online requests for service: free-form e-mail, Web forms, management system related, carrier related, and specialty ASPs.

1) Free-form e-mail

In this case, the insured sends an e-mail from the agency Web site to the agency requesting a service action. It's a straightforward matter for agencies to implement service e-mail on their Web sites. E-mail links can be inserted into any Web site page so that when clicked on they will open the visitor's e-mail program, initiate a new message, and populate the "To" field with the address the agency wants used.

2) Web forms

Some agencies include service request forms on their Web sites. The forms are empty, that is, they are not pre-filled but they do encourage insureds to include all the information required to effect a particular policy change, for instance. The agency may forward the filled-in form to the carrier as an e-mail attachment and then receive the changes into their management system via download or enter the change into the management system and then upload it to the carrier. One supplier of online customer service forms (stock and custom) is Enhanced Web Services (www.quoteforms.com).