CRM

Customer satisfaction in any sector is a multi-faceted

dimension which encompasses quality product and value addition through value evidence CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is a company-wide business strategy designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by solidifying customer loyalty There are three key elements to a successful CRM initiative: people, process, and technology. CRM is perceived as an
Information technology solution for ensuring a better

customer services by increasing business in competitive environment Meeting the demands of the market The needs of customers

Objectives of CRM
CRM is an organizational strategy to develop

mutually profitable lifelong relationship with the customer The primary objectives of CRM are to build and maintain a base of committed customers who are profitable for the organization Use technology and human resources to understand the needs and behavior of present and potential customers. Acquire, retain and establish mutually rewarding, one to one, relationships with customers.

Objectives of CRM
Provide better customer service to customers.

Identify high value customers so that the

organization can serve them better with differential service. Increase customer revenues by cross selling and up selling. Simplify marketing and sales processes Collect customer information at all possible points and making this information available to the entire organization

Need of CRM in Insurance Industry

Insurance products are becoming more

commoditized. Presence of numerous players. Advertising efforts are being countered by comparison portals, insurance advisors and corporate alignments. A large share of business is driven through intermediaries where information challenges exist for effective management. Companies continue to face stiff revenue targets spread across too many stakeholders. Stakeholders struggle to deal with too many processes, systems and geographies Speedy documentation and processes at the time of issue of policies Prompt redressal of customer grievances

PROCESS OF CRM
Redesign Functional Activities
Redesign the functional activities on implementing

CRM while working at cross-purposes functional Departments

Customer-centric Business Strategy
Plan around customer wants but not company

goals, focus on listening to customers but not forcing them to listen to you promote communication of marketing including database marketing (e-database marketing, edatabase, e-marketing, etc)

CRM Process
CRM Initiative
Introduce new technologies in System Communicate & Educate employees

Identifying Customers
Primary Customers : policyholders, beneficiaries,

insured, agents or brokers clear understanding of each of the customer segments build an infrastructure and strategy to provide customers with products and services
Collecting and owning customer data
Capture and combine customer information from various

offices & sources

Existing CRM Facilities in Indian Insurance Sector

MAX NEW YORK LIFE

The RATER strategy for its operations and for

the customers Reliability Assurance Tangibles Empathy Responsiveness

 CUSTOMER LISTENING SYSTEMS The company has a customer listening system The tools used for it are:
Customer satisfaction surveys Agent satisfaction surveys Service scorecard (Customer

touchpoint experience) Customer/Agent issues inventory Service monitoring questionnaire withpolicy pack Complaint questionnaires

VALUE CHAIN
Product development

Customer acquisition
Policy issuance Post policy servicing Collections/renewals Claim settlement This process is supported by Customer

Care/call centres, IT, F& A, Actuarial, HR &facilities, Marketing and legal processes.

LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION

e- CRM software by the help of Wipro and IBM . CRM project is the largest of its kind in India. Wipro and IBM work together to compile the data

policy holders of LIC. Data would reflect consumer behaviour of policy holders, nos of customers going for loans Extensive network with a Web front-end to make policy detail and services more accessible. EPS (Enterprise Portal System) Voiceenable its WAN and video Conferencing solutions

Benefits for LIC

Streamlines processes

Collections via the Web reduce time taken for

transactions & benefited LIC by 12% reduction in costs. Single point of servicing of the customer. Single Window Operations for all products and services for a customer Customer ID links all policies of a customer from the branch data base.

HDFC ERGO GENERAL INSURANCE

With the new system in place, field executives

can now upload leads generated from the market, third-party databases, and existing customers into a central repository. The sales team then uses the Lead Tracking and Reporting Mechanism tool to manage leads and track these leads across the customer lifecycle, generate various reports for top management

Benefits for HDFC ERGO

The system has given the flexibility to customize

the products according the user's needs.

A single repository of data enables the company

to closely track the sales pipeline and figure out where the gaps are, and how to close them out.
An increased lead conversion rate which stands

at 30%. A 30% conversion rate of 20,000 leads equals 6,000 policies.

Strategies for Success of CRM

Comprehensive Repository
A repository of customer information incorporating data of the

entire organization and all its locations should be created A system should be built to allow real time data access
Localize
CRM systems mid-point contact software must be in local

language for customers and employees Should adhere to local security and privacy laws, management of currency related issues productive integration of local business processes
Phased implementation Single point testing
MNCs must begin with identifying their most successful and

revenue generating country Reduces risk of failure of overall system

Strategies for Success of CRM

Collaborating with all stakeholders
Organizations should involve existing business

partners business and channel partners offer valuable inputs from their expertise area help acquire buy-in for new technologies and processes.
Integration
Effective cross-channel integration helps all

departments to be actively involved in sales and service through a single customer view Integration between front office and back office systems is a must.

Successful CRM Implementation in Insurance Sector

Reliance General Insurance
Leading provider of Health, Car, Home, Travel and

Business insurance. Network of over 200 offices spread across 173 cities in 22 states of India. Founded in 2000.
Challenges Faced: Different processes for different customer segments. Reorganize and streamline reporting systems. Eliminate multiple reporting tools and constant data reconciliation. Implement "one version of the truth" solution across information silos.

Solution
Effective lead management through direct

channel & telesales Effective customer servicing by intelligent allocation of cases to specialist teams & closures within SLA. Integration between various core systems for effective customer servicing/operations management. Lead capture through various source & distribution across agencies for a quicker inspection & sale of policy. Sales Force Automation, Marketing Automation,

Benefits
Enhanced the capabilities of customer servicing

by increasing first time right (FTR) and turnaround time (TAT) adherence by 400%. Reduced the cost of servicing by a great margin. Improved lead conversion. Increased the capability of customer retention. Reduced time and IT resource requirements for regulatory reporting.

TATA AIA Life Insurance

Background
Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited (Tata AIA

Life) is a joint venture company, formed by Tata Sons and AIA Group Limited (AIA). It struggled with multiple systems, technologies and stakeholder conflicts. Customer information and processes were fragmented in over 25 systems.
Challenges
Inter-department coordination No unified system of customer information available Manual assignment for premium collections over spreadsheets and emails created delays Manual assignment of new applications for verification, validations

 Challenges
Knowledge retention No effective tracking of channel, branch and vendor persistency and performance. Lack of reliable measures to track feedback of customers on products and service. Standard Customer Communication No standardized platform for communication between internal team and customers. Process control and inefficiency No single system to monitor new application issuance across all touch-points. No cataloguing of undelivered or invalid cheques Manual extraction and analysis of customer data for execution of campaign. Incorrect capturing of service requests due to lack of validations leading to increase in wait time for customer

Solution
Convenient New Business Process
Single system for Branch, operations, agents Reduced departmental dependencies Pending Management Policy Dispatch Management

Integrated Customer Services Process

Across Touch-points - call center, branch, email,

web, mail, Across Request Types - Enquiry, Complaints, Requests, Across Departments- Customer service, POS, New Business

Solution
Marketing and Lead Management System
Touch point unification - call center, branch, email,

web, mail, SMS, portal Single system for managing Leads - New Acquisition Leads, Cross-sell Leads Models for Intelligent Cross-selling Cross-sell campaign set-up
Collections Management System (Business

Conservation)
Single system across Agencies both internal and

external

Benefits
Increased customer retention Improved inter-departmental teamwork
Categorization of customers Availability of information on a single platform

Business Conservation and New Business

Profit goes up 402 percent - from Rs.51.79 crore to

Rs. 260.31 crore. New business premium from traditional business at 45 percent - up from 29 percent.

Benefits
Customer Service Management
TAT for customer service request has improved

from 4.05 days to 2.74 days. Adherence to SLA has increased to 95%.
Better process control
Increased visibility through automated reports,

escalations leading to better control. Process consolidation of pre-submission calling, cross sell calling, new lead calling, campaign designing Availability of information with regular updates on the campaigns with offer statuses and customer

SBI Life
Background: SBI Life Insurance is a joint venture between State Bank of India

and BNP Paribas Cardif., wherein SBI owns 74 percent of the total capital and BNP Paribas Cardif the remaining 26%.
CRM Highlights: An in-house CRM system that serve as a complaint and lead

management system SBI's CRM system handles customer complaints efficiently through multiple channels New CRM system has improved transparency, brought down complaint resolution time and cuts across all customer touch points Allows a single view of the customer and follows it within the hierarchy
SBI Life can efficiently service any query/compliant because they

have a consolidated view of all the past payments and history of customer interaction

Benefits
The central monitoring team helped in customer

service escalation hierarchy decision. It allows a single view of the customer and follows it within the hierarchy, and offers a summarized view Improved transparency, brought down complaint resolution time First insurer in India to complaint with IRDA rules effectively.

Reasons for CRM Failure

Customer if clients are dissatisfied with execution of

CRM system Data Data stored should be complete. Any inconsistency can lead to problems CRM is implemented for enterprise & not customer Cost Cost incurred in for support, maintenance & ongoing upgrade. As business grows this becomes quite expensive Security - A lot of security patches needs to get installed. If not done on time it can lead to problems.

Failure in CRM Implementation MetLife Insurance

Problem
Happened when several databases across enterprise

were integrated Data organized around product groups & not customers Data across systems was inconsistent Wanted to increase automation & amount of data available to customers Goals of users was not explored Voice response system was installed Customer wish was not taken into consideration

Failure in CRM Implementation MetLife Insurance

Result
Resulted in customer attrition, wasted financial

resources, and lost opportunities The customer was not willing to punch through a bunch of numbers Insurance agents complained of losing deals because of poor service Cost of the implementation project ran into seven figures Cost of implementation was less than the likely losses suffered by MetLife due to loss of customer

Failure in CRM Implementation Cigna

Problem
Cigna HealthCare was operating with IT systems that

were nearly two decades old It had separate units for enrolment, processing medical claims and verifying customer eligibility The customer information pertaining to medical claims was spread across 15 distinct IT systems The claims and eligibility information systems were not inter-connected Customer service representatives found it difficult to process the 120 million claims per year that Cigna HealthCare received

Failure in CRM Implementation Cigna

Results
Develop an integrated system This system would Generate one bill across products and divisions Process the medical claims of customers Provide case histories of all the customers to the customer service representatives Facilitate exchange of information with customers

Failure in CRM Implementation Cigna

Where the system failed Failure in integration of huge database Implementation of system without optimally checking it The front-end applications, used by service representatives could not retrieve data from the backend systems easily The back-end database was not filtered and sorted out Customers also faced difficulties in obtaining information relating to health coverage plans Cigna was unable to confirm the registration to customers for many days Cigna issued identity cards with incorrect numbers and services were provided incorrectly

CHALLENGES
Effectively collaborate with network of agents and

intermediaries to get better visibility of sales processes, reduce cycle times and prevent revenue leaks? How to provide valid, up-to-date intermediary-wise performance data to help relationship managers drive revenues? How to influence corporate buying decisions, while working to forward relationship width? How to ensure optimal service quality to customers &intermediaries, across a multi-source eco-system?

CHALLENGES
How to evolve a complete 360 view of customers

along with their policy holdings, risk profile, premium payments, claims history, to judge true value of relationship? How to tap complete household/ account potential to offer personalized products as per requirement and propensity, using cross-sell/ up-sell techniques? How to provide proactive real-time insights into processes for actions, with intelligent reports &dashboards? How to comply with ever changing insurance regulations?

Conclusion
Insurance sector in India is a booming sector and has

seen a tremendous growth in the past few years. Affirmative view of customers about owning an insurance policy which proved that Insurance is the need of the day. Insurance companies have started developing specific CRM initiatives to retain their customers. Policy holders also acknowledge the presence of such CRM initiatives. Though many initiatives have been taken up by companies, still CRM in the Insurance sector is at a nascent stage CRM solutions can go a long way in helping companies implement effective measures to manage risks.