| "We
had been considering IVR for some time,
but found it cost-prohibitive in the past…until
we discovered the iMessaging solution."
— Donald
McAllister, Pacific Specialty
Insurance Company
|
Reliable,
prompt customer service is the key in any industry – especially
the insurance business. Pacific Specialty Insurance
Company (PSIC), the flagship of the McGraw Group
of Affiliated Companies, considers itself the "one
spot" where independent brokers and agents can
source all their clients' coverage needs, including
homeowners, renters, automobile, watercraft and commercial
insurance. PSIC also prides itself on offering superior
customer service to their policy holders.
Over
the past few years, PSIC has experienced dramatic
growth that has increased their need for reliable,
timely and efficient customer service. With over
200,000 policy holders in 50 states, and 10,000 to
20,000 independent agents, PSIC's customer service
representatives (CSRs) receive roughly 80,000 calls
per month. These calls range from simple, short calls
about payments due and policy renewal dates to more
involved inquiries about policy quotes, coverage
and claims procedures.
The
customer service staff was beginning to feel overburdened
and in a Catch 22 situation – the more involved
calls were keeping customers and agents with quick
inquiries on hold much longer than necessary and,
on the other hand, the short calls were keeping CSRs
from being able to go the extra mile for the more
involved calls. The company also received a lot of
payments through the mail, which resulted in additional
time processing paperwork.
Because
of the growth spurt and the concerns over how the
PSIC CSRs could maintain their high quality of service
with so many calls, the McGraw Group decided to investigate
alternative methods of providing customer service
to their policy holders. Offering policy information
and payment capabilities over the Internet was not
an option PSIC embraced, as they only used their
Web site as a service tool for the independent agents
that sell PSIC insurance. The McGraw team decided
that an interactive voice response (IVR) system was
the perfect complement to their top-notch customer
service department.
 |
| PSIC's
Chief Information Officer, Donald McAllister. |
Donald
McAllister, PSIC's Chief Information Officer, was
responsible for choosing the IVR system that would
meet PSIC's needs. With an AS/400 database, the options
for a high-quality IVR system that would integrate "out
of the box" with their system were limited.
However, when McAllister attended the Spring 2001
COMMON Expo in New Orleans, he discovered iMessaging
Systems, Inc. and their premier AS/400 IVR solution, iVoice™.
The choice was "pretty much a no brainer," said
McAllister, "since it is designed specifically
for the AS/400." Additionally, when McAllister
previously looked into IVR, he didn't like what he
saw: "We had been considering IVR for some time,
but found it cost-prohibitive in the past…until
we discovered the iMessaging solution."
PSIC's
goals for their iVoice™ IVR
system were to maintain a high level of service to
customers and producers while providing quicker responses
and to increase the CSRs' productivity. If a routine
question or policy payment could be quickly handled
by iVoice™,
it would allow the CSRs to spend more time on calls
that required more involved service, such as policy
research and quotations.
In
addition, PSIC saw iVoice™ as
a very cost-effective way to service clients. Originally,
it was estimated that 10 additional CSRs needed to
be hired to service the volume of calls that PSIC
was receiving. With iMessaging's 12-line system,
multiple routine calls could be handled at one time,
whereas a CSR can only accept one at a time. Ultimately,
the ability for iVoice™ to
handle 12 calls simultaneously allowed PSIC to hire
fewer CSRs than originally anticipated.
 |
| Gerry
Lieberwirth monitors PSIC's iVoice™ system. |
Installation
of the system hardware and phone line hookup was
handled by Gerry Lieberwirth, PSIC's IT Specialist. "Hooking
up iVoice™ to
our AS/400 was like a slam dunk," states Lieberwirth.
He encountered a few small problems with the PSIC
phone system, but none at all with iVoice™.
The
ball was then handed to PSIC's MIS Manager, Alan
Oracion, for programming. It was decided that the
IVR system would allow customers to do the following:
• conduct
a basic policy inquiry
• determine
the status of a policy – effective date,
expiration date and renewal date
• review
payment history and payment due dates
• pay
policy premiums with a credit card
• opt
out to a CSR, when desired
In
addition, if a customer inquired about a problem
with a policy, such as a cancellation, the caller
would be automatically transferred to a CSR.
At
this time, the PSIC installation was one of the first
COBOL programming projects on the new iVoice™ platform.
It turns out that this was no problem for Oracion
or iVoice™. "After
two days of training, we spent about two weeks programming
and, for the most part, there were no problems," said
Oracion. When he did need assistance, Oracion said
that he consulted iVoice™'s
thorough documentation and, when necessary, contacted
iMessaging's "very helpful" technical staff.
 |
Above:
PSIC's customer service department, including
Mike D'Avello (2nd from right).
Below: Alan Oracion, Donald McAllister and Gerry Lieberwirth (top
left to right). |
 |
After iVoice™ was
tested in-house, it was time to introduce it to PSIC's
customers via advertising and actual use. Much of
this responsibility rested on the shoulders of Customer
Service Representative Manager Mike D'Avello. "We
just encountered the normal quirks when technology
is introduced," D'Avello said. "Some customers
didn't understand what IVR was or they thought it
was a different department." D'Avello and the
CSR staff know that McGraw's customers have always
valued getting a live, responsive voice on the phone
for account inquiries, so the staff remained patient
while explaining the new offering to customers.
Now,
customers really like the fact that they don't have
to hold to obtain simple policy information or to
make a credit card payment. In addition to this quick
service, policy holders also value the ever-present
option of exiting the IVR system and speaking with
a live CSR. D'Avello feels that it is a "step
in the right direction for McGraw." And, the
numbers prove it!
McAllister
saw that the use of the IVR, like any new technology
offering, began slowly at first: only a few hundred
calls went into the IVR system in the first month.
As of January, 2003, of the 100,000 calls PSIC receives
each month, 4,000 to 5,000 are handled by the IVR.
D'Avello feels that if the call volume to the IVR
continues to increase, iVoice™ should be handling
double that amount by the end of the year.
Since
the introduction of iVoice™,
the roles and responsibilities of PSIC's staff haven't
radically changed. Oracion has more responsibility
in terms of the occasional minor update to the IVR
system, but he stated that the iMessaging system
is very stable and he hasn't encountered any problems.
According to D'Avello, the role of the CSR has only
been enhanced, making it much easier to provide each
customer with the high level of service they've come
to expect from McGraw.
"I've
heard nothing but positive feedback from our customer
support staff and from our customers," boasts
McAllister. And it's nothing but positive for PSIC's
bottom line – McAllister projects that
at the current rate of handling 4,000 to 5,000 calls
per month, the system will more than pay for itself
in 10 months – or sooner! When asked if he
would recommend iVoice™ to
companies with high volumes of customer service calls,
McAllister replied, "Absolutely. iVoice™ is
everything they promised and more. The system implementation
went smoothly, and the support was excellent. The
staff at iMessaging really know their product."
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