Insurance processes
are increasingly the work of field-office employees assisted by mobile
technology and highly responsive system support. Processes “no longer start at
the company’s firewall or with events received in the back office,” says a
report from Forrester Consulting. Instead, the boundaries of the insurance
process have been pushed out to the customers — and those serving the
customers.
Employees who engage
customers in the field are critical resources for insurers striving to excel in
today’s competitive marketplace. Many, if not most, enterprise IT and business
decision makers view field-office workers as vital to both competitive
differentiation and growing the business, according to the Forrester survey.
Unfortunately, these same executives also say they believe field-office workers
are underutilized, and lack needed support from advanced technology. What’s
more, the same survey finds that some 65 percent of the executives say their
field-office workers would be more effective if they had better information
tools.
What’s needed to bring
your field-office workers into the IT-powered moment? Forrester experts point
to five key needs in the report:
1. Focus more on the
customer experience
When global decision
makers were asked by Forrester which aspects of their operations were most
likely to drive growth, their top answer was better support for customer-facing
employees. The Forrester report points out that many enterprises are once again
shifting their focus to the top line, which involves improving the customer
experience and providing better support for field and point-of-service
employees. Nowhere are these imperatives more important than in the insurance
industry. That’s where high levels of customer service and fast claims
processing are critical competitive differentiators. For this reason, insurers
should view this research as a call to action and a guide for prioritizing
their investments.
2. Increase front line
support
Field-office workers
can dramatically improve insurance customer satisfaction and retention, but
only if they’re empowered with the necessary tools, technologies and solutions.
Then they will be equipped to meet customers’ new and heightened expectations.
For insurers, this means claims adjusters, customer-service reps and others on
the front lines of customer engagement need increased support. To accomplish
this, insurers can implement strong industry-specific solutions; these include
tools for document preparation, printing and advanced process management,
Forrester says.
3. Implement new,
optimized processes
Technology is only
part of the field-office transformation challenge; process changes are needed,
too. Improved information management is at the core of the internal
transformations needed to make insurers more competitive, Forrester adds.
Respondents to its survey, when asked to rank the most important
information-management activities for field-office workers, selected finding
data quickly to answer customer queries, creating documents and processing
information as their top choice. Coming in at a close second was the ability to
update or tailor documents for immediate scanning or printing. That’s not to
say IT is unimportant. But its role will become one of support. “Technologies
that include mobile capture and print, business process management, and dynamic
case management will be strong enablers,” Forrester says.
4. Install proven
solutions for cost savings and field-office advantages
For many insurers,
adopting managed print services (MPS) is critical. These systems can help cut
costs and increase efficiencies by aligning the number and type of output
devices with your business processes. They also provide real-time management of
your printer fleet. And an MPS solution can track usage to discover even more
opportunities for cost savings. If that weren’t enough, distributed capture
capabilities can also help your field offices collaborate more efficiently —
and in near-real time — with your home office. Going further, Lexmark, among
other suppliers, has added a new dimension to MPS: software that optimizes
several insurance processes, including claims management, to automatically
capture, classify, validate and route information to your claims-management
system. And it works with any input, whether hard copy or digital. Field-office
workers gain immediate access to the latest information, empowering them to
provide exceptional customer service. And processes that formerly took days,
even weeks, can now be completed in mere minutes.
5. Improve mobile
productivity
At many carriers,
field-office workers now use a mix of smartphones and multifunction printers
(MFPs) as their “information on-ramps” to claims processing, underwriting,
policy management and other back-office processes. For example, a claims
adjuster in the field can use the camera on a tablet to photograph storm damage
at a customer’s house and then transmit the images directly to the carrier’s
claims system. The new data will then be available to others in the field and
home offices, even before the adjuster gets back to the office. These and other
MPS-powered innovations can give field-office workers instant access to vital
information. The result: Field workers spend less time chasing data, and more
time serving your clients, helping the business grow.
For more details please contact us at:
Memphis Communications Corporation
4771 Summer Ave
Memphis, TN 38122
Tel: 901.725.9271
Fax: 901.272.3577
Toll Free: 866.805.5893
Service and Supplies: 901.257.2500
Website: http://www.memphiscommunications.net
