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CRM’s New Focus: Analyze This

CRM analytics are helping to detect pockets of marketing opportunity, while also providing IT management with information they can use to create business efficiencies.

The creation of such groups not only helps save money, but time as well. ""Marketing departments can't really track 400,000 customers individually,"" says IDC's Blumstein. ""But people do things in patterns that are recognizable by group."" When customized group marketing campaigns are embarked upon, ""less money will be spent on cold calls and a bigger focus can be made on direct campaigns,"" adds AXA's Sibigtroth.

Although policyholder groupings enable a pretty accurate level of customization, an individual's behavior must also be taken into account. ""If a policyholder does a query on a Web site for surrender value, it could indicate that he is getting ready to cancel his policy,"" says Blumstein. ""Many times a carrier will do nothing with this information, but with CRM analytics you are able to analyze the customer,"" and take action.

For instance, a more sophisticated analytic system could help determine whether such behavior was normal for that particular policyholder. ""If a customer were to call the call center all the time, the system makes the decision that says frequent calling is normal behavior for this guy,"" says Blumstein. Also, if a policyholder was considering cancellation of a policy, such a system could determine whether an independent agent is close enough to the insurer to appropriately handle the lead.

Although policyholder information can be sensitive more carriers are willing to share it. According to Business Objects' Hirst, the practice is becoming a more popular trend because ""insurers have been taking better care of their agents since the demise of Internet euphoria."" Information such as lapse rates are being supplied to producers.

The Hartford (Hartford, $167 billion in assets), a user of Siebel 7, is using analytics to help improve its agents' experience by providing them with leads based on cross-sell/up-sell opportunities. ""The Hartford has traditionally partnered with agents to find more efficient ways to do business, and marketing-analytic tools are becoming quite useful for that purpose,"" says Joline Brown, vice president of strategic marketing, e-business ventures, The Hartford. ""They foster customization throughmore effective cross-sell and lead-generation programs.""

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Understanding of User Needs Key to OLAP

Neither IT professionals nor end-users are fully equipped, on their own, to make properly informed OLAP (online analytic processing) selections, according to The OLAP Report, authored by Nigel Pendse and Richard Creeth. This means that, unlike most other software, OLAP evaluations must involve both the eventual end-users and IT decison-makers, according to Pendse. Before choosing an OLAP product, The OLAP Report suggests that IT leaders heed the following recommendations:

-- Try to predict what the users really need, not just what they say they want. This means you have to understand how they do their jobs, what skills they have, and what information and analysis would help them be more productive.

-- Involve end-users at every stage, including project definition, product selection and implementation.

-- Do not expect end-users to be able to list their exact requirements beforehand-and don't force them to predict every possible need (you'll end up with an impossible list).

-- Never try to understand storage and processing architectures before properly understanding the business needs.

-- Do not use up surplus ""shelfware"" from a previous over-ambitious OLAP purchase.

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