Hancock Gives Distributors Wireless Apps

In an effort to maximize communication with its distribution channels, Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services (total assets of $304 billion) selected Pyxis (Waltham, Mass.) Mobile's mPlatform, a real-time suite of wireless applications that allows agents to access information from the carrier's back-end systems through Research In Motion (Waterloo, Ontario) Blackberry devices.

In December 2002, John Hancock Annuities division was communicating with 125 wholesalers selling variable annuities and fixed annuity products through a paper-based and e-mailed monthly report. Often wholesalers including 1,700 firms with selling agreements and 250,000 representatives would receive the reports two weeks into the month and would often have to call into the carrier's help desk for administrative information, explained Steve Hutcheon, manager of sales analysis, John Hancock, at the IASA's 78th Annual Education Conference & Business Show in Boston.

"The challenge was to get information out to our wholesalers as quickly as possible," said Hutcheon. "Our wholesalers needed performance measurement information specific to their territories and many of them were already using blackberry devices."

To provide the wholesalers with consistent sales information that included addresses, phone numbers, sales, recent activity, recorded branch meetings, products discussed, costs outlined at meetings and outcomes, John Hancock Financial Services decided it needed an intuitive wireless solution sales representatives could easily use and could also be integrated with the carrier's customer relationship management system from Siebel (San Mateo, Calif.). After comparing several vendor offerings, the carrier purchased Pyxis Mobile's mPlatform suite in the first quarter of 2003. The mPlatform suite is a completely wireless application software that creates a dashboard and offers distribution partners access to client, marketing, portfolio and reporting data in real-time.

The solution was implemented as a pilot program in January and February of 2003. Wholesalers were given access to information such as business charts and client records. "The pilot included the feedback of 80 wholesalers," explained Hutcheon. "Through the pilot our wholesalers found they could get the majority of information they needed when they wanted it."

In June 2003, a second pilot was launched introducing distributor call reporting as part of the carrier's CRM system. "We needed a top-down management report to create channel management," said Hutcheon. "As an enterprise we found that we could mange territories more effectively by having agents record all meeting information on the system." This information was also available for the wholesalers' reference.

In July of 2003, John Hancock Financial Services went live with the product. Since implementation, the carrier has seen a significant increase in time management and sales productivity. Furthermore, help desk administrative calls from wholesalers have decreased to almost zero. "Our productivity has increased by 25 percent," said Hutcheon. "mPlatform has increased our sales efficiency and is at the same time of value to the wholesaler because they can sell more with the information already at their fingertips."

John Hancock Financial Services is working to increase the usage rate and adoption of all of the applications within the product. Currently, 99 percent of wholesalers use the product and 75 percent use the product for call reports, said Hutcheon.