Nationwide Takes CRM Enterprisewide
Web Site Produces Immediate Results
On Nationwide's site, www.nationwideinsurance.com, policyholders currently can report claims, check status of claims, quote and bind policies, send email to agents, get agent locations, update policy information (including adding or changing vehicles/drivers, change address), perform billing inquiries and pay bills (either through e-fund transfer or a credit card).
The resulting offering, says Nail, has vaulted Nationwide over some of its competitors, in terms of online capability and recognition. ""In the fourth quarter of '99, Nationwide had brochureware with no transaction capabilities,"" he says. ""Today, customers can quote and bind in 14 states, submit and track claims and change policy data. We have done more in 14 months than other companies have done in twice that time."" In fact Nationwide recently ranked eighth in a Gomez (Waltham, MA) Top 20 ranking of insurance sites, up from 14 in 2000.
While Nationwide Insurance's offering today only covers the property and casualty side of the business, Tien says Nationwide Insurance and Nationwide Financial's (which focuses on individual annuities, money management, life insurance products and employer-sponsored retirement programs) ultimate goal is to be seen as one company to the customer. Already, Nationwide.com brings customers to a joint Nationwide site. ""The customer choice strategy will be taken across the entire enterprise,"" Tien says. ""There is no active project yet with Nationwide Financial, but I can certainly see that starting in the near future.""
More Than the Net
And just as the Internet can't be brochureware, the expectations have also been heightened for more traditional insurance customer service channels. ""When I was an agent,"" reminisces Nail, ""there used to be a physical paper folder with all of the client's information in it. Because of customer expectations, the information has to be in real-time, not on paper.""
Since most policyholder interactions—almost 90 percent—still come through Nationwide's base of approximately 4,200 exclusive agents, Nationwide is also focusing on enabling agents with technology. ""The agents are superb customer relationship managers,"" Cannon says. ""We want to better enable our agents through the use of technology so they can do a better job than they are doing already."" To that end, Nationwide is working on giving agents access to the customer information file through the Internet.
Leveraging CRM
Besides providing better service to the customer, the central customer file will also provide Nationwide and its agents with more complete information for cross-selling purposes.
""CRM means more than just getting the information in order,"" Tien says. ""We want to leverage it for cross-selling and marketing information to better serve the customer.""
""We want to be at the right place at the right time"" for the customer, DeVoe says. ""We want to leverage the information in a data warehouse, that sits underneath the customer file, to be able to target market products to the customer.""
In order to make the entire CRM initiative happen, Nationwide is evaluating technology from numerous vendors. The company is using client management technology from Siebel Systems (San Mateo, CA) and data analysis tools from NCR (Dayton, OH).
""We are using a variety of tools from third-party vendors,"" according to Cannon. ""However, we are not going to become married to one type of technology or one vendor. In fact, probably 75 percent of our applications are developed internally.""
Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio
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