The Insurance industry, along with the rest of the Financial Services sector is undergoing a period of intense change. Driven by global economic forces and continuing demands from shareholders and stakeholders, Insurance executives are feeling pressure to transform their sales and lead generation processes in order to meet these demands.

The growing use of the Internet in the insurance industry has altered the relationship between sales agent, client, and employer. Agents formerly used to devote much of their time to marketing and selling products to new clients. Now, customers are increasingly obtaining insurance quotes from a company’s web site and then contacting the company directly to purchase policies. These changing economics have driven insurance industry executives to take a hard look at the cost of their agents (producers). Costs to support a full time employee can be significant and include continuing education, licensing and certifications required to support technology and other standard overhead items.

Many leaders in the insurance industry are looking at outsourcing the sales and lead generation function as a proven method to reduce their cost per lead.

Andromeda integrates front office customer facing processes with the transaction intensive back office to provide an integrated insurance sales process. For example, in addition to handling customer interactions, Andromeda provides back office activities such as application processing, data entry, correspondence management, and policy issuance.

Key Operational Challenges:

• NDNC impeding Prospect Customer Base in a Cold Calling Campaign.
• Increasing Market Competition in General Insurance Players.
• TAT involved in approaching the prospect customer and closing the sale before another insurance company contacts him.
• Growing Usage of Media/ Internet has tailored the relationship between an Insurance agent and a Customer increasing, the challenges of meeting customer demands on time.
• Curiosity and quick response to buy a selective insurance product has made a Customer to browse and respond on various response telemarketing tools such as hot leads calling, SMS Blast, Email Blast, Auto Dialer, Search Engine, Web Banner, Affiliate Marketing, Toll Free number and WAP to receive calls on prescribed insurance product.

Andromeda Strategy

How does Response Telemarketing Structure work?

Initially, Customer obtains insurance quotes by browsing insurance websites, Search engines, Web Banners, WAP; contacting toll free numbers, responding insurance SMS, emails, auto dialer messages to know more about the insurance product.

These customer responses are tracked and transferred to a real time server which acts such a hub to an insurance agent to contact the given response on time.

TAT is set accordingly to meet the urgency level. Following is the response flowchart:-

Step 1: Activity starts, Customer responds through the Response Marketing Tool.

Step 2: Response Marketing Tool: Hot leads calling, SMS Blast, Email Blast, Auto Dialer, Search Engine, Web Banner, Affiliate Marketing, Toll Free number and WAP responses are transferred to real time server same minute.

Step 3: Collected Response Database is transferred through Dialer to an agent for calling within 2-3 mins.

Step 4: Agent contacts the response, meeting the customer prescribed demands transfers the same call to Client verification dept. to verify and generate sale/policy.

Step 5: Verification Dept.: Client Verifiers verifies the customer details, opt a customer for 3 payment modes for policy in chronological order, if customer fails on any prescribed payment modes. Payment modes are:

• Credit Card Details- providing a customer with EMI facility, if eligible.
• Cheque Pick ups.
• BRE.

Step 6: Fulfillment process ends.

TAT on above structure:
Customer- Response Telemarketing Tool- Real Time Server- Dialer – Agent: 2-3 mins
Agent- Customer – Client Verification Dept- Customer: 5-10 mins

Impact

Based on the success of this process, the client has outsourced the entire life cycle management of its customers to Andromeda

Life Cycle of a Customer

Fresh Acquisition: Customer acquisition is executed by 2 modes.

• Broad Market: The executive calls up on a cold database, educates the customer on the Client Insurance Product and if the customer is interested closes the sale.
• Internet: Executive calls up a customer who has responded by showing interest through response marketing tools- internet/ SMS / WAP. Executive educates the customer on required insurance product and converts the customer requirements to generate sale.
• Cross Sale: Cross Sale entails selling the existing customer with another appropriate insurance policy. The executive calls up on an existing client customer database which encompasses variety from one insurance product to other.
• Renewals: Executive calls up an existing client's customer to renew the existing insurance policy, fulfilling the life cycle of a customer.