A web-based Contact Management System for Insurance Brokers

ENTERPRISE CONTACT MANAGEMENT

FOR INSURANCE BROKERS A WEB-BASED SOLUTION

A review of a web-based application to manage the client contacts for a major insurance broker. Produced by: Maddox Ford Ltd. Author: David Eastwood Issue: April 2004 Version: 1.1

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Copyright © Maddox Ford Ltd 2004

Maddox Ford Ltd Victoria Chambers, 16-18 Strutton Ground, London SW1P 2HP Tel: 020 7222 5588 Fax: 020 7222 4411 www.maddoxford.co.u

CONTENTS

1 MANAGING CONTACTS 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.2 KEY FEATURES 1

1.2.1 Live data updates 1 1.2.2 Consolidated view of the business 2 1.2.3 Contact management and activity reporting 3 1.2.4 Full client and prospect data 3 1.2.5 Exhaustive search and reporting capabilities 4 1.2.6 Management reporting 5 1.2.7 Data export and mail merge 6 1.2.8 Data import 7 1.2.9 Links to external data sources 7 1.2.10 Security control 7

2 TECHNICAL DETAILS OF THE SYSTEM 8 2.1 TECHNOLOGIES USED 8 2.2 STRUCTURE 8 2.3 ENQUIRY AND REPORTING 9

2.3.1 Export of data 9 2.3.2 Management reports 10

2.4 DATA LOADING 10 2.5 ACTIVITY RECORDING – DIARY DATES 10 2.6 DATA PROTECTION AND AUDIT TRAIL 11

3 BENEFITS ACHIEVED 12 3.1 CLOSE MATCH TO USER REQUIREMENTS 12 3.2 SINGLE VIEW OF DATA 12 3.3 REDUCTION IN LOCAL DATA STORES 12 3.4 LOW TRAINING OVERHEAD 12 3.5 LINKS TO STANDARD TOOLS (EXCEL) 12 3.6 USABLE COMPANY-WIDE 12 3.7 SHORT TIMESCALE AND LOW COSTS 13

A web-based Contact Management System for Insurance Brokers

1 Managing Contacts

1.1 Introduction This paper gives an overview of a Contact Management system developed by Maddox Ford for a major Insurance Broker. The system was commissioned as a cost-effective way to consolidate customer and prospect data held in a variety of different corporate broking systems and local data sets without incurring the expense of a full CRM package implementation. Prior to the implementation of this system, data about customers and prospects was held in a number of places throughout the business. A number of broking systems are used in the different parts of the business and various local sets of data had been set up to store prospect data (often using Microsoft Access). It was recognised that a single unified set of contact data available across the whole business would offer considerable benefits both internally in terms of awareness of activity with a particular company and externally in terms of customer relations. The system was designed as a web-based application, initially on the corporate intranet. Whilst produced as a bespoke application, the system is based upon industry-standard software and components and could readily be adapted to other brokers or insurance companies. This paper gives an overview of the key features of the system; provides some technical details on the implementation; and reviews some of the benefits gained from the system.

1.2 Key features The system offers the following key features:

�� Live links to collect data from broking systems �� Consolidated view of client business �� Contact management and activity recording �� Full client and prospect data �� Exhaustive search and reporting capabilities �� Management reporting �� Data export and mail merge �� Data import �� Links to external data sources �� Security control

1.2.1 Live data updates This was seen as one of the key requirements. Data is automatically extracted from a number of broking systems and loaded into the contact management database. In addition to standard contact information, a variety of data about individual lines of business is also loaded to assist in categorising the contact data and showing the value of that business.

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Given the importance of correct contact information, a considerable amount of thought went into the design of this aspect of the system. It was felt, for example, that the safest way to ensure full de-duplication of data was to build in some manual control of the loading process. The system will show new or changed data to allow the user to selectively select or reject the changes. As an example, the user can decide whether to accept data updates from feeder systems or to retain the information held in the contact management system.

Figure 1: Reconciliation of data feed

This loading process is discussed in more detail in the next section.

1.2.2 Consolidated view of the business Subject to a range of security settings, users can see a comprehensive picture of all contacts with and business carried out with a given client (or group of clients). So, an enquiry will show against a specific company - all lines of business; their status; selling and marketing activities; general contact made; and details of other members of staff working with that company. Information is also held on other types of contact – professional advisors, IFAs, journalists, etc. At the client level, the system serves to consolidate information about contacts held by a variety of corporate transactional systems. This information often differs between source systems and a key feature that has emerged has been the ability to reconcile differences between information held on other corporate systems. Brokerage staff were not always aware of the full range of business in place with a given client and this system allows staff to gain an overview of the full extent of the contact with a specific client.

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1.2.3 Contact management and activity reporting The system is not intended to supplant standard activity planning systems such as Outlook, although it does link into Outlook, but it does record the full range of details for contacts within a specific company and various activities carried out. At the contact level, various personal details are recorded as well as that individual’s Data Protection preferences. This means that the system will not allow mailing details to be generated for those contacts who have expressed a wish not to have letters sent to them. Contact activity is recorded, covering meetings, telephone calls, mailings, etc. This is visible at the level of a specific line of business or for a client as a whole.

1.2.4 Full client and prospect data Client or prospect data is held at the company, Line of Business and individual contact level. The table below shows a subset of the elements of data recorded to give an indication of the information available. Company Line of Business Contact Address details Region Address details Type of company Type (client. Prospect,

etc.) DPA details

Industry categories Business won/lost dates Position Parent/subsidiary details Reason won/lost Role Company stats :– size, turnover, year end, etc.

Sales status PA details

Main broker staff contact Value Preferred communication method

Fees Interests Broker staff contacts Insurer

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Figure 2: Sample Client Details screen

1.2.5 Exhaustive search and reporting capabilities The user can search using all attributes of the data held. Thus at the simplest end of the scale, company or contact name searches are used for routine enquiries whilst more complex searches could be of the form ‘details of all lines of business in a particular sector where the business has been lost in the last 3 months’. A series of predefined reports is provided for users of the system. Ad-hoc enquiries that cannot be met by the standard reports set can be satisfied via standard end-user reporting tools, such as Crystal or Hyperion Intelligence.

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Figure 3: Sample Client Enquiry screen – part view

1.2.6 Management reporting Management reports include the usual summary reports but also allow sales activity to be monitored and the acquisition (or otherwise) of new business to be followed.

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Figure 4: Sample Management Report screen

1.2.7 Data export and mail merge All report data can be exported in spreadsheet form for further analysis. In some cases this would include data to be used by external mailing houses for mailings. Alternatively, mailshots can be created directly using templates held within the system.

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Figure 5: Sample Mail Merge screen - part

1.2.8 Data import Live links to in-house broking systems ensure client data is kept up to date, as has been discussed earlier. Another important source of data is bought-in contact lists, for example from affinity groups. Users can import sets of new contacts data (held in spreadsheet form) directly into the system and check for duplicates with data already held on the system.

1.2.9 Links to external data sources Where relevant, links are provided to external data sources. These include:

�� Client/prospect web site �� On-line company information from 3rd party business information providers �� Link to Companies House

1.2.10 Security control A range of user access controls ensures that sensitive data is only visible to agreed levels of user access. Similarly, user permissions control who can edit particular elements of data.

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2 Technical details of the system

2.1 Technologies used Whilst entirely bespoke, the application was designed to use standard technologies and components to simplify development and maintenance. A standard relational database (SQL Server) holds the application data. Data is loaded from other applications either via direct database links or exchange of files. The application code was written in Java to J2EE standards using a range of standard components and will run on a range of J2EE-compliant application servers, such as Oracle, Apache, WebLogic or Novell exteNd.

2.2 Structure The system can be represented in the following diagram that shows the main functions available:

Contact

Management Application

Brokingl systems

Client PCs / Browser

Intranett

Ad-hoc data loads

Manual Data Entry

Reports

Excel exports

Mail Merge

Figure 6: System structure

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Data is held in the following fashion: Company

Line of Business

Source of data

Brokerage contacts

Client contacts

Diary dates / Activity records

Figure 7: Data structure

Information is held at the company level (and parent company level) and at the line of business level. Contact details cover which members of the broker’s staff are handling the client or prospect as well as client contact details. A record is kept of a range of forms of client contact – telephone calls, meetings, letters sent, etc.

2.3 Enquiry and reporting The primary purpose of the system is to provide a quick source of information about contact details. Users can run a variety of reports or enquiries all of which share a common series of search criteria (over 40 are available) and provide different sets of detailed information. Reports will generally also contain links to allow users to see further detailed information. The fact that the data is held in a standard relational database allows other corporate reporting tools to be used if required, although in practice the pre-defined report set has generally proved adequate. Links are available to external sources of company information or to company web sites.

2.3.1 Export of data One of the important features of the system is to be able to readily transfer data to standard office applications (such as Excel). All reports can be directly downloaded in spreadsheet form. In some cases, the user can specify a template Word document and directly create a mail merge. Details of the mail merge can also be recorded as events against that contact.

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2.3.2 Management reports A variety of management reports are available to monitor sales activity levels and success rates. Details such as the source of new business, previous broker or broker to whom business is lost are also available as reports. Information such as the value of business is loaded from feeder systems and is visible to those with the appropriate levels of access.

2.4 Data loading The system combines data from a variety of transactional systems on a scheduled basis. As might be imagined, there is considerable scope for the duplication of data between the various feeder systems as well as with data entered directly into the system by users. The load process detects potential duplication of data but it was decided to leave the final data reconciliation as a user-driven process. The user can also decide whether new data is in fact a duplication of data already on the system. A simple example is the spelling of names – ‘ABC Ltd’ is almost certainly the same as ‘A.B.C. Limited’. This manual control of the data load process has proved more reliable than an attempt to resolve duplicate data automatically. Once a discrepancy between data in one of the source systems and that in the Contact Management System has been detected, the system can be instructed to ignore that discrepancy until some further change to the incoming data occurs. Users also have facilities to merge company and line of business data when the inevitable duplicates do occur. Marketing users will often wish to introduce a bulk set of new contact records and they can do this via a direct load of spreadsheet data. Templates for data formats can be stored to simplify the loading of repeated sets of data from the same source. The users themselves can create these templates. The system employs the same duplicate detection and resolution as used for data arriving via live links in order to ensure that existing clients are not suddenly treated as new prospects.

2.5 Activity recording – diary dates Users can record a range of contact activities against individual contacts. As mentioned before, these activities cover phone and mail contact, meetings and mailshots. Details of all activities undertaken with respect to a given company can be seen either at the company or line of business level and are a useful check before making further contact with a customer. Activity records can be created in bulk when, for example, a mailing is sent out. It is also possible to copy details into the users Microsoft Outlook appointments.

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2.6 Data protection and audit trail A variety of Data Protection preferences are recorded against individual contacts and these are invoked when reports are created. So, if a set of data is being extracted to create a mailing, addresses will be withheld for those individuals who have indicated a preference not to receive mailings for that category of business. Audit records are kept to record the creation and alteration of data.

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3 Benefits achieved The client has gained a number of operational benefits from the system:

3.1 Close match to user requirements The system replaced a series of localised contact data stores that held partial data sets and were not easily scalable to a company-wide solution. A number of standard, packaged systems had been evaluated and it was felt that a bespoke solution offered a better fit to the precise requirements of an insurance broker without incurring the considerable expense of a full, corporate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

3.2 Single view of data Users gained considerable benefit from being able to view all contact activity against a specified company and also to be able to immediately see the status of various lines of business. Data about a specific contact is held in a variety of transactional systems across the business and well as in local data stores (see below). This system allows a unified view of all contact activity across the enterprise. Details of other users working with that client were visible and, from the client’s perspective, the relationship with the broker was more coordinated.

3.3 Reduction in local data stores A number of localised information data stores were replaced by a single unified source of data, which removed considerable levels of inaccuracy. These data stores included such information as new contact data acquired by the sales and marketing function, manual extracts from transactional systems and individually maintained information about contacts.

3.4 Low training overhead By using standard Windows conventions and using familiar insurance terminology, it was found that user-training requirements were relatively low.

3.5 Links to standard tools (Excel) All output is available as reports or Excel spreadsheets for email. This allows the more expert user to carry out further data manipulation as required.

3.6 Usable company-wide By virtue of being available via the corporate intranet, users can access the system from any regional office without requiring any particular software to be installed on the workstation being used.

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3.7 Short timescale and low costs The project was carried out in a relatively short timescale. The entire specification, implementation and test process for the initial version of the system was completed within 3 months. The development team was 3 developers and a part-time project manager.

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A web-based Contact Management System for Insurance Brokers