Agency Management, Anytime, Anywhere
Recent times have been good for many insurance agencies. But with increased sales comes an increase in support and service requirements and an increase in market conduct issues. Many organizations have begun to recognize the potential of wireless technologies in the insurance industry to help resolve these issues and deliver the kind of support agents and clients demand.
As president of the Agent Builders Company, Lisa Brumfield is always looking for better ways to service and support her agents’ sales efforts. “Efficient management of our agents is a vital component of our success,” said Brumfield. “Our agents produce six times the national average today, but clients are beginning to demand more. They want excellent service and fast turn-around. Staying ahead of the game means real-time support, while they are with the client.”
With a wireless solution, agents have a continuous connection to their information resources; management staff can monitor business from any location, or instantly respond to time-sensitive communications; and clients can look forward to faster response times. Suddenly, service issues that used to take 24 hours and two or three phone calls will be resolved in a matter of minutes via wireless e-mail.
Of course, the wireless buzz is not all positive and some journalists have concluded the technology is at best “nice to have for agents.” In fact, a recent article in an insurance technology publication claimed, “it takes a bigger leap of faith to invest in mobile technology for agents, since the ROIs are much harder to quantify.” Yet, some recent studies would seem to directly contradict this observation. For example, a Gartner report showed a 30 percent average increase in the number of clients seen for a sales representative with a wireless PDA, compared with sales representatives using a paper-based calendar. Another study by Ipsos-Reid showed the ROI of a Research In Motion (RIM) Blackberry implementation as being 1,587 percent or higher.
According to the study, this impressive ROI came via direct cost savings from decreased dial-ins to the corporate intranet, decreased cell phone usage, and decreased usage of other devices such as laptops and PDAs. And because users could work while away from the office, an average of 53 minutes of downtime was recovered.
But how do agencies select the right hardware and software to sustain growth? What device will work best for agents? What wireless network will be used? And, most importantly, how will it connect to the company’s back-office system? Fortunately, even though wading through the hype is often difficult, the choices are getting easier. Wireless network carriers are increasing their coverage areas and bandwidth. Voice and data capabilities are converging into the same device. Today, companies can choose from several devices that serve as both cell phone and wireless data access point, with network coverage in over 98 percent of the metropolitan United States.
Here are some of the things to consider when choosing a wireless implementation:
Battery life
One of the most important requirements in choosing a wireless device is long battery life. A device with a short battery life is like a car with a half-gallon tank. Nowadays, devices with color screens, stylus inputs (touch screen), and wireless modems have their battery life limited to a few hours. But this is improving everyday.
Size
Awkward and bulky are two of the main reasons why agents avoided laptop implementations. However, wireless devices can prove just as cumbersome. Multiple add-ons can add to weight, cost, and risk of loss or damage. The device can get up to over a pound and cost well over a thousand dollars.
Ease of use
User adoption is a critical component to any wireless solution. Touch screen and stylus have been the hallmark of PDA’s. In spite of this, many companies are finding that for data entry, nothing beats a “Qwerty” keyboard. At the 2002 Cingular Wave conference, Jeff Hawkins, chairman and chief product officer of Handspring, expressed his developers’ astonishment that users liked the keyboard versions of the Treo better than stylus-based Graffiti input. Since that time, Handspring has discontinued non-keyboard Treo models.
Though the differences between battery, ease-of-use, and accessibility of wireless devices are, for the most part, clearly defined, there are other, less noticeable distinctions. Implementation costs, maintenance expenses, and security capabilities can vary a great deal from one device to the next. Devices with lots of parts are easier to break and the pieces are more likely to be lost. In addition, some wireless devices take multiple hours on the phone just to have the services turned on. Creating an extremely frustrating experience for your top producers is not conducive to establishing an “agent-friendly” solution.
Security
In light of recent privacy legislation such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Privacy Act, securing the connection to back-office systems should be another major concern. Insurance and financial information must be protected, yet not all devices have true end-to-end encryption for complete security.
Push capability
Push capability simply refers to the delivery of information initiated by the server rather than the user. For example, a pager is push—you don’t flip up an antenna or dial-up to the network to see if you have a page. When the page is sent, the pager on your hip goes off. The opposite of push is pull. Pull is when no information is sent until the user requests it. A Web browser is pull. You request a Web address and then the browser goes out and downloads the Web page you requested.
So why is push so important? If agents don’t know they have important information or communication waiting, they don’t know to request it. Perhaps the largest advantage of a wireless solution is immediacy. A device or software that lacks push capability reduces this advantage to the number of times per day agents actually stop to dial-in and check their e-mail.
Coverage
Additional complications can arise because agents are mobile. They move in and out of coverage while driving, walking into an elevator, etc. Consequently, an efficient wireless solution for an insurance organization needs to be asynchronous rather than synchronous. Asynchronous solutions allow each function to operate independently from one another. A Web browser is a synchronous solution. When you click on a link from a Web browser, you are usually prevented from doing anything else until the Web page loads. If agents aren’t in coverage, they don’t have access to their applications. There are already asynchronous applications which address this issue. Once agents have requested client information, they can go on to send an e-mail, make a phone call, or set an appointment. When the information is returned to the device it notifies agents so that they can view the data. In other words, agents aren’t clicking … waiting … .clicking … waiting …
Devices
So how do the devices stack up? The BlackBerry by RIM is a mature product that provides synchronization with Microsoft Office, includes push capability, long battery life, keyboard entry, and phone capability out of the box. Also, RIM sets the standard for end-to-end encryption. Most vendors today are working hard to address the security issues with standards similar to what RIM has done. While RIM currently has the lead, look for others to provide similar features soon.
The PocketPC has much to offer in the way of computing power, memory expansion, and a broad array of third-party software. There are many situations where the application requires processing power or expandable memory for storage of data on the device. With Microsoft’s growing commitment to wireless, you can expect to see more and more capabilities coming from the PocketPC.
Palm has been synonymous with PDA in the personal device market, with its popular user interface and ease of use. It is now focusing its efforts on the corporate market. Familiarity with the device and its existing market share, make them a formidable competitor in the wireless PDA marketplace.
It doesn’t take long to realize the breadth of decisions to be made and the importance of each in relation to the effectiveness of a wireless solution. Security, size, push-capability, or battery life … companies must either wade through the data or seek outside help to determine their requirements and choose the device which best fit their needs. While there’s no denying that wireless technologies have the potential to produce significant ROI for companies who implement them, the choices companies face lie outside the core competency of an insurance organization and can often prove overwhelming. Third-party firms can assist in the decision-making process. The answers exist and there are cost effective solutions that can help businesses provide real-time service and support.
Nathan George is the vice president of Business Development for eAgency Systems and recently spoke at the LOMA Emerging Technology Conference on wireless solutions for the insurance industry. He can be reached at ngeorge@eagency.com.