Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Insurance

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in insurance has been well established for many years. Most insurance organizations understand the importance of maintaining comprehensive records of their clients’ product holdings, together with logs of correspondence for compliance purposes. But there is a vast amount of untapped potential in CRM that is just starting to be discovered through technologies such as customer analytics, data warehousing, predictive technologies, mobile access, and collaborative CRM. Customers are connecting with their insurers through new channels, and they expect to receive consistent service across those channels. Sales representatives who are marketing investment products and services to a wide and diverse clientele need a comprehensive business view to be able to effectively sell to and service their clients. By using new channels strategically, insurers can deliver a better customer experience and establish a true competitive differentiation. However, achieving consistency is not straightforward without an underlying platform that can support all channels. Efforts to create a more effective approach to channel sales and service have been hampered by the shortcomings of existing applications and legacy systems, the continued use of paper-based work processes, and the challenges faced by organizations that exist in silos.

Capital Effective and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can benefit insurance organizations that focus on consumers and businesses of all sizes. It outlines current and future needs for CRM in insurance and describes how Microsoft Dynamics CRM facilitates long-term success and sustainable competitive advantage by adding value to every point of contact with customers.

New opportunities for enhancing business insight can help insurance organizations reduce costs, improve agility, and increase efficiency. One avenue is to complement content management systems with analytics and a flexible CRM platform that takes full advantage of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web services. Such a platform can deliver integrated, timely customer insight that is relevant to each customer agent’s authorizations and responsibilities. Customers can access information and processes through the Web, saving time and increasing service levels. Using Web services tools, insurers can efficiently integrate their CRM application with legacy and partner applications.

A flexible, integrated system can provide agents with a complete and accurate view of client history. It gives sales managers the insight to drive better performance and client service. For example, the system can provide a complete view of current client financial positions, along with alerts to important events and actionable knowledge presented through a personalized dashboard. When insurance companies can exploit the value of integrated channels and deliver capabilities that add real customer value, they can stay ahead of the competition. By sharing customer intelligence across channels and business units, they can maximize business efficiency and the quality of customer services. Today, industry experts and solution providers provide tools that help improve almost every aspect of the insurance business. Microsoft, as a leading platform provider, is working with insurance industry partners to extend CRM platform capabilities further to create extensible insurance solutions that drive customer intimacy, excellence in collaboration, and superior analytics. By adopting these solutions, insurers can:

Empower agents to shift their focus from contact management to higher service and sales levels with intuitive navigation and quick adoption.
Gain fast, accurate insight into customers to see who’s profitable, who’s loyal, and who’s most likely to buy, defect, or default.
Enable insurers to work seamlessly with the wide range of systems used by agents.
Design intelligent interaction strategies to know what to sell, when, and to whom, and when to talk and when to listen.
Make every interaction count by holding intelligent conversations, making relevant suggestions, and delighting customers by showing an intimate understanding of their current and future needs.
Respond to change by implementing new campaigns and customer management strategies and ideas quickly and consistently, and by responding in minutes to changes in the market, the competition, product offerings, and customer needs.

Delivering superior sales and service requires a complete, multi-channel view of the customer that provides insight on how to meet both service and sales needs. When this happens, all customer-facing staff, whether they are mobile staff or channel partners, working within agencies or brokerages, or servicing contact centers, can gain full knowledge of their customer’s service and product needs, while management gains actionable insight into these producers.