RightNow cloud for online-only insurance

Peter Dinham
Monday, 24 August 2009 09:52

IT Industry - Deals

CRM vendor RightNow has deployed a cloud-based customer care system for new online car insurance business, The Buzz, with the insurer claiming it is the first insurance provider to shape its business by asking an online community what they wanted from their insurance provider.

RightNow, in conjunction with its contact centre infrastructure partner, SmartSpeak, announced today it is delivering cloud-based customer care “designed to appeal to, and support, the internet-proficient users attracted to The Buzz’s online car insurance.”

Part of the Insurance Australia Group (IAG), The Buzz says that in response to questioning of an online community on what they want from their insurance provider, it claims to have created a “compelling, quick and easy, online insurance offering, and called on RightNow to bring these brand elements to its customer service channels, providing customers with highly interactive experiences as they move through their online insurance journey.”

The Buzz CEO, Jacki Johnson, said that using customer focus groups and an online community, the company was able pin-point what internet-savvy consumers desire from customer service.

“We also spent time researching customer experiences in other countries and industries to understand what elements our customer services needed to incorporate and what areas we should leave alone.”

Johnson said RightNow’s online chat function allows customers who may have questions about a policy or claim to chat at any time with a member of the Buzz assist team.

“While The Buzz wants to provide an experience where customers can easily self-serve their own insurance needs, the chat session provides a co-browse facility where customers can be guided through the steps necessary to complete policy or claim forms.”

According to Johnson, RightNow is also at the heart of The Buzz’s contact centre, located in Sydney, where details of each customer’s email and phone incidents are logged by RightNow so that service team have an historical record of previous engagements, “helping ease any future customer interactions.”

The contact record is integrated with RightNow’s contact centre infrastructure partner, SmartSpeak , so as a customer call is answered a RightNow screen-pop can show the contact record containing the customer’s information and incident history.

“Consumer expectation about customer service has been influenced by experiences with industries like retail and banking so, while customers may only interact with The Buzz, or any insurance company, once or twice a year, it’s really important to make that interaction quick and easy.

“That’s why we listened to the community and delivered the service channels that people want. For instance, we know that a live chat session is favoured above click-to-call. Through technology like RightNow we can respond to our customers quickly.”

Johnson also says that, additionally, customers have round-the-clock online access to an intelligent knowledge foundation that they can quickly search to find answers to routine questions. She says that to simplify searching for information, the three to five most popular answers customers seek are dynamically displayed on web pages along with a search function, and the information changes dependent on which web page the customer is on so that they have easy access to information within the context of their online insurance journey.