CRM - January 2008 - (Page 47)

SECRET OF MY SUCCESS INSURING ACCURATE DATA Insurance.com cleans up its customer data—and cleans up, period Scott Noerr, BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE MANAGER FOR INSURANCE.COM | as told to Jessica Tsai ■ Tell me about your organization. We’re an insurance agency. We primarily, as far as the agency is concerned, focus on [auto insurance]. We do sell other products, but most of those are through our partners. We’re giving accurate, bindable rates from multiple carriers and you can purchase that policy either directly online or through the sales center from us. The company started in 2001. We have multiple types of relationships: We have B2B2C, B2B, and B2C; it’s a pretty sophisticated business model, I suppose. ■ How many vendors did you test out? We do a lot of research internally. We get that down to around six or seven vendors, send out a pretty extensive [request for proposals], and do an extensive interview and demo with each of the vendors. Then at that point, we get it down to the final two where we do a proof of concept with each vendor. Even though that may extend the decision-making process, we find that’s how we have the most success, because you never know what you’re going to get until you get your hands on it and actually start to develop something with it. The selection process probably took us between two and three months. ■ How long did it take to get into full production? We started using it internally, immediately. Within the first month, we were doing customer managing and we had that integrated in our reconciliation process for commissions. We actually took somewhere around four to five months before we had that integrated in with our transactional production application. ■ What problems were you facing? [We] wanted a standardized enterprise solution for customer matching, data quality, and data profiling. [DataFlux] allowed us to reduce the number [of] redundant technologies within [DataFlux] allowed us to our business while increasing the accuracy reduce the number [of] and effectiveness of our CRM processes. We ■ How did you measure your return on investment? work with hundreds of external sites and if redundant technologies We have seen a continuous improvement in you’re actively shopping for insurance, you within our business while both customer acquisition and reduction in might come from one site, and another site, time-to-market with new solutions [as well as] increasing the accuracy and then another site. Well, it’s still the same conversion rates and retention rates. Basically, customer, but the way that they’re interact- and effectiveness of our we have a standardized product that we can use ing with us is from three different venues. CRM processes. in multiple environments and multiple use So we’re using DataFlux to understand that cases and that reduces our time-to-market, it this is the same customer just coming to us from three reduces our overhead costs, and it really allows us to add a lot different sources—it changes our behavior on how we of transparency within the system. Instead of using multiple interact with them. people with multiple skills for various scenarios, those same people can use standardized approaches across the board. It’s ■ Why did you select DataFlux? You’re trying to prove your increased our productivity. return on investment, and you’re trying to prove speed-tomarket—typical decision processes that have to take place >> AGE OF THE INITIATIVE? Two years within an organization. The thing we initially were using DataFlux for was customer matching, because we’re a portal. >> WHO WAS INVOLVED? The director of IT, myself, and the database development manager We [also] use it in our data quality processes, for profiling >> BEST IDEA? Using a standardized solution to standardization. It’s continued to expand. We just wanted to address current and future needs enhance our CRM capabilities, essentially. There was always >> BIGGEST SURPRISE? Efficiencies gained through some hole that was left in the [other] products, either in the data cleansing and standardization solution profiling, or the customer matching, or standardization—or >> BIGGEST CRM MISTAKE MADE? The lesson as far as performance would go, trying to use it in a runlearned is that you can never plan enough to time environment. DataFlux really covered all those needs. identify all obstacles when implementing It was something that we could use in a transactional sysenterprisewide solutions tem, and it was something we could use in a batch system. 5 FAST FACTS www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JANUARY 2008 47 http://www.insurance.com http://www.insurance.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - January 2008

CRM - January 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Facebook's About-Face On the Scene: Oracle OpenWorld 2007 CRM Market Set to Double Customers, Meet your Makers Required Reading Oh, Behave! Fine-Tuning the Channel Listen Up! The Master Piece Flying High on Customer Service Let's Get Digital The Big Rigs Get Revved Up Putting Asia in Your Pocket Secret of My Success Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - January 2008

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