Wireless Can Boost Productivity And Improve Customer Loyalty

This is especially important with the proliferation of more and more insidious computer viruses and worms that are being deployed through instant messaging clients. A true enterprise-grade IM solution not only allows the IT department to control its use but allows employees to use it at their desks, and when they leave the office, the IM client “goes mobile” and can be used on their mobile phones or other wireless devices.

Mobility Solutions

Some property and casualty insurers have successfully and profitably mobilized their claims adjustors. Recent deployments have shown that claims management is where mobile technologies are providing the greatest positive impact for insurers. There are different aspects to a claims adjustors workday that can benefit from true mobility. Your company need not mobilize every aspect of an adjustors life to reap serious rewards in terms of both money and customer loyalty.

First, lets look at how claims adjustors start their day. They usually begin their morning developing the days schedule of visits and then spend the latter half of the day doing laborious paperwork. By mobilizing its automated scheduling, routing and dispatch system, an auto insurer can save its adjustors hours in their workday by intelligently routing the days service calls. As new claims are reported during the day, the dispatch system alerts adjustors in the area to pay a visit to the client. With secure wireless Internet access to corporate data and systems, paperwork is greatly reduced and, in some cases, eliminated.

Insurers may also extend applications such as damage estimation to the mobile workforce so that they can provide the customer with real-time figures on cost repair and submit a repair order directly to a carrier-approved body shop. Companies can equip adjustors with handheld devices for electronic signature capture and printers so checks can be handed to customers on the spot. For these companies customer satisfaction and loyalty rates will increase, and they will be able to process more claims in less time.

More importantly, the company saves money by controlling the losses and preventing escalation of damages, and ensuring a claimant in a car accident wont be coming back with new aches and pains that werent evident at the time of the incident.

Location-Based Services: Looking to the Future

Location-based services are those that use technology to show where a person or assets are located. If you have rented a car that has a system that navigates directions for you and shows on a small screen your position on the road, that is a location-based service. A metropolitan police station, for example, can use the technology to see where all the police cars and motorcycles are within the city and dispatch those assets closest to the scene of an incident.

Insurers may be able to utilize a type of service whereby a Global Positioning Device is placed in a policyholders automobile and is connected to several mechanical aspects of the vehicle with the purpose of collecting information on how a customer drives. This provides qualitative data about the driver such as the distance and the speeds at which they drive, and whether they drive at night or during the day. The information can then be used to adjust a clients policy downwards for those who rarely drive and upwards for those who are considered a higher risk.

While surely many here in the U.S. will think this an intrusive Big Brother tactic, those who have clean records and dont log many on-road miles will surely welcome the idea of paying a lot less for their insurance. Insurers are likely to increase profitability through this “pay as you drive” model by increasing their customer base of verifiably safer drivers.

Location-based technology is just one arrow in the quiver for insurance companies to consider as they look forward to deploy next-generation wireless solutions.

Evaluate the potential by examining which of your business processes could be transformed and optimized through the use of mobile and wireless technology. Select partners who understand the dynamics of the insurance industry and will integrate solutions to work within your IT infrastructure.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 23, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.