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ComVerge Limited
Mail address
Lopen Business Park
Mill Lane
Lopen
TA13 5JS
Phone:
01460 200123
London Office
0203 004 5970 |
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Insurance Quoteline
Networking Insurance
Quoteline ensures FSA regulatory compliance using VoIP technology
supplied by ComVerge Limited.
Customer Profile
Founded in 1998 following the merger of several regional
brokers, the company origins of Insurance Quoteline can
be traced back to 1910 when the first of these companies
was formed – so with nearly 100 years’ experience
Insurance Quoteline knows a bit about insurance. Today the
Blackburn-based company is a nationwide broker offering
a wide range of business and personal insurance policies.
According to Ian Hollins, Managing Director of Insurance
Quoteline, “Our aim is to be your first choice for
insurance providing the best cover at the lowest price with
service you can rely on. The company has developed online
quote facilities and diversified from traditional personal
insurances into SME business covers and are currently developing
a specialist schemes unit. The business model supports electronic
trading wherever possible and was the first UK intermediary
to place business using the Industry standard “Polaris”
rating tool and one of the few to offer instant comparative
quotations for SME business Insurance. “Our people
make our business. We are members of the Investors in People
scheme and we encourage ongoing training and personal development
in a friendly environment,” continues Hollins.
Telephony Challenge
In order to continue to deliver the standard of service
that the company’s reputation has been built upon,
Insurance Quoteline has had to overcome several new business,
regulatory and telephony challenges. The UK insurance market
is highly competitive and is becoming increasingly regulated
through the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The regulations
are essentially evidence-based and are designed to protect
both the interests of the company and their customers.
What this means in practice is that all calls have to be
recorded according to FSA guidelines. For example, if a
customer states that he has no driving convictions and it
subsequently transpires that he indeed does have, then Insurance
Quoteline is able to furnish the proof, through the use
of the call-recording technology supplied within the telephone
systems manufactured by AltiGen Communications, that the
insurance was provided on the basis of the information provided.
Conversely if it were to transpire that the company had
misinterpreted a customer response then the evidence is
available so that the matter can be corrected.
Insurance Quoteline therefore took the decision in May 2004
to upgrade and modernise its telephone system to conform
to the new conditions of the market place. Ian Hollins was
impressed by the on-site and remote support provided by
AltiGen specialist reseller ComVerge Ltd and decided to
install the AltiGen AltiServ IP technology.
Based in California, AltiGen Communications was the pioneer
and developer of the first “All in One” Converged
Phone System in 1996 and today has a large customer base
with over 15,000 systems installed across the world. It
has a unique unbroken 8 year engineering cycle and is the
most awarded US product with over 45 industry awards and
is NASDAQ quoted (ATGN).
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Benefits, Feedback and Results
The new technology enabled the flexibility of Insurance
Quoteline's employee working arrangements to be improved
at a stroke and this was most noticeable in the increased
usage of home-workers. Now about 15% of the workforce is
part-time home-workers, e.g. women working from 4.00 - 8.00pm
at home in the evenings or at weekends. The set-up costs
of the home-working have been minimal – approximately
£350 per worker for the AltiGen VOIP technology and
the internet connection – which signifies a considerable
cost-saving on office-space and this is of course a saving
that will increase commensurately every time a new home-worker
is taken on. This arrangement is especially attractive to
Insurance Quoteline at the moment as their offices have
reached their capacity. The AltiGen technology also enables
existing employees to work more flexibly either early in
the mornings, late in the evenings and at weekends. This
benefit of greater efficiency is important because the insurance
industry has to place great emphasis on staff recruitment
and retention.
By installing the AltiGen system ComVerge has enabled Insurance
Quoteline to provide the required compliance evidence and
also the ability to use “real” calls to aid
staff training. It also enables skills-based call routing
enabling a smarter working approach leading to an estimated
increase of 20% in cross-selling business. In addition to
the already-identified call cost savings of about 25% over
and above the least-cost routing, the AltiGen system has
delivered additional operational benefits of overhead reductions,
increased staff performance monitoring, productive call
patterns, call management and general workflow improvements.
An additional service provided by Insurance Quoteline is
to seamless integrate their some of their suppliers to the
AltiGen system. An example of this is if a customer calls
Insurance Quoteline following a breakdown, the system can
immediately transfer them to a breakdown assistance company
and make use of the same call-recording features. This helps
the customer and also can be used to resolve any future
ensuing differences of interpretation of the call –
easy if everything is recorded!
Looking to the future the AltiGen technology
will enable the recruitment of additional home-based agents
and more flexible working arrangements. There will also
be further “new” technology integration such
as the one-number-follow-me & mobile extension anywhere
technology and the introduction of niche-products and specialist
schemes.
For more information about Insurance Quoteline
click
here.
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