 Author: ACT News Team
There's no bigger watchword today than 'customer experience'. Merchants Insurance Group has taken that concept to a higher level, creating a dedicated customer experience role focusing on agents' needs. Ginny Winkworth, who serves in that post, says her interaction within the broader independent agency channel has helped the company understand more about agent technology adoption and pushback. Maureen Brody of our ACT News staff spoke to Ginny to find out more about how a regional carrier executes on the all-important customer experience.
ACT News Team: Your role focuses intensively on user experience. Tell us a little about your position. Ginny Winkworth, Customer Experience Lead, Merchants Insurance Group: Merchants was already doing surveys and market intelligence gathering, but the company wanted a greater focus on our agents' needs as well as what policyholders need and want. In creating my position, they formalized that process. I have spent a great deal of time meeting with our agent force, sitting next to the people who do the quoting within the agency. I really became the voice of the user within the Merchants structure. Whether it's new technology or a new product, I am integrated in these teams at Merchants and reflect to them what the users have told me.
ACT News: So that drives your strategy for both customers and your agency partners? Ginny: The time I have spent one on one with agencies has given me an understanding of agent workflow and helped me tell our Merchants team about what's going on at the user level so we can be aligned with that. So yes, for Merchants, customer experience is both policyholder and agency user experience. In some cases, agents come to our home office to give their input on various things they need in order to better satisfy their customers—ways carriers provide quoting, coverages they've seen that they want, etc. Our ease-of-doing-business strategies allow our agents to better directly satisfy the needs of their customers—our policyholders. Regarding agency management systems, I've spent time at Applied and Vertafore conferences and user groups to learn those systems and understand how what we [at Merchants] implement is working in the utilization process. The user groups for agency management systems help me see the perspectives, challenges, struggles and successes of a broad group of agents.
ACT News: What challenges do you have in moving forward on the big-hit implementations that can really make a difference? Ginny: On some of the big hits—eDocs for example—we didn't want to be a trailing adopter. We were a bit out in front on that and encountered some challenges with agent understanding and familiarity with the technology. We did a promotional campaign with marketing materials that showed the benefits to the agents to encourage the use of eDocs. We are trying to get the word out about this great technology and its advantages.
Real-time connectivity can really benefit the agent from an efficiency standpoint, but the majority of agents I saw encountered stumbling blocks—sometimes with credentialing, sometimes with ease of use, sometimes with user error or lack of familiarity with the system's demands. Merchants has a customer care support team that can help with some of those issues. Sometimes talking to the vendor makes more sense, but we provide a first line of help. We really want to educate and help the agents with efficiency and customer responsiveness.
These are part of the bigger paperless-workflow initiative. We provide the tools for agents to go paperless, get download, get eDocs, e-policy, e-bill. But they need to understand it to use it. We try to help them get through the difficulties to see there is so much return on investment.
ACT News: You focus a lot at the user level in the agency.
Ginny: Non-principal staff really drive adoption of initiatives and technologies. If we can help the users understand the benefits, they will be the catalyst that convinces the principals of the need for a change. In my role, I take input from the users, then communicate that in projects and initiatives at Merchants, but that interface with me also spurs them to become advocates in their offices. It's all about educating people. That's one of the reasons I like ACT so much. Ron Berg [ACT's executive director] brings enlightenment and excitement to the users. I try to use that model.
ACT has been a great resource for my knowledge and understanding of the value of these technologies. I was already in insurance before joining Merchants, but I wasn't that in touch with the explosion of technology over the last decade. There's a lot of energy in ACT to bring that technology to the agents. It also gives me a broad perspective.
ACT News: How do we “skate to the puck" with all the acceleration of technology development and customer expectations? Ginny: Carriers have a very big role in this. Most agencies from the regional carrier perspective don't have the resources at their fingertips to handle or manage tech growth at this point. They look to carrier partners to help them access the tech products, like eDocs, and give them an understanding of how to maximize the value of those things. We take that role very seriously at Merchants. Plus, we have opened a lot of digital access for the policyholder as well.
ACT News: What are you excited about regarding ease of doing business? Ginny: My excitement lies in the fact that Merchants recognized the need for a dedicated person such as myself for this position. I love to be in a role to foster tech development at the agent level. I find the amount of technology staggering and, at the same time, fabulous. It gives such an opportunity to the agent to devote time to the customer, not the process. Conversely, the mystery of the technology can be overwhelming to agents. We're here to help demystify it all. I joined the Customer Experience Work Group within ACT to learn more and contribute more to that demystification.
|