MBF implements GT-X
Announcement posted by Graham Technology 12 Mar 2002
The catalyst for implementing Graham Technologys GT-X in April 2000 into Australias largest privately owned health insurance provider, MBF, was the knowledge that in a fiercely competitive industry, the companys customer service would be its key differentiator.
MBF conducted significant research on many of the worlds leading CRM solutions, including a study tour of the UK and US. GT-X stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of functionality, track record and pricing, said Paul Sanderson, Manager of Customer Servicing at MBF.
GT-X uses a Business Process Server architecture to deliver the required information to the user, as opposed to the user having to manually look for it. Silences are deafening for the customer when the operator is mining the information required, said Mr Sanderson.
GT-Xs demonstrated flexibility also meant that information could be either added, changed or deleted and customised to suit the user or the project, he said.
In terms of customer management, GT-X is a true CRM solution. It [GT-X] acknowledges that a key differentiator for businesses such as ours, is its ability to provide high quality service, added Mr Sanderson. To support this need, GT-X is geared towards helping our employees provide a more efficient service and improve the MBF experience, given the grudge purchase nature of our industry.
With the Governments introduction of the Lifetime Health cover penalty scheme, MBF experienced an extraordinary consumer rush as people hurried to take advantage of the initiative.
According to Mr Sanderson, Graham Technologys GT-X provided the necessary tools that helped MBF manage its customer relationships successfully, during the sales challenge of Lifetime Health.
For MBF, this saw its customer call centre - sales division - increase from 30 operators to 180 in June. Customer calls gradually escalated from 10,000 per week to 10,000 per day for sales alone, with customer conversion rates rising from 8% to 80% (MBF: Please confirm we can mention this).
The Customer Facing System project (CFS) commenced in August 1999. Phase one was rolled out to Sydney and Brisbane by the end of April 2000 and is being progressively enhanced through further scheduled rollouts.
The GT-X Telesales project, which ran in conjunction with CFS, was implemented within two months. According to Mr Sanderson, health insurance sales doubled literally overnight, irrespective of the subsequent Lifetime Health cover penalty scheme.
GT-X has now replaced 70 screens and 10 manual information folders with a series of simple scripted screens, allowing more efficient customer information management. We believe our current conversion rates speak for themselves, said Mr Sanderson.
Our goal is to ensure customer satisfaction 24x7 and GT-Xs ability to integrate with telephony - CTI, IVR, voice recording and PABX, allows us to serve our customers wherever they are and whenever they choose to make contact, said Mr Sanderson. This gives us the opportunity to become relationship managers rather than information miners and deliver a one-to-one experience across all delivery channels.
MBF is a long standing Informix customer. The GT-X application server stores all its data in Informixs Dynamic Server RDBMS. This combination of technologies had already been successfully deployed at various sites around the world. MBF is also using Fujitsu's corporate systems for membership and claims information management. Tibco provided the middleware software that enables the Customer Facing System using GT-X to access these back-end master files in real-time at point of contact. Fujitsu assisted with the implementation of the middleware software.
MBF conducted significant research on many of the worlds leading CRM solutions, including a study tour of the UK and US. GT-X stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of functionality, track record and pricing, said Paul Sanderson, Manager of Customer Servicing at MBF.
GT-X uses a Business Process Server architecture to deliver the required information to the user, as opposed to the user having to manually look for it. Silences are deafening for the customer when the operator is mining the information required, said Mr Sanderson.
GT-Xs demonstrated flexibility also meant that information could be either added, changed or deleted and customised to suit the user or the project, he said.
In terms of customer management, GT-X is a true CRM solution. It [GT-X] acknowledges that a key differentiator for businesses such as ours, is its ability to provide high quality service, added Mr Sanderson. To support this need, GT-X is geared towards helping our employees provide a more efficient service and improve the MBF experience, given the grudge purchase nature of our industry.
With the Governments introduction of the Lifetime Health cover penalty scheme, MBF experienced an extraordinary consumer rush as people hurried to take advantage of the initiative.
According to Mr Sanderson, Graham Technologys GT-X provided the necessary tools that helped MBF manage its customer relationships successfully, during the sales challenge of Lifetime Health.
For MBF, this saw its customer call centre - sales division - increase from 30 operators to 180 in June. Customer calls gradually escalated from 10,000 per week to 10,000 per day for sales alone, with customer conversion rates rising from 8% to 80% (MBF: Please confirm we can mention this).
The Customer Facing System project (CFS) commenced in August 1999. Phase one was rolled out to Sydney and Brisbane by the end of April 2000 and is being progressively enhanced through further scheduled rollouts.
The GT-X Telesales project, which ran in conjunction with CFS, was implemented within two months. According to Mr Sanderson, health insurance sales doubled literally overnight, irrespective of the subsequent Lifetime Health cover penalty scheme.
GT-X has now replaced 70 screens and 10 manual information folders with a series of simple scripted screens, allowing more efficient customer information management. We believe our current conversion rates speak for themselves, said Mr Sanderson.
Our goal is to ensure customer satisfaction 24x7 and GT-Xs ability to integrate with telephony - CTI, IVR, voice recording and PABX, allows us to serve our customers wherever they are and whenever they choose to make contact, said Mr Sanderson. This gives us the opportunity to become relationship managers rather than information miners and deliver a one-to-one experience across all delivery channels.
MBF is a long standing Informix customer. The GT-X application server stores all its data in Informixs Dynamic Server RDBMS. This combination of technologies had already been successfully deployed at various sites around the world. MBF is also using Fujitsu's corporate systems for membership and claims information management. Tibco provided the middleware software that enables the Customer Facing System using GT-X to access these back-end master files in real-time at point of contact. Fujitsu assisted with the implementation of the middleware software.