Overview
Success Stories
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Direct Line Financial Services
About Direct Line Financial Services
Direct Line Group is one of the success stories of Britain's New Economy, and one whose appearance in 1985 sent a ripple of unease through the traditional insurance industry. Direct Line did away with the indirect insurance sales model, with its high street branch broker network, exorbitant commission fees and customer—unfriendly attitudes, and set out to offer low-cost motor insurance direct to the consumer via the telephone.
Focusing on achieving customer satisfaction at all costs, the company quickly became known for its helpful, accessible and easy-to-understand approach. From its origins in Croydon, with 63 staff selling motor insurance over the phone, the company has expanded steadily over the last 15 years. It now services three million customer accounts and its six call centers in England and Scotland handle around 1.5 million calls per month. The Direct Line product range has also grown to include home insurance, personal loans, mortgages, ISAs, savings accounts, life insurance and a credit card.
Business Challenge
With Direct Line's twin emphases on a simple, personalized experience for the consumer and sophisticated transactional technology providing a streamlined service behind the scenes, it was natural for the company to extend its award-winning services on the Internet. In September 1999 it launched directline.com, the UK's fastest quote-and-buy Internet service, which offered instant online decisions on car, home and breakdown insurance. Three months later it appointed a Managing Director of e-commerce and embarked on a £20 million marketing campaign.
By May 2000, directline.com was handling 150,000 quotes a month on its web site and could claim to be the UK's leading Web insurer, with almost a third of the UK's online insurance market.
With the addition of the internet channel, Direct Line has had to think hard about how customer interactions are handled so that customers continue to receive the simple, convenient and speedy service they have come to expect. These considerations led to a strategic review of the company's IT systems in late 1999, which resulted in a decision to implement a multi-channel operational business process architecture based on front-end eBusiness applications and an integration framework from Chordiant Software.
The Chordiant implementation is a major project that integrates all of Direct Line's existing and future channels to market for its
entire range of products and services.Chordiant has become the strategic framework upon which all customer-facing systems are now built, integrating channel applications from Chordiant and, where appropriate, other vendors, with each other and with the company's legacy systems.
Integrating Channels
The first priority is to integrate existing call center operations with the new Web channel. The first project in this phase began in January 2000 at Direct Line's Financial Services arm (DLFS) in Glasgow, where Chordiant is being used to support customer access via the internet for DLFS' personal loan products. The online financial services market is highly competitive, so time to market was crucial, as it will be at every future stage in the implementation. Chordiant's object-oriented design continues to help the company reduce the implementation cycle whenever a new product, service, process or channel is introduced.
Explains Iain Gray, director of systems and operations for Direct Line Financial Services: "The beauty of the Chordiant application is that every time we want to change a business process, we don't need to do it across multiple channels. So if we have a customer value analysis component for example, we can re-use that in the call center, and extend across contact channels such as interactive TV, wireless phone or kiosk. Whichever channel we want, we only have to develop one set of components."
Delivering a Single Customer View
A single view of the customer was another key priority. "The problem with a lot of software is that the Web and call center transactions are not fully integrated," says Gray. "We chose Chordiant because it gives our agents a complete picture of every customer transaction regardless of the channel used.
With the Chordiant implementation complete, all customer interactions with Direct Line are now available to call center operators as a single history. It is also possible for customers to switch seamlessly between communications channels.
For example, if a customer starts to fill out a loan application online, but decides halfway through that he would prefer to speak to someone and phones the call center, there is no need for him or her to start again from scratch. The operator can instantly view the data that the customer has already entered on the web site, and complete the transaction over the phone. "Our customers receive a fast, flexible service and a choice of ways to buy our products," sums up Gray.
Another key feature of the Chordiant software is that it can dynamically retrieve data from multiple sources and present it in real time to the customer on the web or the agent in the call center. At Direct Line Financial Services, the online loan application service can retrieve customer history information from the company's S/390 mainframe, and simultaneously request external credit data from credit scoring agencies such as Equifax. The Chordiant solution combines data from both sources in real time, so that all customer information is centrally accessible.
Using Processes for Effectiveness and Efficiency in Customer Targeting
A single customer view allows Direct Line to understand its customers better and target them more effectively. "Direct Line was already quite advanced when it comes to information about customers," says Gray, "but the Chordiant application enables us to use this information better and enrich our systems with additional information at the point of sale." A customer who has applied for a mortgage, for example, will have supplied all the necessary information for Direct Line to assess whether they are eligible for a credit card. Direct Line can then mail qualifying customers directly with news of its credit card offer, reducing the size and cost of its direct mail campaigns while still reaching the desired target audience.
Rolling Out New Products and Channels
With the online loan application project now complete, the next step for Direct Line Financial Services is to use Chordiant to establish an "ideal sales" process for call center operators selling Direct Line's mortgage products. This will provide operators with flexible, detailed sales processes and prompt information, including competitor information, enabling product cross selling and up selling, and allowing new products to be introduced quickly and effectively. The objective is to increase conversion rates and customer retention rates while reducing costs.
Looking further ahead, Direct Line plans to extend its channels to market its product offerings while managing all customer interactions within the Chordiant process-driven environment. "We are moving into the next phase of customer relationship management," says Gray. "As a "direct-to-the-consumer" company, we want to offer all direct channels as they become viable options for customers. The Chordiant solution enables us to deliver the full range of sales and customer service channels including interactive digital TV and WAP-enabled mobile devices"
Many Channels - One First-Class Service
"Ultimately, our decision to use Chordiant is about providing better customer service," sums up Gray. And with the company's latest move into discounted online car sales in addition to financial services, its customer base can only grow larger and more diverse. Fully integrated operational business processes from Chordiant will ensure that, as Direct Line's operations grow, on the Web, through its call centers, and into new electronic channels, its customers will continue to receive the same fast, personalized and knowledgeable service consistently across its eBusiness channels that Direct Line has offered for the past fifteen years on the humble telephone.
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