Eptica and Ageas Insurance win at Customer Contact Association Excellence Awards
Prestigious Best Technology Partnership accolade sees Ageas reach hat trick of 2011 awards
Cambridge 28 November 2011: Eptica, a leader in multichannel customer interaction management software and Ageas Insurance Solutions (AIS), a leading personal lines insurance broker have won the Best Technology Partnership category at the prestigious Customer Contact Association (CCA) Excellence Awards. The award is recognition for the successful Ageas eStream service transformation project, built on Eptica technology, which has driven an improved First Contact Resolution rate of 95.8%, a 50% reduction in customer handling time and a 23% reduction in inbound calls.
The win at the CCA awards marks a hat trick of successes for AIS in 2011. In March it was victorious in the Best use of IT in insurance and Best use of CRM technology categories at the renowned FST Awards, while in October it was named as Best Multichannel Project in the 2011 Eptica Customer Service Innovation Awards.
The eStream project has integrated web, email, telephone, fax, letter and SMS customer contacts into a single Eptica-powered platform for AIS, delivering faster, more efficient customer service across all channels. Customer contact is managed through a central workflow that digitises paper-based correspondence and uses Eptica’s meaning-based processing technology to analyse enquiries and automatically route them to the right personnel. It includes self-service capabilities that allow both customers and contact centre agents to ask questions in everyday language to receive fast, relevant answers, meaning that now just 1.7% of customers then go on to submit email enquiries.
“Winning the CCA awards is a real honour as it is recognition by the industry of how eStream has transformed our customer service across all channels,” said Ray Westwick, Head of Operations, Ageas Insurance Solutions UK. “Working with Eptica has been a true partnership as they’ve collaborated closely with us to use technology to help improve efficiency, enhance the experience for our customers and enable us to differentiate on price and service in today’s hyper competitive climate.”
Ageas Insurance Solutions (AIS) is a leading personal lines insurance broker and part of the award winning Ageas UK group (formerly known as Fortis UK). AIS currently insures more than 1 million customers through its own brands and various affinity partnerships.
“Ageas is setting the standard across the insurance industry when it comes to delivering the highest quality customer service at the lowest operating cost,” said Dee Roche, Global Marketing Director, Eptica. “To win three separate sets of awards from across the insurance, technology and customer service sectors in under a year is a testament to what can be achieved by combining customer vision with our technology and vast experience.”
The CCA is a membership body of 900 organisations across the UK with over 5000 senior customer services practitioners. Its Excellence Awards programme is designed to recognise achievements of individuals and organisations committed to delivering outstanding customer service.