BGL creates ‘one office’ and drives cost savings with intraday management technology

STAFFORD, U.K. - July 17, 2013 - PRLog -- BGL, a major UK insurance intermediary, needed to comply with changing insurance industry demands that would cause a dramatic increase in back-office work. 70 per cent of all policies sold would require that BGL verify proof for the No Claims Discount (NCD). In following previous industry standards, insurers only checked one or two out of ten submitted. BGL anticipated its workload increase would require it to hire 25 additional back office employees if it didn’t make any changes to operations.

The company partnered with Datapoint, a specialist in enterprise and call centre communications infrastructure and applications, and eg solutions plc, to provide a solution that integrated the eg operational intelligence software suite. Additionally, BGL engaged Intradiem, giving front office agents a way to efficiently process back-office work and ultimately, create a more cohesive customer experience. Intradiem’s intraday management technology was integrated with eg’s solutions and BGL’s other contact centre technology to deploy the back-office work during aggregated agent available time.

In three short months, BGL experienced the following results by creating ‘one office’ and set the stage for long term benefits such as:

£1 million in overall, annual cost savings – By having front office agents absorb additional NCD workload, underwriting the work they planned to complete anyway and implementing better controls around the process
Customer satisfaction – When customers speak to more informed agents who can resolve inquiries involving the back-office during the first call, rather than advising the customer to contact a different department
Agent satisfaction – As agents experienced new variety in their work throughout their day, driving engagement and satisfaction


“Having frontline advisors complete back-office NCD work is now business as usual for us. Globally we have seen a direct cost savings of half a million pounds per annum. On top of that, we’ve been able to underwrite activity we were going to do regardless of having the systems. In total, we’ve probably saved a million pounds per annum,” said Charlie Hempstead, Associate Director of Resource Management for BGL. “Our advisors enjoy the variety of the work and customers greatly benefit from speaking to advisors who are better informed and integrated with back-office work.”

“BGL had a circumstance where it had to determine the best way to handle a drastic increase in its back-office workload. It took advantage of its agent available time to deal with this unexpected increase and avoid adding headcount,” said Matt McConnell, Intradiem CEO. “BGL is a pioneer. The company has been able to close the gap between the front and back office, creating ‘one office’ with agents that truly are blended agents, achieving something that has been discussed for years but rarely accomplished.”

Elizabeth Gooch, CEO of eg solutions added: “Blending work in this way enables BGL to significantly improve the throughput of work in the back office by applying capacity and skills where they are needed most. Therefore the organisation is not only delivering an improved customer service and a shorter customer journey from the initial transaction, but it also supports the reduction of other demand drivers for an operation, such as first contact resolution, and eliminated – or at least reduced – follow-up calls by the customer, and even complaints.”

View the video case study here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IRu2Y41Cj0)