California Casualty

Challenge

California Casualty and Management company, an 88-year-old insurance company, needed seamless integration of its multiple, geographically displaced call centers and legacy equipment. It needed to intelligently route calls to agents and give callers the option to satisfy their request without human interaction. California Casualty wanted to increase overall efficiency and decrease costs by utilizing agents more effectively.

California Casualty wanted a contact center solution to provide a single point of control across multiple centers, reduce infrastructure and agent costs, and create a virtual, follow-the-sun call center. Keith Felton, California Casualty Telecommunications System Manager, describes the objective: "Our mission was to implement a network that would connect our customers and prospects in a manner that was virtual and on-demand, based upon a combination of private and public networking facilities." Felton added, "Anticipated outcomes were improved customer service, more efficient utilization of staff, expanded hours of operation without extending regional service center hours, enhanced business continuation capabilities and positioning ourselves to increase utilization of Web-enabled call center functionality."

Solution

The Qwest Web Contact Center™ solution was selected using both the Self Service and Intelligent Queuing and Routing product offerings, which would be integrated with California Casualty’s Cisco Intelligent Call Manager and legacy systems. The technology was combined "to provide the highest level of customer service in the most efficient manner, by linking three service centers so that call volume peaks and valleys are evened out, thus more effectively utilizing staff," said Felton.

Felton recalls the staff’s adjustment period after the application went live at California Casualty. "The implementation process was a period of transition. Since insurance regulations vary from state to state, and our customers had previously been routed to a call center that handled only their geographic region, agents find that in the Virtual Call Center environment, some questions take longer to research and answer. The greatest challenge has been training—from training technical staff to use the new technology, to training managers to prepare staff to work in a virtual environment, to training agents who previously only worked with customers in a few states, to now working with them in as many as 50 states. To the outside observer, however, it has been flawless." Felton describes an instance that proved the value of the Qwest® solution to California Casualty’s daily operations. "After only a few weeks of formal operation, the Virtual Call Center was put to a crucial test when a January 2002 ice storm closed down our Kansas call center. Although the resulting power outage affected the entire Kansas City area, the Qwest network-based IVR, integrated with the Cisco® Intelligent Contact Manager, provided callers with IVR and Web-based self-service options. Callers who elected to speak with an agent were automatically redistributed to one of our open call centers in other areas. Customers never knew the Kansas Service Center was out of commission. Prior to implementing this technology, callers would have received a telephone company ’technical difficulties’ message and would have had to hang up and try again later."

Through integration with the latest technologies and the Qwest Web Contact Center solution, California Casualty was able to resolve key issues facing their business by utilizing their existing capital investments and eliminating the need for additional capital expense. This networked solution, managed by Qwest, can also provide immediate results and efficiency at a lower monthly cost to your enterprise.

Client

California Casualty, established in 1914 and headquartered in San Mateo, California, is one of the largest group property and casualty insurance groups in the country.