The company has deployed Siebel Financial Services as its standard across its six regional customer service centres to synchronise and coordinate customer interactions.

When a customer contacts a service centre, the Siebel system immediately identifies whether the person is a new or existing customer and displays key information such as how many and which policies the person has, whether there are any existing service requests outstanding, and the status of ongoing activities.

Siebel's Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) service provides automatic in-bound and transfer call routing based on comprehensive information about the customer and agent.

Intelligent call scripting presents agents with the appropriate questions and information the agents need to ask and guides staff through the correct sequence of steps, including how customers can make a claim, or what they should do in the event of an emergency. In addition, agents can email or send sales literature, personalised correspondence, and other information to customers at the touch of a button.

Siebel has also won a similar contract with Illinois-based Kemper Insurance Companies. By creating a unified, comprehensive view of customers within its call centres, Kemper aims to improve the productivity of its call centre staff, enhance customer satisfaction, and increase the effectiveness of its independent agents.

Frank Vaccaro, Kemper's director of corporate systems, says: "The Siebel e-business architecture allows us to tie together disparate legacy systems. Furthermore, the call centre and insurance-specific functionality of Siebel e-insurance will allow us to roll out the solution rapidly, permitting our customers to quickly benefit from our superior customer service."