By using the web-self-service technology from Transversal, Allianz aims to provide customers with a new way to quickly resolve their questions with the aim of reducing calls to its contact centres by up to 20 per cent which is good for the customer and good for Allianz.

The Transversal solution was implemented in just 12 weeks and has recently been made live on the Allianz Your Cover website. Although it's still early days, customer feedback has been positive. Customers have been able to reply 'yes', 'no' or 'partly' in response to how helpful the answer has been, and the feedback is used to continually improve the quality of answers given.

The Transversal web service solution-means customers can 'ask' questions using conversational language. Semantic search technology understands the context of these questions and returns calculated responses from a knowledgebase of several hundred previously prepared answers to deal with common questions.

As well as including the solution on the 'ask a question' section of the Your Cover brochureware website, it has also embedded links within its Quote and Buy application. This provides users with relevant answers during all stages of the sales process, minimising drop outs and enhancing the overall customer experience.

"The vast majority of the customer queries we get are fairly routine but still need to be answered to the customer's satisfaction", comments Gary Lucas, Channel Development Manager, E-Business at Allianz Retail. "For instance, they may want to find out how they can access documents related to their cover or what they need to do make a claim. Ordinarily, most of these customers would call the contact centre if they could not find the answer they need online."

Lucas continues: "By providing them with the opportunity to 'self-serve', we're aiming to take our customer service to another level. For us, a reduction in unnecessary call volume provides agents with time for more complex queries which they can deal with more efficiently; it's a genuine 'win-win' for customers and our business alike."

Davin Yap, CEO of Transversal comments: "The feedback that Allianz has already gained from customers speaks for itself and demonstrates that empowering customers to 'self-serve' is both more convenient for the customer and efficient for the business. We're seeing demand from a wide range of organisations across different vertical sectors which increasingly recognise that traditional key word search tools or static FAQs are not enough to help customers and can actually increase frustration and turn them away from the brand."