Call centres get top billing at insurance conference

NEWS The importance of the call centre was driven home at the insurance and finance sector technology conference in Birmingham this week. Experts at the conference warned that as Internet access through digital TV and GSM handsets takes off, the insurance industry must first make Web sites more interactive, and second, make call centres more effective. Anthony Chrumka, associate director at CMG consultancy, said: "Competition is a mouse click away. Although insurance is not an impulse buy, if the customer is not satisfied they can leave to the competition quickly and easily." David Jackson, manager of voice and telebusiness solutions at Cable & Wireless, told IT directors: "Every call is mission critical and so they must all be delivered." A number of key technologies designed to improve the running of call centres were highlighted at the conference. Ian Taylor, IT manager of customer services at Barclays, said the most important part of its system is combining the back office processing with call centre operations. According to Taylor, using middleware means that agents are able to access all the various policies a customer may have with Barclays in one call - making call processing much faster. Other technology on display included several software systems which allow intelligent call routing for virtual call centres running from several sites. The manufacturers claim the software could prevent problems of calls going to the wrong site or there being an unequal distribution of calls. Also on offer was downloadable software that offers a pay-as-you-go licence to combat unexpected call centre growth and IVR (interactive voice recognition) technology.