Allianz Lifes new call center has increased current year sales 78% with essentially the same staff count.

In a new report, " ," Celent describes the financial and operational benefits a major life insurance company, Allianz Life, has realized by upgrading its call centers network infrastructure and application portfolio. Insurance call centers underlying network technology has remained fairly static over time. Separate voice and data networks existed with telephone calls traveling over a voice network and queries/transactions traveling over a data network. But the emergence of converged voice, data, and video networks has changed this.

In 2003, Allianz Life transformed its Individual Insurance Group Call Center. Key features and objectives included: a single converged voice and data network, voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phones, simple and understandable 800 number access for agents and policyholders, and intelligent call routing.

Allianzs new Call Center has produced both financial and nonfinancial benefits. Productivity (measured by utilization of internal sales reps) has increased from 85% to 92%. Current year sales are up 78% year-over-year with essentially the same staff count. Management has a much better ability to track performance both real-time and retrospectively. Perhaps most importantly, the introduction of skill-based routing has facilitated the matching of calls to sales representatives.

According to Donald Light, senior analyst and author of the report, "A single converged voice and data network costs less and is more efficient. Even more importantly, it provides the call centers staff and its callers with new and better ways to do business with one another."

The figure below shows Allianz Life Call Centers single converged voice and data network.

The 25-page report contains 11 figures and one table.

of Celent's Property/Casualty Insurance and Life/Health Insurance research services can download the report electronically by clicking on the icon to the left. Non-members should contact info@celent.com for more information.