Solly Azar plugs into the web to cover its network of correspondents
Since 2001, France’s No. 2 wholesale insurance broker, the Solly Azar group, has entrusted Selligent with the management of its network of intermediaries. It was one of the first companies to make the move to Selligent X@ in 2006. The successful migration gave a real boost to the sales and marketing department
Jean-Régis RicaudHead of commercial and BI IT
“Everyone stores his/her data – in real time – in the same tool, using a common language. This ability to unify the service and make it consistent is the real strength of CRM.”
“When we presented Selligent X@ to the users, they were immediately delighted. Today, they have completely adopted the solution. We can truthfully claim that the migration has given added impetus to our project.”
For over 30 years, the Solly Azar group has been developing tailored, competitive and innovative insurance products to complement the traditional offering of the insurance companies. The range covers insurance for cars/motorbikes, rent income guarantees, holiday rental, personal liability, supplementary healthcare insurance, loan insurance, etc. They are leaders in the high-risk car/motorbike insurance market. The group distributes its contracts exclusively via a domestic network of 8,000 independent insurance intermediaries, or correspondents, who are managed by Solly Azar sales people, the “field development agents”, with whom they enjoy a bond of trust.
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Dawn of a new millennium
Until the end of the 90s, Solly Azar had an information system to manage the insurance business, including a module for sales management. But the system was not designed to last beyond the year 2000. So replacing it was a matter of urgency. The new solution, V9 Assurances, covered all the needs for managing the insurance business but did not have a function for sales. So Solly Azar needed a new tool to monitor the activity of its sales representatives and effectively support their mission. At the end of the bid process, two developers were shortlisted, and in the end Selligent came out on top. Jean-Régis Ricaud, the group’s head of commercial and BI IT explains the rationale behind the choice. “Selligent was able to operate with our Oracle database, which was not the case for the competitive offering. In addition, Selligent was much less expensive. Furthermore, we had the feeling that the solution could be implemented rapidly.” The project got under way early 2001, with the goal of equipping the sales department and the call centre.
The Solly Azar difference: B-to-B-to-C
Solly Azar stands out from the crowd because it operates as B-to-B-to-C. The field development agents “stimulate” the network of intermediaries, who in turn are in contact with the end customer. The result was that the Selligent data model had to be configured to handle this distinguishing characteristic and store the policies and customer names corresponding to each intermediary. That also meant collecting the data and sales actions from the 8000 intermediaries. Solly Azar was anxious to be in control of the future evolution of the solution, so they actively participated in its implementation and trained their IT staff so that they could take over the reins. Roll-out was very smooth and the sales team was up and running a few months later – with a complete overview of its network and the policies of each correspondent thanks to the link into its V9 Assurances system.
Marketing and communication
“If Marketing means enriching data and customer contacts, then Sales Support and Remote Sales Promotion, two of the three pillars of our sales development, are in charge,” notes Sabine Philippe, manager of Sales Development. The role of Sales Support is to store key contacts gleaned from in-bound calls in Selligent. Remote Sales Promotion makes substantial use of campaigns and questionnaires to obtain information on the active correspondents. The Communications department takes care of operations that focus more on group news. So everything is recorded in the CRM. Using the data collected, the network of correspondents can be segmented so as to execute targeted campaigns. More recently, the company has also been carrying out campaigns to recruit new correspondents.
Welcome migration
The installation of Selligent was warmly welcomed by the field development agents, who saw it as a sign that their job was appreciated. But the application – still in client/server mode – was a little slow. That is one of the reasons that persuaded the company to migrate to Selligent X@ in 2006. It was also an opportunity to equip the field development agents with 3G cards allowing them to access CRM data at any time, wherever they might be. But this was not the only advantage, as Ricaud points out. “Using the campaigns and questionnaires, for example, is much easier in the Web version. When we presented Selligent X@ to the users, they were immediately delighted. Today, they have completely adopted the solution. We can truthfully claim that the migration has given added impetus to our project.”
From Windows to Web in 10 days!
It took just 10 man-days spread over two to three months, to complete the migration. The co-operation between Selligent and the integrator enabled the hurdles to be overcome rapidly. “We also took the opportunity to introduce e-Questionnaires,” adds Ricaud. “Implementation of the new function is planned for this year, and I’m convinced that it will be very useful in the B-to-B relationship management. It is an economical solution to animate the network of correspondents, especially in regions that are not covered by our field development network.”
Better overview and greater sense of belonging
According to Solly Azar, the prime benefits achieved by Selligent are centralisation and information sharing, consistency and responsiveness. Pre-Selligent, sales information was in a variety of formats spread across different systems – sometimes only on the sales representative’s PC and on occasions even in paper form. But those days are over now. Today, the field development agents manage their sales actions exclusively in Selligent – which has become a key communications link between them and head office. They have real-time access to the status of their portfolio of correspondents and can monitor the progression of their turnover. They also have access to queries enabling them to segment their portfolio and find opportunities for appointments. For Sabine Philippe, introducing Selligent has, above all, underpinned the culture of the Sales Development department compared to other departments. “Everyone stores his/her data – in real time – in the same tool, using a common language. This ability to unify the service and make it consistent is, to my mind, the real strength of CRM. Plus, as manager of Sales Development, I can monitor the activities of the sales assistants, field development agents and remote sales promotion people day by day.” As for General Management, they appreciate having a tool to track the sales activity. Selligent makes it easy for them to obtain reliable statistics. Now, that should stimulate the company’s growth even more.
