Case Study #1: Multi-Site Insurance Agency

VoIP system connects multiple sites and remote agents

The insurance business is built around making personal connections, and an insurance agent naturally spends a great deal of time on the phone. A successful insurance firm's existing telecom system wasn't keeping up with the company's rapid growth, and they needed a more coherent system to accommodate multiple sites and remote workers. The agency's headquarters had 18 people, including the owner, two agents, and 15 call center personnel; three branch offices with two agents in each one; two department store kiosks; and two salespeople in the field. The company experienced a high volume of inbound calls, mostly to the call center; but outgoing calls, and national and international long distance were minimal.

The Challenge

With the high volume of inbound calls, the insurance agency wanted to be able to allow any agent in the network, from any location, to easily transfer a call to the call center so that customer issues could be resolved immediately, with a single call. The existing system worked, but it didn't work well. Customer issues often required multiple return phone calls, directing callers to the most appropriate destination was not always easy, and costs were unnecessarily high. The existing system had merely grown up around the business over time, and the company needed an overhaul to match their telecom system to their current needs.

We had three goals in improving the telecom environment for this insurance agency. First, we wanted to help them create an environment in which their multiple offices and remote workers could easily transfer calls to any other office phone, regardless of location. This meant creating a unified environment where there was a single phone system with multiple locations, rather than the existing system of disparate phone systems that were not connected. Our second goal was to deliver additional telecom features that never before existed in the office, such as call recording, a tri-lingual auto-attendant, and voicemail for each location. These additional features would help improve the company's overall workflow, and help them to better serve their customers. And our final goal was to deliver all of this at a reasonable price, which would result in lower monthly telecom expenses.

The Solution

After an initial analysis of the insurance agency's existing set of telecom features and services, we determined that an on-premises VoIP system would be beneficial. Optimal voice quality required enough bandwidth to accommodate both voice and data traffic. Since the branches were minimally staffed, a low-cost DSL line proved more than adequate for the branch offices, delivering a good level of reliability and excellent voice quality. A dynamically allocated T1 line was installed at headquarters with SIP trunking, which created an environment that promoted more cost-effective Direct Inward Dialing. The T1 provided more than enough capacity at an affordable price, giving them enough bandwidth at their headquarters to accommodate both existing telecom needs and growth in the foreseeable future.

Now armed with sufficient bandwidth to accommodate the new VoIP system, we installed a Panasonic NCP-1000 VoIP system with three phones in the agent center and 15 phones in the call center. Along with the IP PBX, we installed an eight-port TVA-200 Voicemail system. This not only allowed for feature-rich voicemail, it also allowed for additional productivity-enhancing features, including recording of inbound calls, and an auto-attendant. And because the VoIP system could now bring each remote location under the same telecom umbrella, the voicemail system provided services to all locations. The newly unified telecom system created a virtual environment where all employees were on the same system, regardless of location; and connections and transfers could occur easily and transparently.

Remote workers out in the field could also take advantage of the new services. Remote workers installed 3G Cellular Aircards on their laptops, which were equipped with softphones—allowing them to have a virtual phone extension with them while on the road. The same Aircards were also used for the kiosk locations.

The Cost

The agency received a system that gave them more services and features than they had before, at a substantially lower monthly cost. The initial cost of equipment and installation came to $19,288, and the new system dramatically reduced the company's monthly phone expenses. The company's monthly phone bill was immediately reduced to $980 per month, representing an impressive savings of $1,580 per month in telephone service and an additional $350 a month in long distance. Not only did the insurance agency become more productive due to the additional services and features, the system also paid for itself in less than a year.