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Hannoversche Leben optimizes customer service: Hanna answers user queries
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German insurance sector pioneer: Hannoversche Leben implements a virtual online assistant
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Hamburg, Germany, 23rd July, 2002 –
Hannoversche Leben has just become the first German direct insurance provider to implement a virtual assistant. Consumers and members visiting the German-language www.hannoversche-leben.de website receive rapid responses to all their questions. The software used to implement the natural language realtime dialog technology was developed by the Hamburg-based novomind AG, one of the leading providers of intelligent software solutions.
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Hanna, Hannoverschen Leben’s new employee, is charming and competent. The virtual assistant’s aim is to help clients access and understand topics which many see as dense and complicated. Hanna can answer questions about new issues, such as the Riester Pension Plan, confidently and without hesitation. A recent study has shown that approximately 40 percent of all German internet users would be happy to receive assistance from a virtual adviser. What is more, electronic employees take the pressure off call centers by dealing with standard queries, without ever losing their temper or getting tired.
“Thanks to Hanna, our clients know where they are online and can gather all the information they need,“ says Hannoversche Leben’s marketing director, Thomas Ehrl. Results show a highly positive user response to the virtual assistant in the weeks following Hanna’s online launch.
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Internet customer service is becoming increasingly important for insurance providers. “By 2005, one in eight client contacts will take place via e-mail or the internet,“ predicts the Hamburg-based corporate consultants, Mummert + Partner in a study focussing on web-based customer service. novomind’s CMO, Marco Busacker is just as confident that virtual agents will be implemented increasingly and in all branches of activity in Germany following their success in the USA. Firstly, more and more companies are investing in automated customer services to reduce costs. Secondly, implementing agents is an ideal way of generating market research data. Customer profiles can be created based on user questions and product selections.
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The solution’s
technical basis is the novomind IQ™ software that enables
virtual agents to be created and developed. novomind has developed
a natural language interface to access and provide website information.
Using artificial intelligence processes, the software can understand
everyday language and help the client navigate and communicate online.
If the virtual assistant is unable to process a client request,
the novomind TrueTALK™ software can optionally be implemented
to set up a direct connection to a live operator based in a company
call center.
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Hannoversche Leben,
Germany’s oldest direct insurance provider, is the market
leader among cost-effective insurance providers. Running costs (contract
completion and administration costs) make up a mere four percent
of the gross payments charged. On average, these charges would amount
to 16 percent in this sector. As the company does not maintain a
high-cost door-to-door service, it is able to offer its clients
products at attractive prices. In the last financial year, the insurance
provider brought in membership payments totaling 880 million Euro
and signed over 800,000 contracts. The company manages capital of
approximately nine billion Euro.
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The Hamburg-based novomind
AG is one of the leading providers of intelligent customer communications
software. It was founded in 1999 by Peter Samuelsen, Marco Busacker
and Peter Wiedekamm, and today has over 40 employees. The software
provider, which has not yet gone public, last year doubled its turnover
of 2000 to end the year with a positive turnover of 3.2 million
Euro. The company’s clients include front runners such as
the Bertelsmann publishing group, health insurance provider BKK
Zollern-Alb, the Hannoversche Leben insurance provider, Gruner +Jahr,
bol.de, the Otto Versand mail order house, shopping24 and T-Systems.
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