Daily Matching and Merging of Guest Data to Make the Guest Unique

In the hospitality industry, storing information about guests and their stays is critical to tailoring offers to each guest. Information regarding the guest and the stay is stored in a system called the property management system at the hotel franchise’s corporate headquarters.  The property management system stores information for each guest such as: (This is a sample list of attributes, not a complete list):

• Prefix (Mr., Mrs., Miss, Dr., etc.)
• Full name • Company name
• Physical address
• One or more e-mail addresses
• One or more telephone numbers
• Gender

The property management system stores information such as the following for each reservation that a guest makes (this is a sample list of attributes, not a complete list):

• Booked date
• Arrival date
• Departure date
• Folio status (booked, checked-in, checked-out, cancelled, no show, etc.)
• Property where the guest will stay
• How the reservation was made
• Promotion response code (this is the code that is captured if the reservation was made after receiving promotional e-mail such as providing a discount if a reservation is booked in the next 5 days)
• Room type booked
• Length of stay
• Method of payment
• Was the reservation an advance purchase

Property management systems can be setup with centralized or decentralized data storage architecture. Let’s discuss what each of these means to storing guest profile and stay data.

Centralized PMS Data Repository:

With this type of storage architecture, all of the guest profile and guest stay data is stored in one location. Therefore, the franchise properties for a particular franchise will access all of the guest profile and stay data from a single location. What does this mean? It means that this system:

• Reduces the amount of duplicate data entered as searching for a guest can be done against a single source
• Records all guest stay data to a single guest profile record
• Eliminates the need to cleanse the data by a data processing company

Decentralized PMS Data Repository:

With this type of storage architecture, the guest profile and guest stay data is stored in multiple locations. Each franchise property has its own storage and the data from each of these sources of rolls up to a single storage located at the franchise headquarters. This type of operating environment makes it very difficult to provide for the daily matching and merging of guest data to make guest data unique. Therefore, there is a definite need to cleanse the data and remove the duplicates by a data processing company. This can be done on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  However, frequent cleansing may not be very cost effective. So, what are potential causes for the duplicated data?:

• There is no central database of guest profile data
• There is no visibility into guest stays at other properties
• Lack of a single unique identifier for the guest

While there are three main causes for duplicate data, there are also guest data anomalies/concerns that can contribute to the duplicate and inaccurate data. Here are some of the anomalies/concerns:

• Guest data inconsistently entered across properties
• Guest data from external sources (Hotwire, Priceline, etc.)
  • Not providing guest personal data (i.e. generic address, generic email)
• Administrators at a company may be making the reservations for a group of people with different names and email addresses
  • Front desk staff are not updating the correct guest profile information
• Data quality issues:
  • Guest name example: first name was blank and last name was Hotel Beds (Wholesale reservation channel)
  • Incorrect guest address, which impacts guest match rate
  • Email address of hotel property entered instead of that of the guest, with insufficient guest profile information
• Operational Data Collection Issues:
  • The field ‘Email’ is not required to be completed
  •  Mobile phone numbers are not in PMS with proper masking and numeric fields
• Guest data cleanup initiative is required

As one can see, a decentralized PMS architecture tends to have challenges around the uniqueness of guest profile data. The rest of this blog will focus on processes surrounding how to make a guest unique in an operating environment that has a decentralized PMS system.

The following section depicts an example solution created with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 on making a guest unique in a decentralized PMS environment.  This solution includes the following components and processes:

• PMS Database Tables: these are the tables in the PMS System that store the guest profile information such as name, address, e-mail, etc. and the reservations made by each guest
• Guest Profile:
  • Definition: this is the record in CRM that stores basic information about the user and is a cumulative rollup of certain guest stay information
  • The basic information stored is:
    • First name
    • Last name
    • Physical address
    • Zip code
    • Telephone number(s)
    • E-mail address(s)
    • Opt-in
    • Gender
  • The cumulative rollup information stored is the following:
    • What was the method used to book the last reservation?
    • What is the frequent method of booking reservations?
    • What is the total room nights stayed across all reservations?
    • What is the total sum of revenue spent?
    • What is the total number of stays?
    • What was the last date stayed?
    • Is the guest in-house or does he/she have a pending reservation?
    • What was the average daily rate paid by the guest?
    • What is the average length of stay?
• Guest Stay:
  • Definition: this is the record in CRM that stores information about each guest stay. A guest stay record is created anytime a guest books a reservation at a particular franchise property.  Therefore multiple guest stays can be associated to a single guest profile record
  • The information captured on the guest stay form is:
    • The date the reservation was booked
    • The date the guest plans on arriving
    • The date the guest plans on departing
    • The franchise property where the guest will be staying
    • The folio status (booked, checked-in, checked-out, cancelled, no show, etc.)
    • The type of room booked
    • The average daily rate for each particular stay
    • The length of stay for each particular stay
    • The method of payment used to book the reservation
    • Was the reservation an advance purchase?
• Now that we know what the components are, lets discuss how these components are used in the following three processes:
  • Daily loading
  • Cleansing
  • Reconciliation

Figure 1: Guest Data LifeCycle

 Daily Loading Process:

The first process we will discuss is the daily loading of the reservations. For each reservation loaded into Dynamics CRM, a guest profile record is created and a corresponding guest stay record is created which is associated to the guest profile record.  For example, if John Smith makes two reservations (regardless of the reservation channel) for two rooms, he will have two guest profile records and two guest stay records in the PMS. Each guest stay record will be associated to one guest profile record.  Since the data is stored in this manner in the PMS, it is loaded from the PMS into Dynamics CRM in the same way. This means that every time a guest makes a reservation, there will be a guest profile record and an associated guest stay record created for each reservation, even if the guest stays multiple times in a short period such as a month at a franchise property. This is referred to as un-cleansed data.

Cleansing Process:

On a regularly scheduled basis, such as a weekly or monthly period, the guest profile data from the PMS is compiled into a file and sent to a data processing company. The data processing company reviews for duplicates based on the following criteria:

• First name
• Last name
• E-mail address
• Physical address:
  • Street 1
  • Street 2
  • City
  • State
  • Zip code

Reconciliation process:

(this can be weekly or monthly basis. For this discussion the reconciliation process will be monthly at the end of each month)

• Step 1: Once the duplicate records are removed, and the cleansed file is returned, the new guest profile data is loaded into a staging database and in this database all the cleansed guest profile records are associated to their guest stay records. For example, a file containing un-cleansed guest profile records for the entire month of January was sent to the data processing company.  If there were two John Smith’s in the un-cleansed file, and then based on the above criteria, the two matching records will be compared and the one that has the most completed information would be kept.  With the returned cleansed file containing only the one John Smith guest profile, the next step is to associate all the guest stays that John Smith had for the month of January to his cleansed guest profile record.  For example, if John Smith stayed five times in the month of January, then all five stay records would now be associated with his cleansed guest profile record.
  In a nutshell when the un-cleansed file is sent to the data processing company at the end of each month it, the data being cleansed is for the month that just ended. Once the cleansed file is returned with unique guests for the month, then the guest stays for the each of those guests for that particular month is associated to each unique guest profile record.
• Step 2: Once step 1 is completed, then the identified unique guest profiles with their associated guest stays for the previous month are loaded into Dynamics CRM 2011.  This is performed in two separate steps:
  • First the unique guest profiles are loaded
  • Then the guests’ stays are loaded and associated to the guest profile records
• Step 3: Once step 2 is completed, then the un-cleansed guest profile and guest stay data loaded in the previous month is purged. This process will only delete all the un-cleansed guest profile and guest stay data. The cleansed guest profile and guest stay data will remain in Dynamics CRM permanently.

As one can see, when a PMS has a decentralized storage architecture, there are some processes that need to be put in place to make a guest unique.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Polaris

In  December  2012,  Microsoft  released  their  next  interim  release  to  significantly  increase  the  functionality  of  Dynamics  CRM.  Microsoft  introduced  a  brand  new  look  and  feel  in  their  user  experience  (UX)  which  they  call  the  “Flow  UX.” They’ve  given  this  overall  release  the  code  name  “Polaris”  (after the star of the same name).

Microsoft  has  invested  a  great  deal  of  time  enhancing  CRM  to  bring  it  into  today’s  technology  age.  The  flow  of  the  sales  process  has  been  drastically  refreshed  and  is  much  more  intuitive. They have also spruced up the service case entity. The following is a review of the UX improvements:

• Lead,  opportunity,  account,  contact,  and  case  entities  have  a  new  UX:
  • Pros:
    • Overall,  the  flow  within  and  between  the  entities  feels  a  lot  easier  and  more  intuitive
    • Within  lead  and  opportunity  entities,  there  is  now  a  built  in  set  of  sales  stages  and  sales  steps  to  help  guide  one  through  the  sales  process  and  an  equivalent  Service  stages/steps  in  the case entity

• There  is a built in social feed,  a type of Facebook-like conversation flow which  can  include  Yammer

• Creating tasks and phone calls got a lot easier

• Viewing and creating notes is easier

• Data  is  automatically  saved  upon  closing  a  record  or  every  30  seconds
• Bing  Maps  integration  is  included  on-scree
• Skype  support  is  imbedded  to  auto-dial  outgoing  calls  (by phone or Skype to Skype… a Skype account is required)
• The  navigation  side-bar  is  automatically  minimized,  but  still  accessible
• Ability  to  revert  to  the  classic  screen

• Existing  Dynamics  CRM  2011  Online  users  can  choose  to  opt-in  to  the  new  UI  –  it  is  not  forced  (but once opted in, the conversion con mentioned below adjusts permanently
• Cons
  • Conversion  from  lead  will  now  automatically  create  an  opportunity  record  whether  you  want  to  create  one  or  not
  • There  is  no  ribbon  access  on  the  new  form  without  completely  reverting  to  the  classic  form
    • Cannot create of any new, related record (such as an activity). The  +  sign  add-option  works  somewhat  but  is  clunky  (but is not available at all for entities
    • No  recalculate  option  for  opportunities
    • No  “Add  to  Marketing  List”,  “Follow”,  “Run  Workflow”,  or  “Start  Dialog”  options  along  with  other  missing  options
  • The  new  sales/service  stages  and  steps  are  one-size-fits-all  and  there  is  no  ability  to  make  them  required
  • There  is  no  auto-conversion  of  classic  forms  into  the  new  format
  • Jscript  is  not  available  on  the  new  forms  OnLoad,  OnSave,  or  OnChange
  • Auto-saving  of  data  becomes  a  training  issue  not  to  adjust  records  for  “demonstration  purposes”

In addition to the UX changes above, Polaris included some additional changes:

• Browser  support  for  Firefox,  Chrome,  and  Safari
  • Make  sure  the  latest  version  of  the  browser  is  installed  as  of  when  Polaris  was  released
• Multiple  organizations  are  available  in  a  single  deployment  without  having  to  pay  for  additional  licenses
  • A  potential  application  would  be  to  have  test  and  production  organizational  instances
    • See  here  more  Implementation  considerations
• The  Resource  Center  has  been  removed  from  the  main  left-hand  navigation  menu

Presently,  Microsoft  has  made  the  availability  of  Polaris  to  CRM  2011  Online  customers  only.   If  you  have  an  on-premise  implementation  of  CRM,  the  Flow  UX  won’t  be  available  until  the  release  of  CRM,  code  named  “Orion”  coming  out  sometime  in  Q3  2013.   Until  then,  on  premise  users  can  at  least  experience  the  browser  updates  via  Update  Rollup  12.

Overall,  the  Polaris  release  is  a  good  next  step  forward  and  will  help  in  combatting  some  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  classic  UX  as  compared  to  some  of  Microsoft’s  competitors.   For  organizations  already  accustomed  to  using  Dynamics  CRM,  some  of  the  drawbacks  in  the  new  Process  UX  may  present  some  challenges.   Organizations  new  to  Dynamics  CRM  may  not  notice  all  or  any  of  the  drawbacks,  depending  on  their  needs.   Generally  speaking,  it  feels  like  there  are  several  additional  components  that  Microsoft  would  have  included  but  decided  to  postpone  to  a  later  date.   What  exactly  these  were,  I  hope  will  be  additional  activity  options  and  putting  back  in  the  loss  of  some  of  the  ribbon  options.   We  will  have  to  wait  for  Orion  to  find  out  for  sure.   In  the  meantime,  Polaris  provides  many  new  opportunities  to  provide  customer  relationship  management  than  we  had  before.

It’s tax season….the IRS does not have to be the only ones auditing!

Enabling auditing is a quick and effective way to help ensure data integrity.

Have you ever had a Sales Rep ask who changed the status of a record?

Have you ever wondered who deactivated a large set of account records?

These types of questions and hurdles can easily be answered through auditing.

Turn on auditing:

You can either:

• Navigate to Settings, System, Administration, System Settings, Auditing tab
• Navigate to Settings, System, Auditing, Global Audit Settings

Click the Start Auditing box then select the areas where you wish to enable auditing. You can hover over the area names such as “Common Entities” to see a list of the entities included.

You also have the choice to customize which entities you would like to audit. Open the solution, click on the name of the entity and select “Auditing”.

Be sure to read the fine print! When you select Auditing, all fields within the entity are being audited by default.  There are two options to disable fields.

Option 1: You can open each field that you do not want audited and click disable auditing.

Option 2: You can select multiple fields on the entity and select ‘Edit’ and you can change the status of auditing per field there as well.

Reviewing Audit History:

Navigate to the record, on the left side toolbar click Audit History.

This view list the date a change was made to the record, who made the change, the event which occurred, the name of the field changed, the old value and the new value. In the example below, the Business Phone was changed from 904-555-1212 to 904-222-8888 and an extension was added which was previously blank. The change was made by Ashley Kleeman on 4/15/2013 at 12:06 pm.

Review Security Roles:

Review security roles to ensure users have the appropriate access to view audit history. Open the security role, click on the Core Records tab and you will see the Audit related buttons at the bottom of the page under the Miscellaneous Privileges section. The average user only needs access to “View Audit History”.

Yammer or SharePoint 2013 for the Social Enterprise?

In buying Yammer last year, Microsoft pretty much acknowledged that it dropped the ball on social and needed to bring in external reinforcements. Acquiring Yammer also fits well with the new cloud services approach of office 365. The vision according to Microsoft is cloud first. They love the ability to roll out changes and fixes on a faster pace, but mostly, they love the business model.

At the same time SharePoint 2013 includes a much improved set of tools for social collaboration including a brand new activity stream app. So what should you use? Yammer or SharePoint 2013 built in social tools?

Here is the timeline and guidance as provided by Microsoft:

If you are a SharePoint cloud user – go with Yammer. There is a basic integration available now with the promise of single signon in the fall. They also promise updates every 90 days.

If you are an on-premise user (and most companies are since SharePoint 2010 online was not very good..) and moving to SharePoint 2013, the decision is a bit more complicated.

Yammer offers an existing app for SharePoint 2010 that can be integrated in if you are a paying Yammer customer, but nothing yet announced for SharePoint 2013.

So the only option really is to deploy the SharePoint social services unless you are already using Yammer Enterprise and can wait if/until they support 2013.

The longer term roadmap beyond 2014 is cloudy as well. Yammer is a cloud offering and will clearly be tightly integrated into office 365 but as much as Microsoft would like to, not everyone will get on their cloud platform that quickly. In all likelihood, Microsoft will continue to support and even release new version of SharePoint on premise but certain aspects will likely not be improved much and Social seems one of them. Yammer will become a selling point and an incentive to go cloud.

Another interesting point is how will this work for Hybrid Deployments and how migration to the cloud will handle the social data or be able to migrate it into Yammer. We’ll have to wait and see..

For more details see the official blog post from Microsoft and an interesting post on ZDNET on how Microsoft approached social for their internal Intranet, apparently using both models and giving users the choice when creating a collaboration site based on their primary need – document based (SharePoint) or activity stream (Yammer). Now, if only one site could do both..

Why a PMO

Project Management Office

The words make some shudder.  Of course PMOs have existed for a long time.  They grew as the discipline of project management itself matured and people recognized that project management was a distinct skill set that demanded training and experience, as well as certain natural talents.

While PMOs are often associated with larger firms which need to establish a standard methodology and approach for initiating, managing, and controlling systems-related projects, there are many reasons why a company might consider establishing a PMO.

First, a PMO does not need to be focused on systems-related projects.  The real benefit of a PMO is its ability to bring a disciplined approach to how an organization approaches projects.  Any time an organization is contemplating a series of projects to introduce transformational change, a PMO can improve the odds of success.  Those projects can be systems focused, but they could also be focused on business process redesign, new product development, geographical expansion, acquisition, or reorganization.  Each organization can decide for itself what type of projects should fall under the auspices of a PMO.

Similarly, a PMO does not need to be focused on all aspects of project management – at least in its initial implementation.  A PMO should address existing organizational problems.  If the organization struggles with prioritizing project requests and deciding which projects to fund and staff, the PMO should be focused on this issue.  If the organization struggles with keeping projects on track and resolving issues during project execution, the PMO should be focused on this issue.  Simply implementing a PMO doesn’t bring value to an organization.  Implementing a PMO so that it addresses the real-world issues that the organization is facing does bring value.

While PMOs take many shapes and flavors, they all seek to improve communication, collaboration, and consistency.  Organizations face increasingly complex environments while striving to respond to customer demands.  They often rely on a set of projects to drive the organization towards a new strategic vision of itself.  These organizations can leverage a PMO to more effectively meet these commitments.

So why consider a PMO?  If your organization is facing substantive change and needs to improve its ability to consistently and successfully deliver projects so that it can implement that change, a PMO can help.

Usage Based Insurance and Big Data – What is a Carrier to Do?

There is little doubt that Usage Based Insurance (UBI) (a.k.a. Telematics) is a hot topic in the U.S. Insurance Market. A recent survey from Strategy Meets Action found that while only 18 P&C insurers have an active UBI program in more than 1 state, 70% of insurers surveyed are in some stage of planning, piloting, or implementing UBI programs.

A carrier cannot venture into this space without considering the data implications. Usage Based Insurance, whatever its flavor, involves placing a device in a vehicle and recording information about driving behavior. Typical data points collected include: vehicle identifier, time of day, acceleration, deceleration (i.e. braking), cornering, location, and miles driven. This data can then be paired with publicly available data to identify road type and weather conditions.

Now consider, a 20 mile morning commute to work that takes the driver 35 minutes. If the data points noted above (9) are collected every minute, that 20 mile commute would generate 315 data points (about 16 data points per mile driven). If the average vehicle is driven 1000 miles in a month, it would generate 16,000 data points each month or 192,000 data points each year. Now consider what happens if a carrier enrolls even 1000 vehicles in a pilot UBI program. Within a year, the carrier must accommodate the transmission and storage of over 190 million data points. Progressive Insurance, the leader in UBI in the U.S. market, has been gathering data for 15 years and has collected over 5 Billion miles of driving data.

Even more critically, the carrier must find a way to interpret and derive meaningful information from this raw driving data. The UBI device won’t magically spit out a result that tells the carrier whether the driving behavior is risky or not. The carrier must take this raw data and develop a model that will allow the carrier to score the driving behavior in some way. That score can then be applied within rating algorithms to reward drivers who demonstrate safe driving behaviors. As with all modeling exercises, the more data used to construct the model, the more reliable the results.

While data transmission and storage costs are relatively inexpensive, these are still daunting numbers, especially for small and mid-sized carriers. How can they embrace the changes that UBI is bringing to the market?

From a pragmatic perspective, these smaller carriers will need to partner with experts in data management and predictive modeling. They will need to leverage external expertise to help them successfully gather and integrate UBI data into their organizations’ decision making processes.

In the longer term, credible 3^rd party solutions are likely to emerge, allowing a carrier to purchase an individual’s driving score in much the same way that credit score is purchased today. Until then, carriers need to make smart investments, leveraging the capabilities of trusted partners to allow them to keep pace with market changes.

Trigger Based Marketing with Dynamics CRM 2011

INTRODUCTION

Creating and maintaining profitable customers is the main aim of business. Therefore, customer satisfaction leading to profit is the central goal of hospitality marketing. In the hospitality industry, the marketing department tends to be responsible for both Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing.  The marketing team needs detailed data on prior leisure and business guests to successfully target marketing campaigns to the appropriate audiences.

The main purpose of this article is to discuss B2C marketing and in particular a process called Trigger based Marketing.

What is trigger based marketing?  For the purposes of this article, trigger based marketing is defined as consumer profile or stay data meeting the criteria of a marketing list for an active campaign. This active campaign then processes an e-mail blast to the recipients of the marketing list on a scheduled and automated basis.

BUSINESS PROCESS REQUIREMENTS

Assume the requirement is to create a process that allows for the automation of trigger based campaigns which, in this case, means guest satisfying particular marketing criteria.  This requirement of automating trigger based campaigns is dependent on daily matching and merging of guest data to make the guest unique (the process of ensuring a guest is unique will be discussed in a separate blog). The following are potential trigger based campaigns:

• Driven by check-ins – “Welcome”
• Driven by check-outs – “Thanks for Staying”
• Reactivation
  • “We miss you!”
  • Requires guest stay history
• In-house guest campaigns
  • Loyalty related
  • Requires guest stay history

So, the next question becomes, “Once the triggered campaign requirement is satisfied how does the e-mail blast execute on a scheduled basis?” To satisfy this requirement a third party marketing integration product such as ExactTarget, CoreMotives, or ClickDimensions can be used.  These are just some third party marketing integration products for CRM 2011, there are additional products out there.  Most of these third party marketing add-ons tend to have Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) available that can be programmed. In this particular instance, ExactTarget and the ExactTarget API were used to achieve the requirement of executing the e-mail blast on a determined schedule.

PROCESSES DEVELOPED TO ACHIEVE REQUIREMENTS

The processes developed contain a combination of manual and automated processes to complete the triggered e-mail process.

Manual Processes

• STEP 1: Marketer contacts advertising company to create art design
• STEP 2: Approved art design is converted to HTML format
• STEP 3: Receives completed HTML
• STEP 4: Prepare website for marketing campaign with website design company
• STEP 5: Create an e-mail for each triggered e-mail process in ExactTarget
• STEP 6: Create a dynamic marketing list for each triggered e-mail scenario
• STEP 7: Create a campaign for each triggered e-mail scenario
• STEP 8: Create an ExactTarget automated send record for each triggered e-mail scenario
• STEP 9: Create an application configuration record for each triggered campaign

Automated Processes

• STEP 10: Custom application runs at a schedule time on a nightly basis and performs a lookup against active campaign configuration records.  Deactivated campaign configuration records will not be executed against.  While this application will run on a nightly basis by default, it will use the configuration record for each active triggered campaign to determine the appropriate schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) it needs to run at for the automated campaigns. For daily processing, the custom application will run every night at a given time.  For weekly processing, the custom application will check the day of each week of the current day and compare it to the list of days of the week selected in the configuration record. If the current day of the week matches any of the selected days of the week in the configuration record, it will run.  For monthly processing, the custom application will run on the date selected on the configuration record. Therefore, the custom application will run on the exact same day each month. The custom application is setup and scheduled using the windows task scheduler.
• STEP 11a: Create a copy of the dynamic marketing list as a static list
• STEP 11b: Compare the new static list created in the step above to the static control group list and removes the contacts matching in both lists from the static marketing list, which is then used as the list to process the e-mail blast
• STEP 11c: Create a recipient record for each daily email blast and then the recipient record will be associated to the marketing list attached to the campaign
• STEP 11d: Associate the recipient records to the appropriate send record designated for each campaign
• STEP 12: Results from the email blasts will be processed as ExactTarget response activity type records directly into CRM against the guest profile record

CONCLUSION

In Conclusion, while this is only one solution of meeting a requirement to process triggered campaigns using Dynamics CRM 2011 and ExactTarget,  other solutions can be created using Dynamics CRM 2011 and other third party marketing integration products.

Usage Based Insurance – What Systems Implications does a Carrier Face When Implementing a Program?

Usage Based Insurance (UBI) (a.k.a. Telematics) is gaining traction in the U.S. Market.   At least 18 states have four or more Personal Auto programs implemented, and 49 states have at least 1 program.

As mid-sized and smaller carriers venture into this space, they need to consider the system implications that accompany a program implementation. While the specifics will vary depending on the type of program implemented, there are several areas that will be impacted.

First, Policy Quoting and Issuance: Assuming that the carrier utilizes some type of on-line portal to support the quoting process, the carrier must update the portal to accommodate enrollment into the UBI program on a per vehicle basis. Rules may be needed to limit those who are eligible for the program or to encourage certain individuals to join the program. If introductory premium discounts will be given just for joining the program, these discounts must be accommodated within the new-business rating algorithms. Additional data may need to be gathered about individuals joining a UBI program, such as email address, a field not commonly maintained in legacy systems. If the carrier makes rating available through a comparative rater, the carrier will need to decide if and how the comparative rating site will reflect the UBI program. Policy Declarations will also require alterations to reflect the new program. Finally, upon issuance of the policy, a new workflow will need to be triggered in order to issue a UBI device and installation instructions to the insured.

Second, Administration Systems: Once the policy is issued, various back-end systems and processes need to be altered to accommodate the UBI program as well. Policy Administration and Renewal Processes will need to incorporate the data gained from the UBI device, typically in the form of a driving score. Billing System changes may be needed if the carrier decides to charge drivers for lost or damaged UBI devices. Customer Service systems need to be updated so that service representatives know which customers are participating in the UBI program and can answer their questions related to the devices and driving discounts. The carrier may consider special telephone routing so that UBI program participants are handled by specialized customer service representatives. Claim System changes may also be needed if the carrier wants to ensure that Claims Adjusters are made aware that a vehicle is part of a UBI program.  For carriers who rely on independent agents, Agency Download should also be updated to reflect the new program. Finally, back-end data warehouse and management reporting systems will need to incorporate UBI related data and develop new analyses to support the program.

Third, Workflow and System Capabilities: First, the carrier must manage an inventory of UBI devices, tracking which have been issued and associating issued devices to specific vehicles. The carrier must also develop a number of communication protocols in partnership with their Telecommunications Services Provider. For example, if an issued UBI device stops communicating, the carrier will need to communicate with the insured. The timing and format of these communications requires some forethought. If a UBI device goes silent for a day or two, it could mean that the vehicle is temporarily out of range, perhaps in a remote vacation spot, or the device was removed while the vehicle is in the shop. On the other hand, the device could have been unplugged for routine service and accidentally left unplugged. If the carrier reacts too quickly, they could easily annoy the insured and appear like “Big Brother”; if they wait too long to react, they could lose valuable data. Changes are also needed to accommodate drivers who want to add, remove, or change vehicles within the UBI program during a policy period; this may require a separate management system altogether and could impact the scoring algorithms created. Thus, establishing the right communication protocols is critical to the program’s success.

Similarly, the carrier needs to determine how they will receive and model the driving data collected by the UBI device.  Will they gather the detailed data, transform it into meaningful information, and develop predictive models based on that data that can be applied within renewal rating algorithms. Or will they partner with an expert who can manage data collection and manipulation for them, providing them with some type of a score to apply within their rating algorithms. In either case, the carrier needs to understand the data that they will be receiving and establish systems for managing and utilizing that data.

Finally, the carrier must establish a means to provide feedback to the drivers participating in the program. Typically this is accomplished via a web-site where the driver can view his/her driving history, compare that history to some type of benchmark, and view tips to improve driving behaviors.  Again, the carrier may be able to partner with the Telecommunications Services Provider to deploy this functionality, but the carrier must work with the provider to define what data will be presented, and the carrier must be prepared to answer questions that their insureds will have about the data presented.

In closing, successfully implementing a UBI program has ripple effects across a wide swath of an insurance carrier’s infrastructure.  Before embarking on this journey, a carrier must give thought to both the initial launch and ongoing support of the program, making decisions about how to best integrate the program into its underlying systems and processes. Strong partners, both those with specific UBI expertise and those with more generic system, process, and project management expertise, can ease implementation and speed time to market.

Open a Portal – Close the Sale: Why Manufacturers Create Sales Portals

In today’s world of social media, successful sales and marketing in manufacturing is a complex balancing act requiring more and more visibility to actual data. Real-time visibility to dealers, agents, and customers involved in your business has never been more important for maintaining successful pipelines and customer loyalty.

If you don’t have a bi-directional communication portal to every channel of your business, you’re missing the critical information you need to stay ahead of your competition. You may not have a sales portal to your business, but your competition does and they are listening. They are listening to your prospects, your reps, and your customers.

The good news is many manufacturers who have become lean on the production floor are learning that applying similar principles in sales and marketing can also lead to increased production. These manufacturers know nothing is more important to their sales than an accurate visual of what is happening in their channel right now.

These forward-thinking manufacturers are looking at their complex sales scenarios, including inside sales, field sales, direct sales, reseller networks and partner sales and noticing communication gaps, redundant data and slow movement. They understand two things very clearly. First, they recognize the impracticality of trying to make good decisions using countless spreadsheets on multiple desktops with no consolidation. Next, they understand that their sales models include people who are not their employees but rely on them for business performance and that giving these non-employees a method to communicate allows their companies to monitor and adjust their performance. Then they ask, “How can we view the whole sales process in real time to better run our business?” And the answer is a sales portal which helps improve management and forecasting in these areas:

• Account ownership
• Distributor management
• Order management
• Support management
• Pipeline visibility
• Quoting
• Closing
• Messaging

A sales portal can also bridge the gap to your back-end systems and create a seamless communication protocol that empowers everyone in the channel, employees and non-employees, while providing accurate real-time visibility in a secure manner that can help accelerate the sales process.

View the Edgewater Channel Portal in action.

What can you monitor with a sales portal?

• Real-time dashboards
• Heat maps across the entire territory showing high and low performers
• Inside, field and channel sales
• Security between users accessing quotes and orders
• 30/60/90 day forecasts
• New revenue
• Estimated close dates
• Quote requests
• Service requests
• Customer loyalty
• Announcements for tradeshows and product guidelines

With a portal you empower your sales force with the tools needed to succeed. Each user has a different security level and sees a custom dashboard. For example, a manufacturer’s rep can see how his or her overall pipeline is performing. The rep can see new leads, can adjust those leads and can notify you of constraints. As the manufacturer you can see the rep’s pipeline incorporated into yours, and you can help move sales along by knowing precisely where the rep is in the pipeline. You can also send discounts to your field reps immediately and see how those discounts perform real time.

With a sales portal you can allow all of your reps to have access to a common document library and collaborate via discussion groups where you  can include future products, sales literature, competitive information and more.

To see what is happening right now means opening a sales portal, which is as easy as opening a dock door in the warehouse – once you build it. For help building your seamless sales portal, contact Edgewater Fullscope for a product demonstration.

How do you know when the gap is too big to jump?

Ever watched a motorcycle jump?  Ever wonder how guys like Evel Knievel knew how far they could go? How fast they could make the jump?  How to tune that motorcycle so it would support repeated efforts to break and rebreak records?  Was the cycle the secret to success or was it more a matter of mind over matter, training and instinct?

Many businesses face the same challenges as they try to accelerate the pace of change, embarking on transformation initiatives that often demand that their people bridge frighteningly huge current-to-target state gaps. The price of failure is as catastrophic to a business as those motorcycle jumps are to the daredevils who attempt them.

Is technology the secret to success? Methodology? Only partly so — Objective measures of the size of the gap (a catalog of differences between the current and target states of process, technology, data, and business model) will only get you so far. Project phases can be designed to address this, and the classic stuff of project management can certainly help. I call this the hard science side of the equation.

However, for both the intrepid cyclist and the daring leader of an audacious business transformation, success is both an art and a science.  Just as a jumper has to factor in the strength of crosswinds, the nuances of posture and the internal state of mind, transformation leaders need to address the following questions, which speak to the art of success:

• Does your organization have a framework in place to foster change (communication, collaboration tools; a training framework)
• Is there a formal framework for facilitating alignment among stakeholders with different needs?
• What is the state of employee engagement at your company? Who is burned out, checked out, counting down the clock to retirement? And who is revved up and raring to go?
• Are there wounded bodies still littering the canyon from your last attempt to jump a big gap?
• Do you have realistic expectations of the business input required to support a technology-driven transformation? Do you have a backfill strategy?
• Have you defined success in business terms, or are you just eager to “put in a new system?”

When considering anything unprecedented or record breaking, don’t put all your faith in science—and don’t devalue the many human factors that are very much a part of the art of success.