That will be the mantra of the insurance industry for the next few years as they cope with the strategic deployment of IT services for customer interface and internal legacy conversion. The Customer Respect Center concluded in its Summer 2004 Online Customer Respect Study that over 50% of 74 Fortune 1000 insurance firms studied did not respond at all to web initiated requests. In addition, there was a significant increase in data sharing between subsidiaries and business partners. (You can review the Insurance Industry report as well as many others.)
Here is a sampling of their performance on handling your Personal Data:
- 17% only use it for the purpose it was provided
- 2% do not collect or use data
- 9% use it for internal marketing purposes
- 9% share data with affiliates or subsidiaries
- 24% need to be more explicit about personal data usage
- 36% share the data with business partners, without first getting permission
When compared to other industries, overall the Insurance Group scored a meager 5.7 on a scale of 10.
In addition, the industry will be relying upon outside help in legacy data migration, backroom development and/or outsourcing, selection of new software platforms, internal training and a much better understanding of using web-based applications for customer interactions.