In today’s competitive business landscape, exceptional customer service is paramount for fostering brand loyalty and ensuring long-term success. This is especially true in the insurance sector. One of the largest industries in the world, the sector has a global market value greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of many countries. 5.5 trillion U.S. dollars of insurance premiums were written in 2021, higher than the GDP of only two countries: the U.S. and China.1
Overcoming challenges in customer service
For Allianz Partners Brazil, the local arm of a leading provider of insurance solutions, this is especially true. Operating in a very busy environment, it recognizes the critical importance of providing timely and reliable assistance to its customers as a competitive advantage. The company receives a high volume of calls, approximately 420,000 per month, from customers seeking urgent assistance. With 1,800 back-office employees and 12,000 contact center agents available around the clock, Allianz prioritizes responsiveness and efficiency in addressing customer inquiries and processing insurance policies.
The company previously faced significant performance and availability issues with its server infrastructure, leading to prolonged wait times for customers seeking vital information during calls. These challenges posed a risk to customer satisfaction and loyalty, driving Allianz to seek a modernized infrastructure solution that could overcome these issues.
With studies showing that 43 percent of consumers believe that long wait times top the list of the most frustrating parts of customer service, it was critical for Allianz to reduce average handling times and offer stronger customer experience.2
Alexander Bispo, IT Infrastructure Manager at Allianz Partners, shares, “Waiting on hold for long periods during calls can have a negative impact on customer satisfaction, and even lose customer loyalty. We knew that by reducing our average handling times for contact center interactions, we could develop a much stronger experience.”
Allianz Partners and Lenovo join forces
To address these challenges, Allianz collaborated with its trusted systems integrator, Traces Group, bringing in a flexible model to help scale capacity to meet evolving workloads while optimizing costs. The Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution met these needs and more, providing high-performance servers tailored for demanding database applications, without requiring substantial upfront investments. By adopting a pay-as-you-go model, Allianz Partners gained flexibility in scaling capacity to meet evolving workloads while optimizing costs.
The implementation included Lenovo ThinkSystem SR530 and SR650 servers, optimized to enhance the performance and reliability of the Oracle database that is used to store and retrieve relevant information for contact center agents. This reduced the risk of bottlenecks and unexpected interruptions to service continuity.
Thanks to Lenovo’s as a service TruScale solution, Allianz Partners can increase server capacity as soon as business volumes increase, without worrying about procuring additional hardware, helping to reduce waste and emissions. With Lenovo TruScale IaaS, Allianz Partners gained cloud-like agility for its on-premise infrastructure, ensuring optimal resource utilization and reducing the risk of overprovisioning.
Bispo explains more, “With Lenovo TruScale IaaS, we only pay for the resources that we actually consume, and we have full transparency over our spending levels. We are moving towards a much more cost-effective infrastructure model.”
With the importance of sustainability to Allianz Partners and its operations, the company is also using Lenovo XClarity to monitor the power and temperature of its infrastructure, helping the company to optimize power use and improve energy efficiency, supporting its sustainability goals.
Unlocking the benefits of Lenovo TruScale IaaS
The transition to Lenovo TruScale IaaS yielded significant improvements in customer service efficiency and satisfaction for Allianz Partners. By reducing average handling times by 22 seconds, the company achieved a 6% faster resolution of customer inquiries. Contact center agents now access information from the company’s database more swiftly, mitigating long wait times for customers and enhancing overall satisfaction ratings.
Additionally, the optimized infrastructure enabled Allianz Partners to streamline critical business processes, with backup jobs for the Oracle database running 4.7 times faster than before. What previously took up to seven hours is now completed inside 90 minutes. This efficiency enhancement translated into tangible benefits, allowing the company to handle an additional 20,000 calls per month without expanding its workforce, resulting in a 5% increase in productivity.
“It’s been exciting to work with Allianz Partners to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction with our TruScale IaaS solution, as well as setting the business up for future growth and innovation. Using our cutting-edge infrastructure solutions, Allianz can deliver more reliable and responsive assistance to its customers, which has huge benefits in generating long-term loyalty and a competitive advantage in the insurance market,” said Dale Aultman, Vice President and General Manager, Hybrid Cloud Services at Lenovo.
Bispo adds, “Our Lenovo infrastructure has had a positive impact on our quality of service. We can now deliver more reliable, responsive assistance during the hundreds of thousands of calls we receive each month.”
The transformative power of Lenovo TruScale
By addressing infrastructure challenges with innovative solutions, companies can unlock new opportunities for growth, differentiation, and customer-centricity in today’s digital era, enhancing customer service delivery and driving business success. With Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure as a Service, Allianz Partners has laid the foundation for sustained excellence in customer service, reinforcing its position as a trusted insurance provider in Brazil and beyond.
Visit https://techtoday.lenovo.com/gb/en/truscale to learn more about Lenovo TruScale and see more details on Lenovo’s work with Allianz here.
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1 https://www.statista.com/markets/414/topic/461/insurance/#statistic1
1 https://www.netomi.com/the-state-of-customer-service-2022
