Real-Time Notifications
The Problem: Wasting Time Waiting Around
Traditionally, most businesses’ employee-facing sites require the employee to log in and look up information to find out about any news or changes — so if a First Notice of Loss has been assigned, or a new client signed up, or a software system changed, even those who are directly involved with that event might not know about it until they bother to log in and look up the information themselves. That was fine a couple of years ago, but as smartphones and tablets become ubiquitous, more and more customers interact with their providers in realtime and expect even smaller insurance companies to be able to keep up with that pace. Our client needed a notification system that would keep them on the ball when new developments appeared.
The Analysis: Time To Get Active
We understood that the passivity of the traditional system was the problem — everything could be held up for days because someone hadn’t gotten the message. So we had to look into a way for the system to be more active in notifying employees of changes: an event-based messaging infrastructure that would aggressively bring matters to the client’s attention.
There were several ways that we could achieve this, from using an email system to having business events trigger an external messaging system. The notifications had to be clear, consistent and, most importantly, quick.
The Solution: Up-to-Date Information On The Go
In the end, we decided to use the client’s messaging infrastructure to provide the notifications. More active than email, this system also had the advantage of being easy to integrate with third-party systems. The messaging infrastructure is an event-driven architecture, meaning that it can be integrated based on the events the client needed to send messages about — whether the opening of a new file, or the first notification that a policyholder had been in an accident.
The ability to respond instantly to these developments helped our client to handle cases quickly and efficiently, offering them a real competitive edge in the market. Policyholders appreciated the quick response times, and our client appreciated the reduction of wasted time.