Applied Systems Q&A: Kris Hackney vows brokers' data will be safe after Google deal

Applied Systems has recently announced an investment from CapitalG, Google-owner Alphabet’s growth equity investment fund. It had already been announced that CapitalG’s investment will bring Applied access to Google expertise across artificial intelligence, machine learning, and digital marketing. Head researcher Savan Shah sat down with Applied’s executive vice president of customer experience Kris Hackney to find out more.

What are your thoughts on the investment made by CapitalG in Applied Systems?

We feel that the investment by CapitalG is great for the industry and fantastic for Applied. We are excited about the access we will have to really smart people and great technology. You could hear from the words that CEO, Reid French, spoke on stage that we really thought about it from the opposition side, regarding what might a competitor say. It is important to emphasise they will have no access to our data and this is not a step towards infiltrating the independent broker.

When you brainstorm about AI, search, security and data protection, there are so many areas we can benefit from CapitalG’s investment.

How will this impact on customer experience?

It is very early days. We have had several conversations with the CapitalG and the Google team. We already have some planned opportunities for our advanced systems engineers to spend time with their engineers. Search is a good example. Google provide such elegant search capabilities and that might be an area for us to explore in terms of making Applied Epic easier to use and navigate.

Additionally, every year we do white-hat testing and other types of penetration testing of our cloud environment. We hire great companies to do that, but nobody does that better than Google, so they will further strengthen our security.

There are a lot of possibilities. It will be interesting to see what we will announce at Applied Net a year from now.

Could you tell me about the work you have been doing in the UK?

We are excited to have launched Applied Epic in the UK market. We have a flagship customer there that is beginning their role out of Applied Epic. We have also landed other customers in the UK, we have also started to position Applied Epic in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as well.

My time over there has been with customers and with our teams. We are actually looking to expand our customer-facing teams in the UK. We also have many North American insurance experts embedded in the UK market, which is interesting as they bring Applied Epic knowledge to the UK team, and we learn a lot from that team in terms of specifics on how business is written in the UK.

What feedback have you had from UK clients thus far in terms of the impact it has had on customer relations?

It is relatively early days, but the feedback from the brokers is that the impact has been positive. They like the way Applied Epic works in terms of its workflow, in terms of its ability to engage with their customers, for example, sending out proposals and letters, implementing soon the portal for self-service access.

For other customers who are starting to engage in the implementation process, its just lots of excitement around what a new system will bring. We are excited about the opportunity to grow our footprint in the UK, and feel confident based on the demand for Applied Epic.

In our annual Etrading survey, we found from brokers regarding training that a one size fits all approach would not be suitable for many brokers. How are you ensuring the training fits the client’s needs?

One size fit all for education doesn’t work in most places. What we are doing in the UK is a blend of live instructor education and we are introducing Applied University, which is our online virtual education platform, so brokers will have the opportunity to train both live and on demand as well.

Last year you asked brokers to ask themselves what makes them special, following on from that this time around what is your message to UK brokers?

A lot has happened in the last year in terms of our launch of Applied Epic. If you think about digital transformation and the digital age of insurance, that fundamental message from last year hasn’t changed. A lot of brokers are still struggling with what it means to be digital. I was meeting with a customer in Canada a couple of weeks ago and they said we are not interested in being a digital broker because they were all about personal touch. My message to them was that perhaps there is a place for personal touch when it comes to something that is complicated, emotional or difficult. However, brokers can use on demand, digital technology for tasks that are commodities, such as a certificate.

That comment that I made last year it still applies, “Are you special because the customer must call you to get a certificate of insurance or are you special because you are providing consultative engagement around how to insure what is most important to them?”

When we say digital transformation, it doesn’t mean everything is digital. It means we are empowering are staff with digital technology and are providing the ability for consumers to engage with us when and how they want to, through whichever channel they choose.

In Q1 of 2018 you announced Applied Epic includes several additional features such as giving brokers the ability to text their clients and receive SMS responses via the platform and renewal management capability. Are there any new features set to be announced soon or are there any existing features you are enhancing for brokers?

We are just about to launch Applied Epic 2018, we will deliver a couple releases of Applied Epic in 2019 and we are solidifying what those requirements are. Texting and renewal management are new global enhancements.

How can Applied Systems software reduce the burden manual that can give them more time to develop customer relationships?

There are several things Applied software does to make brokers’ jobs easier such as the ability to define workflows inside Applied Epic. Making them efficient and consistent across the brokerage is key. In addition, insurer connectivity and a customer portal are critically important, however, introducing the portal to customers is a key part of the implementation process.

Initially, our experience in the US was some of our customers would just slap up a portal and expect customers to click on it and go do something, but it doesn’t really work that way. You must educate and make sure the consumers know when they can self-serve and what that means.

I think for the brokers who are looking for efficiency, the combination of the workflow-driven process of the foundational management system, along with the customer portal and mobile apps really drives that efficiency and empowers the consumer as well.

In our etrading survey we conducted earlier in the year a broker commented the following “The system can do workflows however with everything on applied you have to build it yourself and you have to be an IT genius with a lot of time to do it”, what would you say to this broker?

They definitely don’t need to be an IT genius, we have more than 4,000 customers here at Applied Net who are not IT geniuses. What I would say to that is we work with our customers in a variety of ways to make implementation and daily use manageable.

What we do as we implement Applied Epic for our brokers is consult with customers on how to build workflows, make decisions on required fields and how to configure Applied Epic appropriately or we can teach the brokerage how to do it and you definitely don’t need to be an IT genius.

My answer to that individual is come and talk to us. Applied is here to make the complex, simple for our customers.

At last years Applied Net conference you said the UK was a step ahead in terms of consumers driving and demanding a great experience from their insured, a year on what difference remain between the UK and North American markets?

I think a lot of that continues, the consumer is king everywhere. In the UK, the consumers are constantly switching and looking for great service and great price from their providers. I think the process of selling insurance is more efficient in the UK than it is in the U.S., but if you think about what the UK has been doing for quite some time with etrading that they are still a bit ahead than we are. When I talk to agents in the U.S., they want to get there. They want to figure out how that end-to-end lifecycle can happen faster, more like what we have built in the UK.

Could you tell us more about bringing digital to the broker and the overall change management?

For example, when we think about Applied CSR24, the portal and mobile capabilities, the change management for the customer is around when to use the portal, when to direct the customer to the portal. A lot of the change management is preparing their teams for what aspects will be different about their daily tasks and educating them on how to launch the portal and app to their insureds.

When thinking about your staff, it’s about recognizing that you have long time employees inside brokerages – sometimes the owners or managing directors of organisations don’t necessarily want to deal with the emotions of their teams – our teams have to work with them to drive change. Our job in the market is to build great technology, but also help brokers with the process of adopting new technology as well.

Are there any final messages you would like to get across to UK brokers?

We are really committed to the UK and Ireland, and what we have done over the last couple of years is build the technology and learn a lot from the market. It is important that we have great technology that works, but we also must have people within the UK market that understand the market, are credible and understand Applied’s technology.

Our services organisation at Applied is made up of more than 300 people. Ninety percent of consultants and product instructors started their careers in brokerages, and we must do that. The people in my team have lived it and walked in the shoes of these brokers and that’s what we are building. In addition to the exciting technology that UK brokers will see coming from Applied, you are going to see more people, bigger teams and great expertise in the market. It is important that they see that par