When customers “rave,” the enterprise prospers.

By Ara C. Trembly

It wasn’t so long ago the insurance industry had its brief but ultimately sad love affair with customer relationship management (CRM).

The mantra of the CRM movement was the phrase customer-centric, a term that came to mean building a company’s overall business plan around responsiveness to the wants and needs of the firm’s most valuable customers. CRM product vendors hoped to deliver a broad platform that would address all aspects of customer-centricity, including better customer data—identifying and paying special attention to the most profitable customers and minimizing, if not jettisoning, unprofitable customers.

Unfortunately, few CRM buyers realized the vast extent of the corporate culture changes that would need to be made in order to become customer-centric. Carriers were still all for being customer-centric, but overarching CRM programs weren’t having success in the insurance industry.

There seemed little question focusing on one’s most profitable customers made sense, but it also appeared few companies were willing to undertake sweeping corporate changes needed to achieve the desired results.

One company that can claim to have done what it takes to be customer-centric, however, is Conyers, Ga.-based ImageRight, a Vertafore company. And according to Don Elias, co-founder and president of the company, putting the focus on making “raving fans” of its customers is one of the key factors in the company’s success.

The latest evidence of that success is ImageRight’s taking top honors in the Insurer’s Choice 2008 technology ranking. ImageRight placed first in both the property/casualty and life/health categories overall. The company also garnered the top spot in several specific categories such as Operations (P&C), Product Development (P&C, L&H), Customer Care (P&C), and Optimize Workflow (P&C, L&H).

In the Beginning

ImageRight was founded in 1994, one of many fledgling software companies seeking to make a name in the field. “We were trying to define ourselves, writing different types of imaging software,” says Elias.

As it happened, one insurance client needed help with an existing imaging solution that was not working. ImageRight was able to help that client, Safeway, and then another insurer, Southern Insurance Underwriters, Inc. (SIU), he notes. From that point on, the path to specialization in insurance seemed clear.

“We knew imaging solutions would become niche players, so we concentrated on insurance,” Elias explains. “Safeway got us into a bigger market. Honestly, we never expected it to grow to more than a few million a year.” 

ImageRight just kept growing, however, exceeding $40 million in gross revenues in 2007. “It took us four years to [sign up] 10 clients, then we went to 20 clients in one year,” he states. “We went from 20 to 40 in the next year. That’s when we started doing fast-track implementation, something no one else was doing. We signed 60 new clients in the past year, including some implementations at multiple locations.” 

Today, ImageRight is a major supplier of insurance-focused content management, enterprise workflow, and business intelligence products.

Secrets of Success

Elias cites several reasons behind his company’s meteoric rise. “The market was right,” he points out. “Customers were looking for imaging, especially in the P&C environment. Traditional products didn’t do a very good job, so a lot of imaging projects would fail. Our approach was focused, with systemized implementation, and we hit deadlines.

“Another thing was we put the right people and systems in place. Selling through resellers isn’t going to work,” he adds. “If you’re a reseller selling software, [imaging systems] are not going to be your only software. The result is you get different salespeople coming in and out, and you have no control of expectations and training. The salespeople ‘yes’ you to death and say ‘no problem’ to any question raised.”  

All that buildup comes falling down when it comes time for implementation, however, says Elias. When the salesperson’s promises cannot be achieved, “expectations are not met, and budgets are blown,” he notes.

One of the most important ingredients in ImageRight’s success is its focus on delivering for customers above and beyond what is expected, he contends. “The insurance industry is one place where if you do badly or well, it really gets around,” he explains. “If you make a hero out of someone in one place, that person will want to bring you in when he or she moves to a new job.” In order to make heroes of their customers, ImageRight asserts its own version of the golden rule, having its employees treat customers like they themselves would want to be treated.

As a result, says Elias, “we haven’t missed a live date since 1999.” He adds that overall in IT, “close to 90 percent of projects fail.” He also cites one case in which the ImageRight implementation was the only IT project that came in on time and on budget for a particular customer.

Finally, ImageRight has prospered by building products that focus on its core audience. “We actually have unique features in the product that are truly designed for the insurance market,” he says. “If we were doing banking, the products would look different. Focusing on the insurance market we were able to fine-tune them.” 

Key Business Move

One key to delivering the kind of service and performance ImageRight promotes is hiring the right employees, Elias remarks. Beginning in 1999, the company developed its own boot camps to train new and existing employees on the software and on the unique corporate culture.

“There are a lot of good people out there, but the key is not to let the bad people into your company,” he says. The boot camp is designed to weed out those who, in Elias’ words, “would not be a good fit for the company. We typically lose 15 to 20 percent of the people in boot camp. We never have had an entire class all make it through.”   

ImageRight holds three to four boot camp sessions a year, and Elias claims the sessions pay off with fewer people leaving the company. “Our turnover is less than one percent,” he points out. “They must make it through the boot camp; otherwise, they are let go.” 

The boot camps feature different training for every department, “but they’re all together on the basics,” he relates. “We want to make sure they have the right attitude and work ethic, and they have the heart to want to help a client. We don’t want someone who is coming just to sit at a desk and collect a paycheck.”   

Corporate Goals

According to Elias, the number-one goal at ImageRight is “having raving fan clients.”  Such clients, he explains, “would walk past your competitors just to get to you.

“We tie the whole business around that concept—keep your clients happy,” he continues. “If they have a problem, fix it. Whatever needs to be done, get it done. Do things you don’t need to do, and let [customers] know you care. Customers are first, not the employees.” 

He adds this attitude has been in large part responsible for the strong growth of the company in every year, except in 2002 (“We held the numbers from 2001; not bad in the wake of 9/11,” he notes).

Another goal is to have “excited and motivated employees,” says Elias. To promote that attitude, the company has a number of employee-targeted initiatives. For example, on Fridays, free lunches are brought in for all employees. ImageRight also sponsors a year-end celebration that may include a trip. “We took everyone to Cancun one year. Last year, it was Tampa,” he recalls. “If everyone is pulling their weight, then everyone can benefit.” 

The third and most obvious goal is making money, but even here, the company emphasizes a sense of personal responsibility for its employees. “Everyone still has to watch the bottom line and do the right things,” says Elias. “Across the board, we must have every department on board for this to work. It also takes someone at the top to believe in it. There will be some times when you have to spend the money to take a charter jet to fix a client problem.

“One bad employee can screw up a client,” he cautions. “Personal responsibility is important. Every single one of [our employees] has to deliver. If you go to a restaurant, all it takes is one person at the place to screw up, and you’re not going to go back there again.”   

Extra Perks

One perk of working for ImageRight is clients are treated as friends, indicates Elias. “Our company culture is clients become friends,” he says. Indeed, the company’s Web site claims “100 percent of our client base is a reference for ImageRight.” 

One of the practices that helps keep those “friendships” alive is what ImageRight calls “two-ring support.” When a client calls the company’s support department, ImageRight guarantees someone will answer the phone “in less than two rings,” says Elias. “We don’t have queuing at all. For 415 clients, we have 17 people in support.”   

In addition, the company offers clients its “Guaranteed Success Package,” which includes a seven-step process to meet clients’ operational objectives and ensures go-live dates and budgets are met. According to the ImageRight Web site, if customer expectations are not met or exceeded, the customer gets his or her money back.

Continuous product development also is part of the success package for ImageRight, says Elias. “Our product has changed over the years. We have a major release at least once a year. In 2007, we released a totally rewritten product from the ground up.”   

ImageRight focuses, as well, on making upgrading to the new product as painless as possible for its customers, he says. “As you migrate to new product, you sign up for a free Saturday upgrade, and when you call in, you get a person assigned to help you,” Elias explains. “The install script is easy, and most upgrades are done in 10 to 15 minutes. This is a mission-critical application; that’s why we open up the lines on Saturday. What we truly want is for everyone to be up and running on Monday with no problems.”

Looking to the future, Elias says ImageRight plans on “continuing to do what we’re doing.” In addition, however, the company hopes to leverage its new position of being part of Vertafore, a provider of specialized software solutions and information for the insurance industry, offering solutions to facilitate independent agent productivity and carrier/agent connectivity. Vertafore notes it has become the agency management system and information source to more than 15,000 independent insurance agencies, 150,000 end users, and 600 insurance carriers.

In September of last year, ImageRight acquired Computers By Design, Inc. (CBD), which supplies imaging and document management solutions, such as its CBDDoc for the insurance industry. ImageRight says it will function as the retail agency division of ImageRight.

“This acquisition will allow us to extend our document management solutions into the agency sector,” says Elias. “CBD has a strong agency base and a solution that is highly complementary with the document management products we already offer. Our combined capabilities will enable ImageRight to deliver leading solutions to all segments of the insurance distribution chain—agencies, wholesale brokers, MGAs, and carriers. Additionally, our combined solutions will enable us to improve the management and flow of documents across the insurance industry.”

ImageRight will make a strong effort to do more in the retail space, promises Elias. “We want to make data and metrics flow easier overall,” he says. “Carriers and reinsurance people have to have this kind of connectivity to the industry. They can plug into [our] service and get the data and metrics that help drive the business.