Christmas in July: An Insider’s Look at ServiceNow FSO

Welcome to day two, week two of our annual Christmas in July content series. We hope you had the chance to explore some of last week’s offerings, including a Service Portal Lookbook to get you inspired on your ServiceNow journey, and a new video to walk you through building a successful RFP process. (And don’t forget to enter our $1k work wardrobe giveaway.)

Today we’re offering up a brand-new case study and slide deck featuring ServiceNow’s Financial Services Operations (FSO). This new product offers a faster approach to digital transformation by connecting financial institutions from the front to back office, on a single system.

Banks, insurance companies, and wealth management firms are already using FSO to transform their customer and employee experience, drive efficiency gains, and improve resilience and profitability in real time.

Want to see how? Keep reading to learn how a private mutual company and Acorio client leveraged FSO to simplify life for their agents and policyholders alike.

Want to skip the wait and dive into the deck? Download it now – it even includes a one-slide summary of the following case study if you’re pressed for time.

Fortune 500 Private Mutual Company Modernizes with ServiceNow FSO

This Fortune 500, private mutual company headquartered in the United States has been serving its customers for over 75 years. Offering commercial insurance, life, health, and homeowners’ coverage, as well as investment and retirement planning products, the company is steadily growing its footprint through multiple mergers and acquisitions.

Facing a changing industry rife with fierce competition, the firm craved a digital solution that would propel them into the future on solid footing. The company’s agents were burdened with a legacy system that didn’t offer the visibility and speed they needed to provide the best possible service to their policyholders.

Disjointed Processes Spell the Need for Change

The firm’s out-of-date legacy systems were not serving their customers or agents efficiently or effectively. They relied on emails and spreadsheets to keep track of activities and complete customer and agent requests – a headache when it came time to check request status and follow up on any urgent tasks.

A standard customer journey would work as follows: a customer in need of insurance supplies their agent with all necessary information, their agent then sends that information and any supporting documents to insurance underwriters who then analyze risk, determine the feasibility of the policy, and return to the agent with a quote.

Due to the complexity of the underwriting process, requests could take days or weeks to be completed. The Fortune 500 found that their lack of visibility into this process meant they were falling behind the competition. The firm’s end customers and agents had zero visibility into the status of their policies.

The firm set out on their ServiceNow journey hoping to:

• Modernize the customer and agent experience and reduce swivel chair
• Enable intelligent automation to allow for rapid improvements
• Encourage customer and agent self-service through Portal and Knowledge

Finding the Right Solution in ServiceNow

Already a ServiceNow customer, the company knew that the Now Platform could handle a level of complexity that other ESM platforms couldn’t. With this in mind, the company enlisted Acorio as a trusted partner to implement a ServiceNow CSM solution that would:

• Make it easier for their agents to conduct business and take care of customers
• Enable faster entry and exit into underwriting
• Facilitate easier policy changes and modifications
• Provide faster oversight into complex claims decisions

To top it off, the organization was under a tight time constraint. They needed to implement the new solution before their busy season ramped up during the summer, leaving them better positioned to capitalize on their investment when it truly mattered.

Acorio had already proven itself as a trusted partner for the company, having completed several of their IT projects to great success. Yet our deep CSM expertise ultimately made us the best choice for this particular project. Thanks to our seasoned team of CSM experts and high number of certifications per head, the private mutual company knew that again, we were the right partner to deliver the solution they needed.

As they were on a tight timeline, speed was also an issue. They knew that Acorio could spin up a solution within the timeframe they needed – in fact, when all was said and done, the project wrapped up within just eight weeks from start to Go-Live.

A Tailored Solution: ServiceNow Financial Services Operations

The Fortune 500 initially planned on completing a CSM implementation, yet ServiceNow found they had specific needs that would be better served by a completely new and tailored solution.

They found their answer in ServiceNow Financial Services Operations (FSO), a purpose-built solution created specifically to meet the needs of banking institutions, insurance companies, and wealth management firms.

Working in tandem with ServiceNow, Acorio successfully implemented FSO, building a solution that included Case and Knowledge Management, Portal and Workspace, and Policy Number Integration. Both the firm’s customer service agents and the firm’s internal support team are now working within ServiceNow, providing key visibility for employees and faster resolution for customers.

All in all, the company’s new solution included:

• Case Management. This allowed the client to set up their agents within ServiceNow to submit cases on behalf of customers.
• Portal and Workspace. Acorio delivered a branded and configured Portal and Workspace for the company’s internal (support team) and external (agents) stakeholders that offer a simple, intuitive user experience.
• Knowledge Management. The company’s Knowledge Base now supports both internal and external stakeholders and can be accessed through both Agent Workspace and the Service Portal.
• Policy Number Integration. The firm now has automated routing of Case Processes and an automated feed of policy numbers and related information to support Case Requests.

Transformational Visibility and Empowered Agents Thanks to ServiceNow FSO

Before implementing FSO, making a policy change or modification required the policyholder to submit a request and simply wait for a response. Something as simple as bundling a Jet Ski into an existing policy was an arduous process with many manual steps. Customers were left in the dark as to the status of their requests and when changes would take effect. Now all of those processes are simplified within ServiceNow, making the company better positioned to meet customer demands as they grow throughout the next decade.

The company’s new solution in ServiceNow FSO eliminates these broken chains of communication and provides transformational visibility to their agents and policyholders alike. The organization has gone from being unable to accurately track requests, changes, and modifications to insurance policies, to now having everything tracked through automated workflows, providing key visibility and a clear audit trail.

With their new foundation in ServiceNow FSO, the firm is empowered to:

• Continually modernize their customer and employee experience
• Provide faster insight into the status of policy changes and complex claims decisions
• Enable enhanced automation
• Encourage Customer and Agent Self-Service through Portal and Knowledge
• Regularly mature through real-time data

Well-Positioned for the Future

Never satisfied with resting on its laurels, the Fortune 500 is already well into a large-scale ServiceNow HR transformation that will go live within the next few months. Their journey mirrors those of other leading enterprise companies undergoing a digital transformation initiative. According to Acorio’s latest ServiceNow Insight & Vision Report, the number of companies using four or more ServiceNow products rose to 54% in 2021 – up from just 12% in 2019.

Modernizing and streamlining their systems and processes in ServiceNow has allowed this private mutual company to break down silos, eliminate guesswork, drive a better customer experience, and rise above the competition.