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HILL HOUSE HAMMOND
From a standing start, less than two years ago, to an organisation now employing nearly 300 people and geared up to handle 650,000 quotations in 1995. That's the Hill House Hammond Direct story -- a sure indicator of the growth and success of telebroking in the UK.
HHH Direct is the direct sales arm of Hill House Hammond Ltd, which in turn is a subsidiary of Norwich Union. As a leading broking group, Hill House has the bast of both worlds, recognising that many of today's customers are attracted to direct telesales, whereas other customers are best served by a more local branch network (Hill House Hammond now has nearly 300 branches).
SINGLE LOCATION
Direct operations are centralised at Sheffield, and this single location deals with both motor and household insurance. Everything is under the control of general manager Tom Henderson. He started off our discussion speaking about the five-year business plan, the staff (the 300 includes part-time staff, so it's the equivalent of about 230 full-timers) and the organisation structure.
The direct operation follows many of the established traditions of Hill House, duly varied for the telesales environment. Firstly, service. "With good service up front we have a much better chance of retaining the business", says Tom Henderson.
Secondly, there is the question of price. Being a large supplier to insurers, HHH Direct has the power to negotiate more effective pricing arrangements which are usually tied in to delegated authority schemes. "It's all very price sensitive", confirms Tom Henderson, "and is becoming more so as the number of directs increase". Targeting the right markets is essential and HHH Direct use key performance indicators to show response to money spent on various campaigns, conversion rates of business, average premium and quality of customer - reflecting the desire to put good business to insurers.
And so on to the computer system. A derivation of the Hill House system is used, which in turn is a specially-written system based around the core product of Sanderson Cotswold of Bristol. It handles both motor and household and covers quotes and administration. Following the trend in the industry, HHH Direct is introducing laser printed cover notes for all business, plus laser printed proposal forms, but the...