case study - exl service · improving imaging turnaround time and quality by 97.5% for an l&a...

IMPROVING IMAGING TURNAROUND TIME AND QUALITY BY 97.5% FOR AN L&A INSURER

MAILROOM EXPERTISE DIGITAL ONE-TOUCH IMAGING

CASE STUDY

© EXL Service, Inc. All rights reserved.

EXLSERVICE.COM

CASE STUDY


A large L&A insurer faced the challenge of sorting, cataloguing and

digitizing crucial hard copy documents such as insurance policies and

customer requests received through the mail. This included managing

dozens of PO Boxes and fax numbers that receive hundreds of types

of documents with largely non-standard data, all needing to be sorted

according to hundreds of business rules across all their products and

services.

Context

EXL used its digital document management expertise and deep L&A

insurance experience to ensure that documents were processed right

the first time. “Do it right the first time” (DRIFT) is a simple, widely-used

phrase in supply chain or lean processes. In an imaging environment, it

has a direct correlation with cycle time.

For an intake solution, DRIFT should get triggered from the time an

organization defines its products or services. Organizations invest a

lot of money and manpower to order requests into the right queue so

they are routed to the processing units responsible for that product or

service. Often called upfront classification, the legacy environment for

this task is a manual, people-intensive approach intended to reduce

exceptions and mistakes, but at the same time delays the time it takes

documents to reach the processing units.

To overhaul this approach, EXL set out to redesign processes so that

how a request was received governed how it would be managed.

Documents can arrive as print hard copy mail, email, fax, or digital

channels like web portals. The inherent efficiency in DRIFT depends

upon how the product or service has been aligned to the input sources.

A straightforward approach is to set up one common input per source,

but this creates a lot of manual work if multiple types of requests are

received through the same PO Box or email address. With that in mind,

EXL set up individual input channels to take care of the pre-sorting or

upfront classification by service or product.

“ The above approach not only ensured clean inputs, but also reduced the exception rates significantly, reduced the cost of manpower used for upfront classification and exception management, and improved the cycle time. This allowed customer requests to be serviced earlier in the process by minimizing the lead time between receipt and imaging.”

“The company partnered with EXL to digitally

transform its mailroom to support document content extraction and automated

classification for simplified document management”

2EXLSERVICE.COM © EXL Service, Inc. All rights reserved.


Orchestration

While it is important to get the input sources aligned by product or

service lines, it is equally important to use the right equipment to

service. The most costly intake problem the client faced was managing

paper documents.

The original process saw challenges at every stage including handling,

preparation, imaging and archival. Paper requires people to touch it

from picking it up from the post office, receiving it at the mail center,

and then extensive prepping, all while the expensive scanner sits idle

for work to arrive. The agony doesn’t end there. Once scanned, the

problem of archival and data retrieval begins, itself a multi-million dollar

investment for many companies.

EXL implemented a one-touch imaging solution using the latest in

scanning and mailroom technology. Now, the client’s employees

needed only to load a batch of envelopes received directly from the

mail carrier on the feeder, which then pushed one envelope at a time

through the integrated envelope opener, which then awards the open

envelope neatly to the operator to retrieve the contents. The operator

then separates the documents from the envelopes and lays them both

onto the conveyor. The scanner detects the thickness of the paper and

pulls one page at a time to scan as simplex or duplex, depending upon

its contents, and adjusts the image position automatically. During this

process, the scan operator also has the option to tag documents for

later archival, with encoding on to the back of the envelope for easy

retrieval.

Outcomes

After moving from a legacy process to digitized single-touch scanning,

EXL improved cycle times significantly and helped the client easily meet

targets of more than 99.75% turnaround time and quality improvement.

The client also eliminated costs by rationalizing headcount at the scan

center and reduced hours-per-resource due to the efficiency brought in

by the scanner by completely eliminating many steps.

3EXLSERVICE.COM © EXL Service, Inc. All rights reserved.

EXLSERVICE.COM


EXL (NASDAQ: EXLS) is a leading operations management and analytics company that designs and enables agile, customer-centric operating models to help businesses enhance revenue growth and profitability. Our delivery model provides market-leading business outcomes using EXL’s proprietary Digital EXLerator™ Framework, cutting-edge analytics, digital transformation and domain expertise. At EXL, we look deeper to help companies improve global operations, enhance data-driven insights, increase customer satisfaction, and manage risk and compliance. EXL serves the insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, utilities, travel, transportation and logistics industries. Headquartered in New York, New York, EXL has more than 29,000 professionals in locations throughout the United States, Europe, Asia (primarily India and Philippines), Latin America, Australia and South Africa.

For more information, visit www.exlservice.com

Share ShareTweet

To find out more about how EXL uses Digital Intelligence to help insurers transform, contact us

Context

• Client struggled with sorting, cataloguing, and digitizing hard copy document

• Applied DRIFT principles to overhaul process

• Switched from upfront classification for mail to individual input channels rather than pre-sorting by service or product

• Minimized time between receiving document and imaging

Orchestration

• Applied one-touch imaging solution

• Solution automates opening envelopes and speeds up operator scanning contents

• Documents can then be tagged for archival, with encoding placed onto the back of the envelope for easy retrieval

Outcomes

• Eliminated costs through reducing the need for resources per hour

• Cut out or automated many inessential steps

• Saw a 99.75% improvement in turnaround time and quality

SUMMARY

© EXL Service, Inc. All rights reserved.