Power Apps: Creating an exceptional customer experience for William Russell

William Russell has offered expat insurance since 1992. Today, it is the partner of choice for people living and working abroad who need insurance products and health-related benefits and services. The company’s family ethos puts its members at the heart of everything it does, building an insurance experience that’s both personal and fair. 

Customer expectations are continually evolving, not least through the pandemic. Customers increasingly want self-service options and interactive digital information. To enable this transformation, William Russell turned to Microsoft and the automation tools of the Microsoft Power Platform.

Powering digital transformation

Saadan Rehman, IT Program Manager at William Russell, explains, “Because we want to be a FinTech company, technology is at the crux of what we are doing.”

“And we want technology to work for us and the customer,” emphasises Avin Talabani, William Russell’s Transformation Manager.

To enhance the customer experience, William Russell began by automating online quotations for its customers, using Power Apps to create a solution quickly and easily. Furthermore, it delivers tight integration with the company’s core customer records system, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales.

Enhancing customer experience, maximising conversions 

The process of requesting a quote online and progressing to a sale has been eased considerably – both for the customer and for the William Russell team. 

“Power Apps has driven our online quoting ability,” says Michael Lewars, Commercial Director at William Russell.

Saadan Rehman explains, “Everything is in real time. As soon as the data is entered by the customer, a request is raised and the prices generated on the fly. And it is tightly knit with Dynamics 365 Sales.”

Avin Talabani adds, “When our sales agents do pick up the phone and speak to [our customers], they have a lot more information about them to hand, so it’s a much more productive conversation. We’ve done the initial analysis of what was the impact – before and after we released Power Portals – and what we’ve found is we’re able to convert 50% more of those quotes than we previously had been able to.”

Further enhancements will drive growth

“We’re really excited to be a partner with Microsoft,” says Inez Cooper, Founder and Managing Director at William Russell. “Because of the service we’ve been able to give, we’ve built up a lot of trust. We want to use technology to bring our health-related services and insurance products and also our personal ethos and values to our customers.”