Zurich Insurance gets future-ready with Microsoft 365 tools that modernize customer service

Saving time and offering more choices—using Bookings to transform the customer experience

With Bookings, Zurich Insurance uncovered a modern, intuitive method for customers to contact the company, scheduling appointments in just one step. This is a significant improvement over the time-consuming processes of the past when customers completed online forms and waited for a scheduling call.

“As a result of our new online appointment service supported by Microsoft Bookings, we see more customers and create a sense of trust right from the start,” says El Badarin-Deriy. “People discover how easy it is to make an appointment with us and are immediately interested in the rest of the services we provide.”

During an appointment, agents use Teams features like Microsoft Whiteboard and screen sharing to walk customers through their options, such as sharing premium calculators to illustrate price comparisons. Because meetings are automatically scheduled, agents have more time to focus on customer interactions. “Our adoption of Bookings has helped create enormous time savings for our agents,” says Fritzler. “Employees now spend less time on administrative tasks and more time interacting with customers and cultivating new business.”

Sebastian Dull, Agency Owner at Zurich Insurance, jumped at the opportunity to offer customers more choice and flexibility in how they want to engage. “People don’t normally think about insurance every day,” he says. “It’s important to reach customers wherever they find it easiest and create new ways for people to connect with us.” Dull uses Bookings to schedule Teams meetings and phone calls, which has allowed him to retire a custom-made solution and save costs. “We now have all the features we need without having to pay for added services, a monthly savings of 20 euros per user,” he says.

For El Badarin-Deriy and his colleagues, adding Bookings to each agency’s website proved to be relatively simple. “We thought it would take a lot of effort and programing, but that wasn’t the case,” says El Badarin-Deriy. “Instead, we used the capabilities built into Bookings to add it to agency websites—while maintaining our corporate branding. It was so easy that we didn’t need a programmer, which helped reduce costs.”

Teams adoption takes off at Zurich Insurance—a modern workplace boosts employee satisfaction

Zurich Insurance employees’ success with Bookings inspired them to use more Microsoft 365 tools. “Bookings was like an appetizer for the rest of the Microsoft 365 suite,” says El Badarin-Deriy. “Colleagues started to get curious about what other Microsoft tools they could use to improve their days. Teams was first, and we quickly evolved from using it for digital meetings with customers to making it the organization’s go-to tool for remote work—and now, hybrid work.”

“In late 2019, we equipped all of our internal staff and agents with Dell Latitude 5400 and 7400 devices,” says Jens Becker, Chief Information Officer at Zurich Insurance Germany. “Using these new devices with Microsoft 365 collaboration tools such as Teams and SharePoint simplified our transition to remote work and will remain a cornerstone of our hybrid work strategy.”

Zurich Insurance received an improved Employee Net Promoter Score following that transition. “We worked hard to ensure that everyone had a productive work environment at home,” says Becker. “Providing employees with Microsoft 365 tools contributed to a +38 increase in employee satisfaction since 2019.”

Not only did Zurich Insurance employees quickly acclimate to remote work, but they also used Teams to strengthen communication across the company. “People are changing their collaboration behaviors,” notes Becker. “Colleagues send fewer emails, gravitating toward the chat feature in Teams instead. People also use a lot of GIFs and emojis to express themselves.” 

This direct, natural mode of communication supports Zurich’s overall workplace transformation and culture goals. “Teams fits perfectly with the culture we’re trying to cultivate at Zurich,” says Becker. “We’re sharing more than facts and figures—we’re talking about our feelings, too. And we now also have a more agile way of working. We communicate key information easily across departments, such as IT and business teams, to make decisions faster and support our goals for a more agile, collaborative workplace.”

Spending more time with customers—digitizing processes with Microsoft 365 tools

Since adopting Teams, Bookings, and a host of other collaboration tools from Microsoft 365, Zurich Insurance employees are implementing workplace process automation using Microsoft Power Automate. “Our job is to spend time with customers, not move paper from A to B,” says Dull. “Today, we use Power Automate to save up to 10 hours a week by simplifying paper-based processes. For example, now we automatically collect materials for customer meetings and inform relevant salespeople about upcoming meetings.”

Zurich Insurance employees have improved other processes by using Microsoft 365 productivity tools like Microsoft To Do, Forms, and Planner. “We’re heavy users of Forms to assess how well employees are coping with new projects,” says Dull. “This helps ensure that everyone stays on the same page. And Planner is now very popular for coordinating projects with multiple stakeholders. We’re completing projects faster because we don’t waste time delegating and discussing the project—everyone knows what they need to do and what stage the work is at.”

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is also gaining traction at Zurich Insurance. “We’ve already enabled all of our agents with Dynamics 365, and we’re looking to extend those capabilities to our entire operations team to support them with rich customer insights,” says Becker.

Embracing the future of hybrid work—gaining flexible collaboration through Teams Rooms

To facilitate a flexible return to the office, Zurich Insurance is exploring a hybrid work scenario using Microsoft 365 tools. “We’ve started to update some of our conference rooms to enable hybrid work,” says El Badarin-Deriy. “We’re adding Teams Rooms systems and using Whiteboard capabilities in Teams for more effective meetings with customers.” Zurich Insurance has deployed nearly 200 Teams Rooms across the company, which includes features like one-touch join. “For a successful hybrid work scenario, it’s crucial that we deliver a seamless solution for remote teams to connect,” says Becker.

Offering a flexible, highly effective hybrid work scenario is one way that Zurich Insurance plans to boost its reputation as an attractive employer. “Everyone entering the market now expects hybrid work capabilities,” says Becker. “It’s essential that we have tools in place to create a flexible, productive environment for everyone.”

The future of work at Zurich Insurance also includes the use of Teams Phone. “Employees frequently tell us that they would prefer to get their calls directly in Teams,” says El Badarin-Deriy. “Teams Phone is already working well, and we’re very interested in reducing the reliance on office phones throughout our organization,” says Becker.

Enhancing security and compliance—Microsoft 365 E5 to help address GDPR requirements

The company’s goals of boosting security and helping ensure compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also motivated Zurich Insurance to explore moving to Microsoft 365 E5. “Working in the insurance industry in Europe, we’re always monitoring our compliance with GDPR,” says Becker. “We gravitated toward Microsoft 365 E5 capabilities like Cloud App Security and Azure Active Directory Premium P2 to help us maintain our security and compliance posture and protect our customers’ data.”

Becker goes on to note that GDPR compliance also involves storing data in Europe. “We decided to explore Microsoft 365 E5 because of its crucial capabilities to help us fulfill certain GDPR requirements like data storage location,” agrees El Badarin-Deriy. “We now plan to roll it out to 10,000 users across Zurich Insurance.”

Becker and his IT colleagues also migrated from Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager to Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Microsoft Intune, for managing devices. “Intune gives us more freedom and flexibility, and the automated updates help simplify management,” says Becker. 

There is also a cost benefit to managing devices with Endpoint Manager. Explains Fritzler, “We paid a lot of money to a third party for device management, but today that’s no longer necessary because we manage devices ourselves with Endpoint Manager.”

Zurich Insurance also uses Windows Autopilot to streamline device configuration. “Onboarding will become much easier with Windows Autopilot,” says El Badarin-Deriy. “New users can be productive quickly by signing in to a preconfigured device, which also saves time for the IT team.”

Developing new solutions, faster—Microsoft 365 has a lasting effect on customer solutions

Zurich Insurance launched Bookings with the goal of making it easier for agents and customers to connect. Since then, employees’ full-scale adoption of Microsoft 365 tools has led to a significant change in workplace processes and culture.

“Alongside the change in technology, we’ve undergone a tremendous change in mindset at Zurich Insurance,” concludes Fritzler. “Today, our colleagues are future-ready, embracing leading-edge productivity tools to help us develop new solutions for our customers, faster. That’s the lasting impact of embracing Microsoft 365.”

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