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Interactive Intelligence, offering contact center and business process automation solutions, has been selected to help American Farmers & Ranchers Mutual Insurance Company (AFR) increase efficiencies and improve customer service. AFR opted to implement the content management products AcroSoft Documents and AcrosSoft ScanPlus.

AFR’s chief operating officer, Ken Branham, noted in a company statement, “The Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) content management products will help us reduce processing errors and respond faster to policy and claims questions.

“We’ll also use the products to give our state-wide agents real-time claims and policy information. Since our underwriting information isn’t in our computer systems, we’ve historically been very dependent on paper files. Now the files are available at the touch of a button, making our work processes instant and more efficient,” added Branham.

Content management products have been deployed by AFR in an effort to provide greater support to its claims and policy departments. The products are being rolled out as a company-wide comprehensive content management solution and will eventually be used by more than 170 AFR employees.

The company hopes to streamline insurance processes by digitizing documents into electronic format for more effective storage, access and routing. AFR selected the content management products from Interactive Intelligence after examining a full range of solutions from other vendors, including ImageRight and FileNet.

“In comparison to the other solutions we reviewed, Interactive Intelligence offered a greater focus on the insurance industry, along with products that were easy to use, quick to deploy, and demonstrated a lower total cost-of-ownership,” Branham said.

With this deployment, AFR anticipates additional cost savings as a result of a reduced infrastructure. The Interactive Intelligence deployment has allowed AFR to move to a new headquarters with less space.

The company is able to eliminate roughly 20,000 square feet of office space previously needed to store paper files as the AcroSoft products can be used to electronically scan and index roughly 10,000 files per week.

“The unique Interactive Intelligence AcroSoft ‘Live in Five’ deployment and training program made good on its promise of getting us up and running in five days or less,” Branham said. “Put simply, Interactive Intelligence’s knowledge of workflows for the insurance industry has enabled us to deploy faster for a faster ROI.”

In other Interactive Intelligence news, the company is working to gain better positioning in the New Zealand market and to boost its profile; it is campaigning with distribution and resale partner Amtel (News - Alert). This effort is combined with the launch of the company's business process automation solution, Interaction Process Automation, in the country.