"We prioritized the issues to find what we could provide [agents with] on their BlackBerrys or mobile devices to keep them from having to make a call to get that information," Shields says.

Then they piloted the new app with a number of groups of agents throughout different geographical regions, and it didn't take long to see it was a success.

"The feedback was phenomenal," Shields says. "One associate told me 'I saved an account because of it,' Shields said.

A customer had asked the agent a question about an account, and instead of having to make a phone call or head back to the office, the answer to the inquiry was available instantly via Mobile.Aflac.

"[He] so impressed with the availability of information and how much information he could access [via the mobile application] that it saved the account," Shields says.

Mobile.Aflac was made available to the company's entire field force on January 6, and there are already thousands of Aflac associates using it. Shields also says the company is currently working on seven or eight additional Mobile.Aflac applications related to policy claims and enrollment, though he won't go into specifics.

Lessons Learned from Aflac's Implementation

The process of mobilizing services and applications paid off for Aflac, but it wasn't simple.

One challenge Aflac faced in developing the Mobile.Aflac project, which it did all in-house, was users' desire for device independence.

To overcome the issue of having to write the application multiple times for a variety of devices, Aflac built the app specifically for BlackBerrys. But even though the Mobile.Aflac applications are written for the BlackBerry Browser, most of the functionality is available to users of other Windows Mobile, Palm or Symbian devices, Shields says.

"It is impossible to be totally device independent," according to Shields. "Some folks want to use the Treos they've had for years" he says. "Aflac doesn't tell them they can't," only that the applications are written for BlackBerrys, and that the company will only guarantee complete functionality on RIM devices.

And the applications are also accessible by notebook computer, so users can take advantage of the extra screen real estate if they've got a laptop handy.

Which leads to another challenge: How do you present the necessary critical information on such tiny mobile device screens? Aflac used the information gleaned from IT's visits to field agents to determine which information was essential and made sure that information was easily available and easily accessible from home or menu screens, sacrificing or burying less essential data.