How Erie Insurance Transformed Its Events with Vbrick

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Company Overview

ERIE is an insurance provider primarily offering customers personal insurance like auto, home, and life policy plans. With around 6,000 employees and 13,000 agents, ERIE has carved out a sprawling customer base across the eastern and midwestern United States.

Since its founding in 1925, ERIE has put customer service at the very top of its list of priorities. Not only does that mean providing plans that fit customers’ specific needs, but also making sure customers have all the information they need to make the right insurance decisions for them.

Where it Started

The partnership with Vbrick began several years ago. ERIE was looking for a solution that enabled it to connect its various branches and agents via video streaming across multiple locations without crashing its networks.

Vbrick’s earlier solutions were a perfect fit, and both organizations have evolved alongside each other as market demands have changed. ERIE started out on Flix, an older Vbrick acquisition, before moving to VEMS (another Vbrick legacy solution). From there, the partnership tightened as Vbrick’s product offerings continued to develop and met ERIE’s new challenges.

Vbrick’s on-premise Rev platform allowed ERIE to handle the immense bandwidth challenges that came with running live-streamed events. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationship has transitioned again as ERIE began using the cloud-based Rev iteration to facilitate aspects of its virtual workplace.

Streaming Open-Door Events Throughout the Year

ERIE hosts regular private events exclusively for employees and stakeholders. Speakers typically cover key financial information for the quarter or the year and provide any necessary company updates. These events are critical for making important announcements and ensuring cross-departmental alignment.

Using Rev’s built-in enterprise content delivery network (eCDN), ERIE’s servers are easily able to handle the bandwidth from viewers streaming across numerous different locations. At the same time, Rev ensures a clear viewing experience for all participants. “We needed the ability to stream video without crashing our networks,” said Steven Lucas, an IT administrator at ERIE. “That’s one of the big reasons to use a solution like this.”

“We needed the ability to stream video without crashing our networks,” said Steven Lucas, an IT administrator at ERIE. “That’s one of the big reasons to use a solution like this.”

Steven Lucas, IT Administrator, ERIE

Employee Engagement is at the Heart of what ERIE — and Vbrick — Do

ERIE’s live-streamed events also play a vital part in cultivating employee engagement, boosting retention and creating a tight, welcoming company culture. That’s more important now that ERIE is fully remote and foresees itself operating a hybrid work model in the future.

Rev integrates seamlessly with ERIE’s preferred video-conferencing platform, Microsoft Teams, to enable the company to host virtual meetings, happy hours and other streamed events to maintain strong employee engagement in the post-pandemic world.

Moving to Other Parts of the Business

As part of its pandemic rethink, ERIE is actively considering new ways to deploy Rev to other parts of the business. Until recently, it relied on Rev strictly for internal events and communications, but the pandemic presented a new opportunity to host externally facing events for public audiences.

ERIE tested the waters of this approach in July 2021 when it hosted a learning symposium that was open to members of the public and consisted of eight live and 10 pre-recorded events. “[The learning symposium] was a really good experience,” said Lucas. “Having all of our agents and customers be able to come in and watch that without joining a Webex or Teams meeting. It gave it more of a presentation feel.”

The success of the learning symposium led executives and team members across ERIE to take notice and begin exploring the possibility of hosting their own public events using Rev.

As ERIE explores expanding its use of video, the partnership will continue to deepen as it leans more heavily on Vbrick’s solutions for its video streaming needs.

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