Transformation in Insurance – The Changing face of the customer
By 2020, half of the world’ s population is expected to be connected to the internet via mobile devices, 90% of the population over 6 years old are expected to have a mobile device and over two-third of then world’ s population are expected to actively use social networks. The last decade has seen unprecedented growth on this front, while the next ten years are likely to see even more explosive growth in internet, mobile and social penetration. The insurance segment like most industries serving the end customer, recognizes this opportunity and are at varying levels of maturity to leverage digital to enrich customer engagement and customer experience.
End customers increasingly prefer using online channels to research on various products, continuously evaluate feedback from other customers, evaluate pricing options and conduct transactions. Customers are willing to switch in favor of providers who enable them to transact seamlessly. The insurance segment that until recently, largely focused on product design and innovation, has embarked on a journey to transform customer engagement and experience. They recognize that this needs needs equal if not more focus to gain market share and achieve revenue growth. This means that insurers need to automate not only presales and post sales support, but also underwriting and policy issuance. Most insurers are executing on their strategy to interact with their customers via mobile apps, social, SMS etc.
However, what differentiates best in class insurers is that they are much ahead of the maturity curve in terms of a 360 degree understanding of the customer, putting together a customer communications program and harmonizing interactions across channels. They also provide consistent, personalized and contextual information and support across the lifecycle of the customer to build customer loyalty and stickiness. After all, customers are more likely to trust an insurer who cares for them, are available when needed and are able to interact with complete transparency and ease.
360 view:
Customers could be viewed in the context of their KYC data and onboarding documentation, premium paying pattern, call logs and related conversations, coverage changes as well as claims related documentation. Clickstream data from customer facing websites could present information on browsing patterns and social feeds. Information from telematics for instance, can present useful information on the driving patterns of the consumer or health and lifestyle information that can present tremendous insights and be leveraged for customer engagement. Geo-spatial and other asset tracking applications can provide useful information about the location and condition of the underlying asset and provide reminders, alerts etc. This data could be very useful to compute a differentiated premium at the time of renewal to ensure more profitable and long lasting customers. Some insurers have tie-ups with manufacturers where they charge a lesser premium to customers who opt to buy say additional safety features at the point of sale. IOT (Internet of Things) devices allow insurers to have a greater control on the health of underlying assets, and use this data during discussions relate to policy renewals or claims. Insurers are putting together the right tools and technologies to aggregate massive amounts of both structured and unstructured data, validate and ensure data accuracy and run analytics to present behavior, patterns and insights for further action.
Cross Channel Engagement:
Customers are increasingly evaluating their experience with insurers in comparison to the high benchmark of customer engagement across other industries. They prefer to have a transparent and seamless experience across a variety of devices and channels (both digital and non-digital). Insurers are putting in place multi channel event triggering, predictive analytics and real time decision tools and processes to be able to serve customers at the point they need them. Understanding the customer’ s choice of engagement and establishing ease of engagement is paramount to enabling the right experience for them. At the same time, insurers must be able to translate customer data received from various channels into useful insights to drive the intended customer behavior and provide related incentives to build loyalty. For instance, some health insurers not only provide the right tools necessary for customers to track their health parameters after a surgery, but also set alerts for regular checks or provide incentives to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Providing a digital experience though, cannot obviate the need for a physical channel, since several customers may still have a need to physically and virtually connect to someone especially when dealing with complex insurance products.
Customer Communications Program:
Insurers are putting in place technologies to create and deliver targeted and personalized outbound communication to their customers via multiple channels including emails, documents, SMS’ s and web pages. Customers engage with organizations that provide contextual and relevant information across the channels they prefer. Insurers could use predictive analytics and rules based content generation programs to offer targeted and timely offers to customers, which not only results in a higher probability that customers will avail, but also increases the engagement with them.
Customer engagement needs to be looked at holistically and not piecemeal. Technology will continue to play an increasingly important role to achieve these possibilities. The first challenge is to fix the back office where new and old legacy systems will need to be integrated to have full visibility to the already available wealth of information. Data quality will need to be assessed and tools put in place to ensure high quality of data. A well thought through digital strategy and execution plan will mean taking into consideration the as-is, the overall business goals and establish a set of priorities, based on what needs to come in during the different phases to achieve these goals. Putting customers at the center of your organization means not only ensuring long term buy-in from the senior management layer, but also commitment in the form of time and resources to make this transformation happen.
As a famous quote goes “The customer’ s perception is your reality”. Getting a good sense of who the customer is, and providing them a unique, rich experience in engaging with your brand makes a big difference to the customer’ s perception of your brand and if done well continuously, can create a lasting positive impact.
