Customers approach insurers at the time of need, loss and crisis - this is more critical than ever considering the COVID-19 outbreak the world is dealing with. Therefore, streamlining a customer experience strategy for the insurance sector assumes greater importance as customers require a simplified and hassle-free process in these testing times.

Present Challenges

Given the need for insurers to adopt digital transformation, insurers are still lagging in their approach towards digital innovation and delivery of personalized solutions. Most insurers are still struggling to modernize their complex and disjointed legacy systems with data pertaining to customers, contacts, claims, policies, and communications spread across multiple devices and systems. All this leads to a pain-staking slow service delivery and frustrating customer experience, converting into a high churn rate.

COVID-19 is going to be a litmus test for most enterprises, especially, the digital laggards. The present crisis demands enterprises that are digitally sound across all their product and communication life cycle traversing brand awareness, to product/service delivery and purchase as well as customer support.

According to a study by J.D. Power, while price remains a dominant factor for measuring the quality of customer experience, online and offline customer interaction, billing and payment, policy offerings and customer support among others are emerging as important factors to satisfy customer expectations.

In the preceding blog we have discussed how customer experience transformation is crucial for insurers and what it means for them. In this blog, we will delve deeper into the customer journey of an insurance buyer and what are the key customer focus areas where insurers generally lag and where they need to deliver.

Customer Experience Focus 1: Branding & Awareness Phase

Insurers need to proactively improve customer experience right from the branding & awareness phase. In the present scenario, instead of insurers looking to drive demand and initiate communication, customers themselves seek coverage out of necessity and sometimes desire, with change in personal situation triggering them to enter the awareness phase.

Insurers thus need to promote their products and services to customers more proactively, instead of being passive in their relationship. Insurers need to take ownership, design products and interact with their customers for comprehensive risks and the need to guard against them.

Customer Experience Focus 2: Purchase Phase

Growth of digital channels has changed the traditional purchasing platforms for customers as more and more of them tend to prefer digital and remote channel options to interact and finalize transactions. Insurers need to be present across all channels and offer customers the option to make their purchasing decisions across all digital platforms including company website, social media and comparison portals, with highly personalized offerings, tailor-made to the specific need of every individual customer. Customers today place high importance and prefer insurers who offer them ease of experience and flawless customer journey.

Apart from a robust digital solution and superior personalization capabilities, insurers need to take an extra step in reaching out to customers before the need arises with a tailor-made product that is both relevant and inspiring. The need is to design a balanced mix of high-volume digital interaction and personalization at the individual level.

Customer Experience Focus 3: Support Phase

Support is the most critical aspect for insurers as this does not create loyalty but also brings in new customers. Insurance claims and settlement process forms critical element in the customer experience delivery as customers do not simply want their needs to be met but also some empathy to come out of a tragic and crisis circumstances. Insurers, here, need to be not just quick and fast but also personal and relevant.

Customers apart from quick and stress-free access to the company seek a counsel and supportive organizational interface that interacts with them across all possible digital channels- including over email, chat, mobile or even self-service. Insurers must ensure a quick, seamless and individualized claim settlement and payment processing.

Finally, to enable an efficient customer experience strategy, insurers need to streamline their internal operations, automate their processes and leverage cutting edge technologies at every stage of the customer journey. Adapting to unique needs of customer with an awe-inspiring experience creates avenues for on-boarding loyal customers and, more importantly, brand ambassadors for the organization.

And what more? COVID-19 has given you all the opportunity to test, validate and ensure the reliability of your digital transformation and customer experience initiatives. Its time to not lag but is time to lead!

At Espire, we stand together with our client helping them deliver above par CX transformation in their journey to digitally transform their services. Espire is enabling Insurance companies worldwide to revamp their digital experience management and CX strategy, resulting in up to 20-30% increase in revenue through new digital channels.

You can reach our experts at Espire Infolabs for a quick consultation at www.espire.com/quick-contact. For any query, get in touch with us at markting@espire.com & subscribe to our blog to learn more for latest insights & updates.