No one is safe from a catastrophe. Anyone can experience an accident or material damage. And in these situations, you know the adage: Prevention is better than a cure. So to protect themselves, individuals and professionals sign up for insurance and pensions.
Their expectations? To be covered in case of misfortune…and, above all, to get a maximum of information from their insurers. Today, precision, rapidity and availability are the pillars of customer relations.
To meet their customers’ needs efficiently and bring a good customer service, financial services companies in general, and insurance companies in particular, have several priorities. Two of them are: to optimise their processes thanks to the digitalisation of the customer experience and to fight against the threat of new competitors in the highly competitive market of the insurance industry. To meet this double challenge, insurers can bet on one key solution: self-service.
In this article, discover how self-service responds to the needs of insurers and policyholders and to get the maximum customer retention, throughout the customer journey. Smart Tribune is sharing 6 keys to improving insurance customer service thanks to self-care solutions.
Imagine: Mrs. Smith would like to buy some home insurance. And the good news is that she is not lacking for choice. To make her decision, different criteria are important to her: the quality of the insurance customer service; clear information regarding the contract; a simple and intuitive signup process; availability and flexibility on the part of the insurer, etc.
Like 52% of consumers and 80% of Millennials, Mrs. Smith is ready to sign up for an insurtech insurance (Bain & Company, 2018). These new actors (neo-insurers) rely on a 100% digital model. Signup takes 2 minutes and reimbursements are made in 1 click. It’s a real 2.0 revolution which threatens more traditional actors in the sector.
In the end, Mrs. Smith opts for a traditional insurer. Conscious of their clients’ demanding criteria, of the reality of the market, and of the acceleration of the digital transformation, the insurer recently made a decision: to set up self-care tools to improve customer experience and satisfaction.
Like 73% of the insurers who envision strategic investments in self-service over the next two years, Mrs. Smith’s insurer has realised something: that digital transformation is a necessity for the insurance industry. And in their eyes, as for 84.12% of the sector, self-service is one of the main pillars of the digital transformation (L’assurance en mouvement, 2022).
Self-service consists of giving customers and prospects the possibility of using online or collaborative resources in order to find relevant and instant answers to their questions. Self-service relies on tools that automate responses to simple questions, 24/7. Besides making the user experience more clear and intuitive, these tools help free up customer services. In the banking and insurance sector, self-service can decrease solicitations of customer service by 12% on average.
Among the most appreciated self-service tools for insurance customer service:
At the start of their journey, the policyholder expects an easy, quick sign-up process. At the same time, and in the face of complex products and offers (life insurance, reimbursements for treatment, guarantees, etc.), insurance providers must present a simple and intuitive offer. Because signing up for an insurance product is mostly considered an obligation (like with car insurance, for example), the role of the insurer is to improve the “experience,” turning it into a seamless, pleasant customer experience without friction.
Then, throughout the customer journey, the policyholder hopes for adequate availability and quality service. Let’s go back to Mrs. Smith, who signed up for some home insurance a few months ago. She has just noticed a leak in her house and she contacts her insurance immediately to report this unpredicted event.
Her immediate need is to be reassured, to speak with someone she trusts, to be guided along the process. She expects a real understanding of the situation and seamless service from her insurer. For example, if there’s an error in the claim, that could slow down reimbursements, which heavily impacts customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
To meet these expectations, the user experience must be pushed to the maximum, in particular, in these three strategic steps of the policyholder’s journey:
The good news is that throughout the customer journey (especially during these three steps) self-service is a precious ally for insurance companies.
1. Qualify the need to simplify procedures for policyholders
2. Optimise the customer journey to improve conversion and satisfaction
3. To increase agent availability thanks to self-service
4. Overcome seasonality and unpredictable events thanks to self-service
5. Grow the level of team knowledge thanks to internal self-service
6. Collect feedback to improve service for policyholders
Let’s return to the example of Mrs. Smith. Her leak began on Sunday evening. Her first reaction was to use the insurance company’s dynamic FAQ to see what steps to take. With this self-service tool that guarantees customer autonomy, her need was fulfilled instantly. Based on the keyword “leak”, the dynamic FAQ offered a precise and instant response.
Self-service qualifies user needs, simplifying the process. The more precise a user’s search, the more precise the response. And if the policyholder can’t find the answer, the self-care tool facilitates the escalation of contact to customer service.
If Mrs. Smith had used a chatbot, the tool would also have met her expectations. For example, thanks to a question asked with the word “leak”, the tool instantly records the need and the request. In the face of a complex situation, the request is forwarded to an agent who can immediately see the issue at hand. Thanks to self-service, there’s no more need to re-explain the problem that needs to be resolved: the transmission of information is omnichannel! It’s a real time savings for customers and agents.
A few years ago, when customers made a claim and need to find customer support, they had to go to the insurance company’s office. Today, the customer journey is going digital and getting simpler at the same time. Whatever their need, customers can now count on the same level of good customer service but remotely.
Using a chatbot, a help box, a dynamic FAQ…the points of contact are multiplying while support time is decreasing. On the professional side, 37% of insurance companies aim for an immediate treatment of signups, and 31% try to manage claims within a day (L’assurance en Mouvement, 2019). At each step of the customer journey, immediacy remains a priority for all.
This optimisation of the customer journey in financial services thanks to self-service removes the obstacles to making a purchase. Active 24/7, these tools improve conversion, all while delivering a rapid, memorable experience, which contributes to the reinforcement of customer satisfaction and retention and a better insurance customer experience. Ultimately, it’s a virtuous cycle for insurance companies: conversion, retention, satisfaction. The impacts on insurance customer service are many!
For many years, in the insurance sector, the availability of agents was strongly affected by one key element: the lack of diversity and variety in communication channels. So even for the simplest issue, whatever the issue, whether a serious accident or a forgotten password, a claim or a request for a certificate, contact centres and agents were the only points of contact.
Now, self-service reduces the incoming flow of requests to agents. Incoming tickets that are considered simple (level 1 requests) can be automated. For example, a chatbot can respond to low value added requests, and also direct customers to a dynamic FAQ for more information.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, self-care tools can evaluate and prioritise needs. Thus, it can automatically treat a request, direct a user to a complementary resource, or facilitate the escalation of contact to customer service. With these automated solutions, insurance customer service agents are more available. The tools help the agents, they don’t replace them.
In the insurance sector, some periods are busier than others. For example, during back-to-school season, we find an increase in the purchase of student insurance. At the beginning of the year, there may be peaks in subscriptions or cancellations due to renewals of insurance policies. And although known within the insurance industry, this seasonality is not always easy to anticipate. In theory, one would have to increase customer service staff, for short periods of time. But in reality, the most lasting solution is elsewhere, in a nutshell: self-service.
For example, a conversational AI trained to manage certain seasonal situations can free up insurance customer service teams. But that's not all! In the face of sometimes unpredictable events, these tools are also a huge help. Consider hail storms, hurricanes, flooding, fires…all these climatic events impact the over-solicitation of insurance customer service.
In the face of these emergencies, insurance industry professionals cannot leave customers waiting in panic and uncertainty. They want to quickly obtain information about their rights to reimbursement, to start having work done, or replacing damaged property. Self-service tools are once again the key to improving the insurance customer experience. For example, in the case of a weather event, insurance companies’ dynamic FAQs in affected areas can be updated in real time. The challenge for insurance customer service is to facilitate access to information to a large number of people, by writing questions and answers that respond to user key words. Bonus feature: This content is “SEO friendly” and helps improve natural referencing for the site and its FAQs.
The domain of insurance is complex, requiring agents to have a complex level of expertise, regarding things like the purchase of a contract, making a claim or getting information about damages and guarantees. Industry knowledge and customer knowledge should go together in order to meet expectations.
To get there, employees can count on an internal knowledge base (like Smart Knowledge) for a better customer support. This tool, accessible only to team members, centralises all company and customer information. In a single place, employees can access processes, talking points and essential information regarding the company and its products.
This self-service tool is a real advantage for every insurance customer service team to get build your customer loyalty and brand loyalty. No more need to search indefinitely for information across various tools, or to ask a manager in a complex case. All the solutions are centralised in this database, so teams can help customers in a precise, personalised way.
Self-service is an excellent means for collecting policyholder feedback. This feedback enables the evaluation of the quality of customer service provided. By measuring and analysing comments, insurance companies demonstrate ongoing improvement. Today, there are 3 sources of feedback:
The insurance sector is going digital and becoming more and more competitive. At the same time, customer expectations are evolving in every customer service team. Throughout the process, the keywords are: instantaneity, precision, smoothness, autonomy. So to efficiently respond to the demands of the market, the solution is self-service!
Self-service tools improve insurance customer experiences, all while reducing the workload of customer service, while improving customer loyalty and customer retention. Everyone wins, all the time.
Check more: Smart Tribune's insurance customers.