Most of us are familiar with the term "customer journey," which tells the story of how customers interact with companies from their perspective. By identifying and understanding our customers' journeys, we can better gauge and guide their experiences with us as a company–fostering positive, long-term relationships that benefit both the customer and the organization. But the process of understanding that journey across communication and distribution channels–while creating a consistent customer experience–has largely eluded the insurance industry.

One of the primary challenges is most insurers' technology and data infrastructures don't support a customer-centric perspective. Policy-level legacy systems and applications built literally decades ago still hum in modern data centers. Over the past few years, insurers have made strides in modernizing their infrastructure, but primarily under the guise of cost and operational-efficiency.

Even with the re-architecture and implementation of new policy administration systems and new claim systems, carriers have failed to capitalize (and invest in) capabilities that drive long-term, profitable relationships. The argument being that a new policy administration system may create efficiencies and drive down long-term operational costs but won't necessarily drive new customers to the door.