Successful sophisticated customer journey mapping will unlock opportunities to enhance customer strategies in a targeted, methodical manner, says IQPC.

Related: Insurers facing customer satisfaction challenge

Here are 10 lessons in sophisticated customer journey mapping for the insurance industry.

1. Start with the customer

Insurers should log what clients actually do, not what they assume they do. By tracking the actual trail of the customer, companies can see which aspects can go wrong at certain points, how they can be avoided as well as the things that can go right and how to enhance these occurrences. This map will be of much more use to insurers than a map which is essentially an estimation of the journey customers go through.

Related: Using IoT to better serve customers

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2. Segmenting: Get it right

It's not enough to collect the right data; insurers also need to have a plan on how to use the data right in order to correctly personalize. IQPC recommends organizing data into different categories — but be careful not to make too reductive categorizations of customers. Instead, using data to sculpt personas will aid in predicting customer behavior.

For example, some have managed to achieve categorizations noting if a customer is of an applauding, neutral or skeptical nature, according to the IQPC report. Other fields of interest could include:

• Age.
• Gender.
• Nationality.
• Occupation Standards.
• Relationship status.
• Loyalty and previous transactions with your firm.
• Activity on social media.
• Smart device usage.
• Preferred communication channel.

These aspects are likely signals for a consumer's wants in their specific life stage. With this understanding insurers can recommend and provide appropriate coverage options as well as field questions or issues and reduce losses

Related: 5 common CRM fails — and how to avoid them

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3. Look deeper

The report stresses the importance of really looking at the data with granularity. If possible, insurers should try going through the customer journey themselves to really understand. If they don't track the journey with enough detail, insurers run the risk of missing important intelligence that can be gained in improving the customer experience.

Related: How carriers can leverage the power of big data

4. Locate the bleeding

When building the end-to-end proposition, it is important to think about the desired outcomes at each touchpoint, says Ingrid Woodward of Zurich. When insurers note a journey is not going well, they need to ask where does the bleeding occur that creates the issue, and how can it be stopped quickly? Identifying where the issues in the cycle are likely to occur can help insurers empower staff to correct them.