3 ways insurers can improve the customer experience

As the insurance industry undergoes a period of reinvention through digital transformation, it’s vital to remain focused on what really matters. The excitement and hype over new technology can lead us to forget the underlying drive to adopt it — improving the customer experience. Treating customers right encourages them to spread the word, consider new services and remain loyal. All three are essential in a competitive industry with such a bounty of choice.

Best-in-class customer experience means faster growth and higher profitability, according to McKinsey, and can be achieved through the pursuit of certain qualities that customers crave. Courtesy and professionalism should be a given at any carrier, but many insurers could make strides by focusing on greater transparency, facilitating easier communication, and increasing the average speed of claim settlement.

Making things crystal clear

The fastest way to annoy a customer is to obfuscate and then make them jump through hoops to find out what’s going on. An insurance claim is often a stressful time for insureds, so it’s vital to make things clear to ease the burden. Every claim you process will have a workflow or lifecycle with several stages that require different actions before further progress can be made. Ensure that the current status is easily accessible for every customer, and for every employee or third-party administrator that interacts with your customer.

If the ball is in their court, and you require further information before the claim can go ahead, then make that crystal clear. An automated query system, combined with self-service portals, can make for a smooth process where there’s never any doubt about what must happen next to advance the claim. Real transparency is vital internally, so your adjusters can do the best job possible. Why not expand it to include your customers?

Easy access is crucial

Whether an insured wants to add an item they just remembered to a claim inventory at midnight on a Saturday, or one of your adjusters needs to review accident scene photos on the road, easy access is important. In today’s digital world, adjusters and insureds should be able to access the data they need at any time, from any place, and on virtually any device.

Easy 24/7 access is an expectation nowadays and an Accenture survey found that 61% of insurance customers prefer to use digital channels to check the status of their claims. That means providing easy access through smartphones and laptops with a robust online portal and a smart messaging system that keeps everyone appraised of the current situation.

Instead of funneling everything through a call center, empower insureds to fill out their own forms and enter details at times that suit them. Not only do many customers prefer it this way, but it’s also cheaper and faster. The use of AI for chatbots and simple queries is another major labor-saving development that insureds are growing increasingly comfortable with. Expert agents can be freed from simple tasks and general queries, enabling them to bring their experience to bear on more complex cases where they can really make it count.

Boost settlement speed

If insureds can easily check on the claim status and upload supporting materials to move things along, then resolution will come faster, but there are also many other things insurers can do to increase the average settlement speed. Consider how appraisal, repair and replacement is handled. Could you fold service providers into the mix? Enabling, for example, a customer to book a windshield replacement directly with the repair service through your portal.

The length of time it takes to settle a claim is one of the biggest contributors to customer satisfaction. The faster insureds can put the accident or claim event behind them and get on with their lives, the better. For many claims it’s also advantageous for the insurer to process the settlement as swiftly as possible as it can lead to lower costs.

Claim automation enables carriers to process the bulk of straightforward claims with minimal involvement. Insureds drive the process and insurers act as facilitators. In rare cases where a problem develops, agents can be alerted and step in quickly.

Focus on what’s really important

There’s such a huge pressure nowadays to embrace the digital revolution, and such an abundance of different services, tools and products to help you do it, that you can fall into the trap of adopting technology for its own sake. Making the right choices can be tricky, but if you turn things around and focus on improving customer experience, all becomes clear. Nothing is more important for your business than customer satisfaction and the pursuit of transparency, easy access and communication, and speedy settlements will secure it.

Fred Lizza is CEO of StrategicClaim, a provider of a SaaS-based claims platform and 24/7/365 services for carriers, agents and policyholders designed to expedite reporting and resolution of auto and homeowners insurance losses. He was previously CEO of Freestyle Solutions, an e-commerce and SAAS order management leader. Contact him at FLizza@stclaim.com.