Content services and the insurance customer experience
Leverage content services to give insurance customers the experience they deserve.
Customer experience is top of mind for all insurers these days, and for many, that’s a sea change.
At the outset, that statement might sound odd. Insurers have always cared for their insureds. But customer experience is more than that.
To understand why — and where content services fit into your burgeoning customer experience strategy — it’s important to understand what customer experience is.
The big picture
When first presented with the idea of customer experience, most equate it with customer service, but they are two entirely different things.
However, customer service does play an important part in customer experience; maybe even the most important role.
Here’s what trips up most people: Customer experience is nothing more than the feeling a customer has about you and your insurance organization. It’s about the perception consumers have of your brand.
Remember, your customers only want to connect with you. They want to know that you are there for them and have their best interests in mind.
Each customer. Individually.
That may seem esoteric, and in many ways, it is. It can be difficult to understand and harder to measure, but it is vitally important. Experts believe customer experience will soon overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator across industries.
By 2020, which is less than a year away, Gartner estimates that more than 40% of all data analytics projects will somehow relate to customer experience. Moreover, 67% of consumers would happily pay more for a product or service if their experience is exceptional, according to one Salesforce survey.
That makes every customer interaction a chance to win or lose future business. Better communication and faster innovation to meet customer needs is what it will take to be successful now and well into the future.
And the key to faster innovation and better communication is easy, immediate access to customer information.
Leverage content services to give your customers the experience they deserve
How do you do this? By making sure your digital transformation strategy includes technology that allows employees to quickly access customer interactions and data in one place. Then, review those interactions as a single conversation.
Insurance organizations can jump-start this transformation by leveraging the valuable customer data they already have to understand better the needs of insureds — and to know when to make the right product offer at the right time. They can join the more than half of insurers who are already using predictive analytics and piloting big data and machine learning programs to gain an advantage over the competition, according to a Novarica survey.
Remember, too, that your employees are your customers. If they have easy access to information and can get a complete view of the customer they are servicing, their experience changes, too. They feel more empowered to lead customers and offer advice that both gives the customer what he needs and, perhaps, gives the insurer a greater share of wallet.
Unprecedented data access
Content services can provide this unprecedented access to data. And a robust platform can help serve up that information in real time, when and where an insurer needs it and as soon as the customer asks.
Customer experience may be most important in the claims process
You are most likely to feel the impact of customer experience in the claims process. A recent JD Power property claims satisfaction study found that 90% of “highly satisfied” claimants would definitely renew their policy. Highly satisfied indicates great customer experience, something so good there’s nothing that would tear them away, maybe including a better price on a policy elsewhere.
But what happens when your insureds are comfortable with your claims process? What if they’re “okay with it?” Then there’s a good chance they’ll consider shopping around for a new carrier. The same study found that 60% of respondents indicated they would investigate a new policy if they were indifferent or dissatisfied with the claims process.
To compete in today’s insurance industry ecosystem, your organization must have a superior claims process. It’s no longer good enough simply to have a great claims process. “This is a clear indication that executives believe a streamlined claims process is a must-have, not a customer delighter,” reads an analysis of the results of a joint Salesforce, Deloitte, Vlocity and Newsweek Vantage global survey of 300 C-level insurance executives. “In other words, claims capabilities are a baseline need that drives customer retention, not a differentiator that drives customer acquisition.”
What that really boils down to is customer experience. Superior customer experience. That’s nearly unachievable without the right technology and technology partners.
How insurers boost customer experience with the right content services platform
We talked a bit about the industry’s overall transformation. It’s approaching one sea change after another, and insurers are facing those challenges by leveraging new data sources, partnering with InsureTech startups, rethinking workflows and continually driving out operational efficiencies.
For the most part, they are doing so by leveraging modern content services platforms and solutions. They are a requirement for insurers as they strive to implement digital strategies.
It is challenging enough to manage effectively existing data sources — including digital documents, e-mail, social media, structured data feeds and images, among others. Add in new data sources from smart homes, connected cars, drones and other sources, and the task becomes monumental. But the opportunity to leverage this information to provide a stellar customer experience is monumental, as long as they can effectively capture, manage and analyze the data.
Insurers with legacy systems will find it increasingly difficult to keep up with the new opportunities presented by digital data. Leveraging content services — especially those that are integrated with sophisticated process management and case management capabilities — will be a hallmark of successful insurers in the digital age.
Cara McFarlane (cara.mcfarlane@hyland.com) is the global solution marketing manager for Hyland’s insurance vertical. These opinions are the author’s own.
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