Traveler Insurance

8 Tips to create the best Omni-Channel journey for insurers

Contact center
Customer Experience
DYN365
The digital age gave birth to a new Omni-Channel world, in which people are "always on and connected." In this world, customers seldom consider what channel they're using. What they are really concerned about is being able to find the answers to their specific needs when they want, how they want. They also want to be in charge of their interactions across all channels.

Rising expectations for Omni-Channel experiences in the broader market are also creating new challenges and opportunities in the insurance landscape. Insurers must rethink the way they do business to create better customer journeys and offer consistent and engaging customer experiences across all touch-points.

So how can you use Omni-Channel to offer a strong customer journey?

1. Use a single integrated platform to drive consistent customer journeys

For customers, channels such as mobile apps, websites, chatbots, call centers and insurance agents are simply a way to communicate. They jump on the channel of choice and interact with their insurers. For example, they can chat with an agent to renew their earthquake insurance while making a claim on the application.

By blending different channels into a single experience, insurers can bridge the gap between customers and their teams and successfully manage a number of journeys across channels throughout the customer lifecycle. But if there are different back-end systems in place to manage different touch-points it is often very difficult to deliver smooth customer journeys.

The key is to focus on the customers' end-to-end experience instead of individual touchpoints and unify the Dynamics 365 CRM platform and Omni-Channel servicing capabilities. By orchestrating the various back-end systems, you can avoid broken customer experiences and deliver outstanding unified communications instead.

2. Offer rich channel coverage in low-touch insurance business

Insurers have long struggled with the customer interactions. On one hand, the customers expect high-touch, personalized services regardless of the industry. Insurance is no exception to this. But by its very nature, insurance remains a low-touch industry.

Most customers only want to interact with their insurers for potential and existing policies or for claims. Very often, they choose interacting with agents and brokers but they also want to be supported and helped when they need, at all hours of the day. Engage with them through the channels they prefer and in ways which are attuned to their specific situations. Microsoft Luis, Alexa, Siri, and other intelligent systems incorporating AI and machine learning can help.

For instance, insurers using AI-powered tools can now provide guidance for their customers through chatbots.  AI-powered chatbots provide intelligent human-like conversations through all digital channels. They enable insurers to deliver services to their "always-on" customers right at their fingertips with an instant chat feature that is available 24/7.

3. Make a good impression during the First Notification of Loss

Being involved in a car accident or having a burst pipe can be one of the most stressful and upsetting situations someone experiences. The last thing the customer wants in this situation is not being taken care of quickly and efficiently.

The clock starts when the customer initiates the claim. Speed, accuracy, and transparency in the claims process really are essential to increasing engagement and retention. If the insurer fails to have the claim record filed on time after the incident, it affects the entire customer journey, from validation to deployment of services. It also translates into poor customer experience and increased costs.

In these delicate times it's important to offer interactions through the channel of a customer's choice with the ability to change their channel throughout the process and receive status updates.

Millennial customers in particular prefer digital channels to interact with their insurers. Use existing channels such as WhatsApp, social media and mobile apps for claims and enrich the customer engagement.

4. The customer should only have to tell their story once

How can you offer enjoyable and compelling customer journeys when your customers only get to experience your service when something unpleasant happens? The answer is actually very simple. Ensure they only have to share their unpleasant story once. 

Give them the opportunity to switch seamlessly between channels so they don't have to tell the story over and over again. This is only possible when you have all of your customer-facing processes optimized, and complex workarounds and disconnected processes are streamlined.

In order to do that, integrate an Omni-Channel framework that is easy for employees to use and eliminates process workarounds. This way you can serve your customers and all their needs from claiming to renewing across all channels and products.

On the other hand, it is extremely important for insurers to transform their processes and operating models to become more customer-centric. Once you have the entire customer interaction history at your fingertips you can add value to their experiences.

5. Embed customer-centricity into your company's DNA

Success in the Omni-Channel insurance world starts with embedding a customer-centric mindset into the company's DNA. Customer-centricity helps to move away from the product-driven approach toward understanding customers' needs, both in aggregate and at an individual level. This mindset and the knowledge it generates, lead to highly personalized solutions and tailored experiences that are relevant to each individual's situation.

6. The challenge of finding good data

Even though insurance companies increasingly feel the competitive pressure to offer personalized experiences across multiple channels, there might be some challenges, particularly around limited data. Without the right insights and information, you can't offer personalized products and service levels anywhere at anytime. But the good thing is there is a way to turn this around: The unification of customer data!

By unifying and enhancing customer data collection, using the growing number of devices that are linked as part of IoT technology can accelerate purchasing and claims resolution cycles and offer tailored services.

7. Be ready for an open API architecture

Insurers looking for ways to reduce development and maintenance costs should have an ecosystem based on an open API architecture. An Omni-Channel solution that doesn't require rebuilding legacy applications from scratch helps to repurpose them by integrating content, data, and functionality into a new presentation layer or customer experience.

8. Maximize the value of Dynamics 365 licenses

Use an integrated Omni-Channel delivery and CRM solution built on top of Dynamics 365 to use the full potential of D365 licenses across your company's value chain. Implementing an insurance industry-specific solution that leverages Dynamics 365 enables insurers to effectively manage and nurture relationships across customers, agents and brokers. This way, you can eliminate boundaries between digital and assisted channels while delivering unified communications through one single platform.