Industry
Insurance
Reinventing the Insurance Industry with a Digital-first Strategy
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TCS BFSI Platforms
TCS BFSI Platform: Transforming Financial Services for Better CX
Highlights
- Historically, the insurance industry’s approach to customer communication has been slightly one-dimensional as a linear request and response pattern from the policy administration system.
- A communication ecosystem approach will address and turn around this long-standing problem by providing insurers with the capability to use multi-channel, event-based communication that is supported by different servicing platforms and teams.
- The insurance providers need to improve the interfacing capabilities across different data processing systems, set up an agile customer communication management system, enable a system-agnostic document management system, and instill the desire to embrace change, which are aligned with their scale of operation.
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Good communication
Effective communication with customers is at the heart of any organization and even more critical in the highly-regulated insurance and financial services industries, where communications pertain to the customers’ financial well-being.
Therefore, it is important that customers receive the necessary information (such as premium demands, charge/benefit summaries, or requests for evidence for a claim) in a timely manner, and that these communications are accurate and easy to understand and act on.
Some of the areas a communication strategy should include, but are not limited to, are product positioning campaigns, marketing, sales, policy servicing, claims, and after-service, such as complaint handling, beneficiary changes, and premium payments.
Historically, the insurance industry’s approach to customer communication has been slightly one-dimensional as a linear request and response pattern from the policy administration system (PAS) and primarily through the print medium.
Good communication normally has these characteristics:
- Easy access
- Ordered and well-paced content
- Conveys the intent precisely
- Highlights important information, warnings, and actions
- Employs easy-to-use language
- Simplifies financial concepts for non-financial domain audience
- Personalized to the customers’ requirements
While many companies try to accomplish this, achieving holistic engagement with customers is not always possible.
A communication ecosystem approach will address and turn around this long-standing problem by providing insurers with the capability to use multi-channel, event-based communication that is supported by different servicing platforms and teams.
Ecosystem approach
In a digitally evolving world, communication with customers should be multi-pronged, multi-channel, multi-platform, and personally engaging based on customers’ preferences and specific journeys.
A few ways to realize this include:
- Secure email/web portals
- WhatsApp/SMS
- Social media
- Paper/print media
- Phone calls
The ecosystem approach advocates that communication should be an involved process with support for all delivery channels, both outward and inward, in a conversational manner. It should be carried out across systems/platforms where the communication and responses are part of an event-based journey.
Other features of customer communication management (CCM) approach are:
- The CCM system seamlessly integrates with various service platforms for events, data, and customer choices.
- It consolidates document creation, delivery, storage, and retrieval with support for different delivery channels.
- It complies with security and regulatory standards.
- It adheres to communication best practices.
- It fosters collaboration across multiple servicing teams for a transparent and unified customer experience.
Inclusive and personal
The insurance industry is strictly regulated irrespective of the markets they operate in, and therefore, servicing customers within the prescribed guidelines is critical.
Effective customer communication is one of the key service parameters that drives excellence in customer service, and compliance with regulations is a competitive differentiator.
Since information exchange with customers drives their financial decision-making, it is critical for insurers to have robust communication strategies supported by improved technological integration of capabilities such as IVR, email, secure mail, SMS, and apps, apart from the traditional print/paper-based correspondence, which are responsive to customer choices. Well-informed, well-served customers enable market growth.
Some of the areas a communication strategy should include, but are not limited to, are product positioning campaigns, marketing, sales, policy servicing, claims, and after-service, such as complaint handling, beneficiary changes, and premium payments.
Communications that represent brand values consistently bring a familiar experience to the customer.
The presentation of information in a structured manner with engaging content makes customers look forward to such contacts. To enable such an experience, the communication needs to carry recognizable branding, styling, and a tone of voice that is unique to the insurer.
At the same time, being sensitive to customers’ demographics and personal or financial situations makes communication strike a chord. Also, the ecosystem approach offers greater flexibility of choice for the customer (E.g., email, phone, SMS, portal, or paper) for both-way communication, whether insurer to customer or customer to insurer.
This makes customers feel like they are a part of the company, and they will be more receptable to continued business with it. Thus, effective and personalized communication is the key to engaging customers while enabling the company’s growth journey.
While the customer communication paradigm is shifting to more inclusive and engaging behavior, CCM systems, on the other hand, are playing catch-up.
Legacy systems that are rigid in getting integrated prevent organizations from fully leveraging the aforementioned evolving trend in customer communication. Some CCM systems are evolving incrementally, whereas others are embracing the new approach to stay ahead of the evolution curve. Multi-channel delivery is still a multi-platform offering. Organizations spend a fortune supporting multiple peripheral systems around the core CCM system to achieve a semblance of a communication ecosystem.
Deliver excellent customer experience
For insurers to have an outstanding customer communication ecosystem, they need to adopt the concept and adapt to technology advances and customers’ preferences on how they want to be contacted.
Insurers need to enable shorter time to personalize responses to customers, support straight-through processing, and reduce delays due to the dependency on traditional methods of communication.
To achieve this, insurance providers need to improve the interfacing capabilities across different data processing systems, set up an agile customer communication management system, enable a system-agnostic document management system, and instill the desire to embrace change, which are aligned with their scale of operation.
While the diverse customer base will have its own choices and preferences, it is in the insurance company’s interest to be ready for any eventuality. Insurers need to start creating the foundations for the communication systems of the future – a future that will be increasingly ecosystem-based. Even if it indicates unrealized benefits in the short term, however, a small step forward will enable the insurers to be able to successfully deal with the ever-changing face of the financial industry and customers in the long run.
