Digitization of the customer dialog in the insurance industry: Concrete steps

Once you’ve read the first two parts of our series on the digitization of customer dialog in the insurance industry, you’ll already be familiar with the necessary methodological considerations and the first two stages of the digitization model. Maybe you’ve already scaled these steps, taken stock of past digital projects, and formulated a digital vision. And now that you’ve staked out the big picture?

Step 3: Set limits for yourself

A bit of advice: Don’t take on too much. Define small measures and set tight limits for yourself first – on budget, technology, resources, and duration, for example. Start your journey into the digital world with small, flexible speedboats whose starting and finishing points are clearly defined. However, these speedboats also have to offer added value and special relevance – for the company and its customers. When doing so, balance the different needs and interests of all stakeholders. How far do you want to push digitization in this project? Can the project increase customer loyalty? Will the customer accept and use these projects? Will this attract more new customers, but possibly deter existing customers? Define the goals and limits of the project before you start and make it assessable.

Step 4: Set out your digital agenda

Now you’ve identified small projects or individual processes for digital transformation. A wide range of measures and solutions are available here: from digital signatures to personalized content, apps to chatbots, robotic process automation (RPA), and analytics. Here are some examples:

1) A new touchpoint, a new opportunity:
There’s no denying that comparing insurance rates is a complicated matter. But with a digital solution, you can do almost all the work for your customers. Comparing and changing insurance essentially at the press of a button.

2) Products for the respective personal situation:
Apps for taking out short-term insurance for stadium and concert visits, daycare trips, or cycling tours. Temporarily safeguarding friends and family members on your car is also quick and easy to do. Travel insurance is offered by push notification in the app shortly after crossing the border, and can be taken out immediately.

3) Regulating damages, gaining customer loyalty:
In the event of damage, such as a car accident, the insurance customer immediately reports the damage to their insurance company via an app and attaches damage photos to the report. Intelligent robot software immediately draws up an assessment on the basis of analytic methodology. To do this, the intelligent system calls up additional information through sensors from the vehicle and consults third-party information on the weather and the traffic situation. The system also recommends a nearby workshop to the customer and the invoice is submitted directly through an online portal. The claims system then initiates settlement of the bill.

4) Avoiding damages, gaining customer loyalty:
With a Smart Home solution, the heating system relays its data to the insurance customer, the insurer, and the heating installer via sensors. On the basis of historic data – which can also be combined with third-party data (e.g. weather data) – the likelihood of damage occurrence or disruptions can be anticipated and warnings can be issued using analytics. Such proactive maintenance helps to avoid any unnecessary damage occurrences as well as any costs that result.

5) Next best action for customer loyalty:
Analytical methods supply new insights into the current and future product affinities of customers: Points in time or life situations where these new products are needed can be identified from among the world of data. These analytical insights can, in turn, set up the customer management system and distribution with the next best actions for all relevant channels – and do all of this in real time, during a telephone consultation for example.

But which technical solutions do you want to use for this, and what does their possible implementation look like? Which interfaces to the existing processes and systems are necessary and possible? Insurers with low digital maturity must first build up digital expertise or borrow the corresponding know-how from specialized service providers, digitize quickly and implement the first processes with them, and then gradually replace them with their own employees.

The most important task for these teams – whether internal or external – in stage 4 is the development of a roadmap defining the milestones and stages of implementation and the associated measures. Here, too, the stations in the customer journey must be taken into account. The success of the technical solution or the digital project is ultimately controlled by only one person: the end customer. They decide whether the digital solution is relevant to their needs in their respective personal situation.

The travel map is now ready – find out how to proceed in the last part of our series.

Author: Editorial team Future. Customer.
Image: © TimeStopper – AdobeStock