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August 2009
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
Insurers that fail to exploit a web site as an essential channel option will risk customer dissatisfaction and a weakened competitive position by 2010 Gartner Research
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
This knowledge paper examines and explores the key elements that will allow insurance providers of all types to continue to evolve their approach to addressing the questions and concerns of their unique customer base. Perhaps now more than ever, one of the best ways to differentiate your organization in the insurance industry is through exceptional customer service, beginning with your contact center and web properties, and extending out to include assisted channels, mobile and new media as part of a next generation, multi-channel approach to managing the customer experience. Whether the journey begins on a smartphone, via a new social media channel, directly on your corporate web site, or via a direct call to your contact center, best practices demand speed, consistency and a truly uniformed approach to managing customer interaction. The Web as the Lynchpin of a Multi-Channel Customer Experience To say that the web has become an important tool for customer interaction would be more than just a minor understatement. The insurance industry is facing a veritable explosion in the number of online customer service interactions over the coming years. Due to the increased convenience, independence, speed and value of the Internet, consumers of all ages increasingly are using the web as their primary conduit to insurance plans and services, from property and automotive, to life, disability, health, travel and virtually every other type of insurance need. An insurance report by Capgemini reveals that 31% of non-life insurance customers have changed providers in the last five years.i Consumers are going on the Internet to compare prices, assisted by the growing popularity of data aggregators that present insurance products as undifferentiated commodities sorted by price. Also, the power of the web has extended its reach to include mobile technology that allows insurance customers to engage with their providers wherever and whenever they choose.
Consumers of all ages are continuing to use the web as their primary conduit to every type of insurance program, from property and automotive, to life, disability, health, travel and virtually every other type of insurance.
In this competitive market, customer attrition is not only due to the increasing usage of the Internet to shop for services. Another significant factor of customer loss can be attributed to poor contact center customer service. A study by the Claes Fornell International Group, an employee and customer satisfaction consultancy, showed that nearly 61% of insurance customers who have had a bad contact center experience will consider switching companies, and 26% said they will definitely switch companies because of a bad call center experience.ii And, a Genesys USA Consumer Survey further highlights the high stakes of customer service. In this survey, 48% of U.S. consumers said that customer service has the biggest impact on their loyalty to a company, and 44% said that a poor contact center experience was the sole reason they stopped doing business with a company.iii When compared to other industries, satisfaction with insurance contact centers is lower than levels found in other industries including banking, telecommunications and catalog retailers (see Figure 1 next page). Overall, the insurance market has a lower satisfaction level than the aggregate of all industries.iv
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
Figure 1
Health, property and casualty and life insurance companies have contact center satisfaction scores that lag catalog retailers, banking, cell phone services and cable and satellite television.
Aggregate of all industries Catalog retailers Banking Cell phone service Cable and satellite television Insurance Personal computers
* ** + ++
As measured by the Call Center Customer Satisfaction Index As measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), using the same methodology Score represents ACSI for retail industry overall, not just retailers Includes health, P&C, and life insurance
For most if not all insurance institutions, increasing customer satisfaction online is just good business. Not only do such solutions and strategies promote a seamless, multi-channel experience for the customer, they also provide the institution with the ability to improve both overall loyalty and bottom line savings by moving customers to the most cost effective service channel. Increasingly, the web sites of insurance providers of all types have a fairly large impact on the overall success of the entire organization. Insurance providers can and should strive to differentiate themselves on service that, more often than not, involves the web at some point during any sales or service engagement. So its critical that the experience be productive and be in line with customer expectations. Satisfied online customers are more profitable, more loyal, and more likely to engage in positive word of mouth, and if they increase their use of the web site for informational and transactional service, cost savings increase through the value of right-channeling.
With Opportunity comes Challenge: the Multi-Channel Reality The picture is not all rosy however. As more and more transactions, sales and service interactions in the insurance industry continue to involve the Web, your organizations opportunity to influence customer perceptions about brand, net promoter score, loyalty and advocacy increasingly begins online. The new reality now demands that organizations of all types provide rapid, concise information to customers across a variety of self-service and assisted channels, and this can be a daunting mandate.
Many insurance providers are not able to provide a truly consistent experience across multiple channels during any given inquiry process.
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
The insurance industry needs to embrace online customer experience management, and adopt new and innovative ways to manage the customer experience in the emerging multi-channel environment. With the web as a new channel, providers will be able to gain new insight into customer value. They will be able to leverage this information by tapping in to the unique insights that are sometimes only available via online interactions. This type of web to multi-channel customer experience strategy is now readily found in the financial services market. That said, many insurance provider web sites are not designed using a customer centric process and as a consequence users cannot find relevant content and information quickly. In addition, many insurance providers are not able to provide a truly consistent experience across multiple channels during any given inquiry process. For example, providing customers with the ability to seamlessly transition between online and offline (self-service and assisted channels) is often non-existent for many insurance providers. The resulting frustration causes consumers to either leave and go to a competitors web site or re-connect in a more expensive channel such as email, phone or in person for example.
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
Figure 2
Site Visitor Frustration Can Lead to Devastating Results: Lost Sales and/or Tarnished Brands
leave the website and go to a competitive website Be less likely to visit the site again Be less likely to buy from them online leave the website and give up Contact customer service via e-mail Have a more negative overall perception of the company Contact customer service via phone phone regarding my experience Be less likely to buy from them offline Tell others about my negative experience I have never been dissatisfied
Question: If you find yourself dissatisfied with your ability to find the necessary information you sought when first arriving on a website or a specific product/service page, which of the following are you likely to do? (Select all that apply) Select responses shown.
45% 45% 40% 24% 24% 21% 18% 18% 16% 4% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Site visitors are more likely to opt for an alternative site than both to contact customer service.
Figure 3
47% of customers are looking for a faster navigation path and 33% want a tool to provide a single accurate response or advanced FAQ.
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
Insurance Customers are Goal Oriented Customers come to interact with insurance provider web sites and service agents armed with a goal in mind, and usually they have a specific context associated to their visit or inquiry. We can group these key objectives into three major categories: DO, BUY or ASK. The definition and an example of each of these three categories are as follows: 1. DO: Involves the desire to perform a task that leads to the customer engaging in an assisted or self-service transaction online or started online and concluded in another channel. Example: DO (Goal Oriented) when a customer wants to expand their insurance coverage with the provider. During this process a customer may have a simple question which can be phrased in numerous different ways: How do I expand my life insurance coverage to cover long term disability? Can I also get disability insurance through you? Do you provide disability insurance? Who do I contact to extend my insurance coverage?
3. ASK: Relates to customers seeking assistance to correct or rectify a customer service problem often caused by a failure to meet customer needs and expectations in the DO and BUY categories. Example: ASK (Goal Oriented) - a customer has a dispute with the timing of a bill payment made online. A customer may have the following ways of asking the same question: Can I report a bill payment problem online? How do I report a bill payment issue? How do I correct a billing error? What action should I take to correct a payment problem online? The DO, BUY and ASK goal categories help us understand that there is a solid link between customer intention and customer action, often in the form of a question or search for information. More importantly we learn that while there is often only one common destination or piece of information that will allow customers to achieve their goal, they often travel down a number of disparate paths to get there.
2. BUY: Involves any task related to the intended and/or final purchase of a product or service this may start and conclude online or in another channel, and often requires multiple channels to complete the process. Example: BUY (Goal Oriented) when a customer wants to purchase travel insurance for an upcoming vacation outside the country. During this process the customer may have a question which can be stated in many ways, for example: How do I purchase travel insurance? Can I purchase insurance for travel? What do I need to buy travel insurance? Where can I buy travel insurance?
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
Figure 4
Search Contact Us / Ask Us FAQ Virtual Assistant Instant Answers Help Web Content Databases Secure site Applications, Tools and Calculators
Cross Channel
Intranet Search Ask Us FAQ Virtual Assistant Instant Answers Help Content Databases
Support
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
A positive cross-channel experience can substantially increase First Contact Resolution rates
A positive cross-channel experience increases the ability to achieve first contact resolution. Understanding early stage web activity, customer queries or online information requests can allow providers to segment customers and move those identified as key prospective customers quickly to a seamless cross-channel experience to complete the sales or service interaction that much quicker. Most insurance providers are nothing if not multichannel businesses, and as such they must address their customers needs as they progress through their journey towards achieving their goals. Best practices demand that organizations be equipped to manage the customer experience via the preferred channel of the customer whether its online via self-service, online via assisted service, or offline through a phone or in person. For some insurance providers, this process can be hindered by silos of informational hierarchies with marketing owning the web site, contact center owning many of the customer interactions and with neither communicating effectively with the other. Or, silos may exist with technology systems each group has all the information but getting the information out to the customer is the roadblock.
Customer Experience Management and the Insurance Provider A Blueprint for Online & Multi-Channel Engagement
For More Information For more information on cost effective ways to enhance the customer experience at your organization contact: Mike Hennessy IntelliResponse mike.hennessy@intelliresponse.com About IntelliResponse IntelliResponse enhances the multi-channel customer experience for businesses and educational institutions via its Instant Answer Agent, a question-and-answer software platform that allows web site visitors and service agents to ask questions in natural language, and get the One Right Answer, regardless of the hundreds of ways the question may be asked. This industry leading On Demand software platform is used by both consumers and contact center agents. With more than 200 live, customerfacing implementations answering 50 million+ questions with one right answer, IntelliResponse is the gold standard in first line customer experience management. Some of the worlds most recognized corporate brands and higher education institutions trust their customer experience management needs to IntelliResponse - including ING Direct, TD Canada Trust, Scotiabank, Penn State University, The Ohio State University, University of British Columbia and Harvard University Extension School.
i ii iii iv v
Capgemini World Insurance Report, 2007 Claes Fornell International Group Report, 2007 Genesys USA Consumer Survey, 2007 Claes Fornell International Group Report, 2007 Jupiter Research, 2008
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