Exclusive Cigna Case Study: How to leapfrog digital CX innovation beyond the status quo

Katya Andresen, Chief Digital & Analytics Officer at Cigna, an American-managed healthcare and insurance company, has spent the past six years trying to bring CX and digital innovation to banking and healthcare. Important work, in her view, because aside from love, community and human relationships, health (physical and mental) and finances are two additional fundamental needs. “If one of those first three things is going wrong, then the other two start to go wrong too,” she said. Yet very often, these industries are characterized by form filling, transactions and red tape, rather than the hubs of innovation they could be.

"If we try to bring digital innovation to the status quo, we are not going to make a difference"

As Andresen explained, in the fragmented healthcare environment, on the one hand, attempts to disrupt the sector have all too often been “Scotch-taped together”. On the other, numerous solutions have emerged, even though nobody “needs an app for every body part”.

In short, her lesson was this: “If we try to bring digital innovation to the status quo, we are not going to make a difference.”

Speaking in a Day 1 general session, Andresen outlined the three stages of innovation as:

1. Digital Enablement, the most common starting point. For example, taking something analogue and making it a “little better, more accessible or more convenient by providing digital access”.
2. Digital Differentiation goes further, such as the ability in banking to deposit a check via mobile. At Cigna, inclusive care, for example, recognizes that it may be very important for a customer to see an LGBTQ+ provider. Such innovation is good and can be measured with net promoter scores, for example.
3. Digital Disruption is the ‘holy grail’ and involves truly making a difference to the consumer. In the healthcare space, this could look something like Cigna’s soon-to-be-launched ‘whole person health’ program, where a patient with anxiety and depression, chronic pain from a lower back injury and a heart issue can have a personalized and curated customer experience all in one place.?

Lessons in Leapfrogging to True Disruption

Everybody may want to leapfrog over better digitization of the status quo, but the reality, Andresen said, is that “it’s very hard to do inside your existing business model”. It also isn’t linear, she said, and from her experience, these are the lessons.

1. Know the 'real job' to be done: Digitizing or applying a better customer experience to solve an existing problem indicates it is probably the wrong thing to be focusing on. (If attendees needed more insights here, Andresen recommended Clayton Christensen’s seminal Theory of Jobs to be Done.)
2. Recognize that people aren't rational, and technology is the easy part: There’s a difference between what we think people should do, what we predict they’re going to do, and what they actually do. The good news, however, is that we are in a golden age of understanding human motivation, neuroscience, social psychology and behavioral economics, and all the literature points to this: you have to “speak to the heart” to have any chance of influencing “somebody into the behaviors that are best for them”.
3. Embrace the unknown: Paraphrasing the renowned Harvard Business School scholar of digital innovation, Dr. Linda Hill, Andresen said vision by itself is not enough. Instead, she believes that you need purpose as well as a multidisciplinary and diverse team co-creating, collaborating, and deeply testing and learning. “Oh, and you also need to be very good at inspiring people to learn faster and faster… because the teams that learn the fastest, win,” she said.

This case study is part of a wider industry report brought to you by Reuters Events - 'Customer Service & Experience: Unlocking a Billion-Dollar Opportunity'. Access more insights and strategies in the full report here!

Josh Wheeler (He/Him)

Strategic Director

Reuters Events