New Realities of Customer Engagement

In the insurance industry it is difficult to sustain customer engagement outside of a claim or renewal. It is traditionally a transactional and commoditised industry in which customer relationships are not deep, and touchpoints are limited.

Customer service and expectations have changed significantly in a relatively short time period, because of digital transformation, and there is no going back. The burden of real-time interaction arrived to change the customer experience entirely, placing the customer in undeniable control.

Get it right… quickly

In today’s digital environment, the high expectations of the customer are being set outside the insurance industry by digital giants like Apple and Amazon. Informed, real-time, accurate, seamless click driven exchanges are the norm. Interactions frequently take place on a mobile platform. Instant response and the exchange of accurate information is not only expected, it is delivered. It is important for insurers to get it right and get it right quickly.

It is becoming more difficult for both customers and businesses to choose insurance solutions, because of the alienating complexity of products, and the sheer volume and relentless marketing of competitive offerings. In addition, insurance products are multifaceted, so that often the only aspects customers succeed in comparing are cost, brand appeal and convenience. 

Today’s customers have potentially instant digital access to the full spectrum of offerings across the insurance industry. It is therefore critical that their experience at every touch point is seamless. Customer expectations around a single view have become a non-negotiable across all the different channels and meeting these timeously requires a fundamental shift in thinking - from internal processes through the full system of interaction. 

Why adopt experience mapping?

If your customers interact with your brokerage across multiple channels, they expect a holistic and integrated experience across all of them. Experience maps serve as a visual means to identify the steps your customer goes through, as they experience your services or insurance products you sell and the impact of each.

Customer experience maps chart your customer’s experience and help you to target improvements with great return. By recognizing those steps in your customer experience with the highest impact, your brokerage customer experience map becomes a cornerstone of your customers experience planning process and future strategy.

The main reasons to use a customer experience map is to identify all the touch points that make up your customer’s experience, in order to improve your brokerage’s impact at these touchpoints. It is also to understand the emotional impact of interactions in your existing customer experience.

Customer experience mapping enables insurers to understand their customers by walking in their shoes. It also reveals operational inefficiencies that create unnecessary steps in the customer experience process that will improve your processes and touchpoints that are not operating efficiently. Customer experience mapping breaks down separate silos within the insurer by joining each step of the customer experience journey. This process will increase sales and marketing efficiency and effectiveness. It maximises ROI by enabling brokerages to allocate the right budget and resources where they are needed most.

Brokers of the future

Delivering an excellent customer service experience takes more than developing a mobile app or adding more staff, it requires commitment, a shared vison, considerable time, investment, persistent improvements and collaborations across all customer channels and commercial functions. Transforming customer’s satisfaction can be an instrument of profitable growth, but it demands a coordination across the different insurance silos, touchpoints and your customer segments.

Insurance brokers of the future must look to differentiate themselves to become digitally sophisticated, focusing more on strategic risk advice and luring clients with digital self-help, convenience and experiences that promise to facilitate and reduce risk with personalised and tailor-made products or digital solutions.

“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all”- Michael LeBoeuf

Wimpie Van der Merwe Managing Director Global Choices

As published in the FANews June 2019 p.18