Importance of Chatbots for insurance providers in improving the Customer Journey
When you think of customer service, what strikes your mind? Well, most people would say either calling for assistance or visiting a store. But what if I told you there was now another option? Customer service has been revolutionized thanks to chatbots!
Now, when I mention chatbots you might think about automated messages that don’t really help you. But that’s not the case anymore!
With the help of artificial intelligence, chatbots have come a long way and are helping businesses improve customer service operations in a number of ways.
Among them, insurance industries are benefitted on a larger scale.
After the coronavirus pandemic, the customer service industry has been disrupted at every point-
From consumer spending habits
To the time of day, they choose to contact customer service.
For the insurance sector, customer behaviors have also changed as people juggle the financial impacts of the pandemic and seek protection with the likes of business, travel, health, and life insurance. As a result, insurers are fielding an increase in calls about coverage, policies, and claims. At the same time, many insurance companies have also had to make their entire operations remote in a matter of days.
Now let’s have a look at some statistics:
Did you know that insurance companies that provide exceptional customer experiences generate 2 to 4 times more revenue and 30% higher profits than their counterparts who struggle with customer service?
Unsurprisingly, happy customers are 80% more likely than unhappy customers to renew their insurance policies. Still, in spite of this, 71% of insurance customers report being unhappy with their providers.
Great customer service is clearly an easy solution to this problem. But how and where should insurers start? The answer is online. 79% of insurance customers report using a digital channel to interact with their insurers.
Leaving the legacy system behind, and with a sharp spike in customer contact across multiple channels and an unprecedented number of employees working remotely, insurers have now started to realize the benefits of automated, cloud-based technologies that can enable every part of the industry to continue operating, from brokers to customer service agents.
Indeed, insurers are looking to automate the likes of claims and refund requests to help cope with increased workloads and remove some of the burdens from contact center agents.
Chatbots are changing the insurance industry’s customer service strategy:
Close to 30% of life and property insurers have deployed chatbots in the last five years.
Chatbots have become the leading application of AI in insurance for routine operations like customer service and lead management.
By 2026, chatbots will fill 40% of all insurance industry customer service roles.
3 customer service challenges bots can solve for insurance companies
Answering insurance policy questions-Provide customers with relevant information about what their policy covers in real time.
Filling insurance claims- Let customers file claims directly through a bot. Since bots are available 24/7 on multiple platforms, customers can submit their claims when and how they want.
Select insurance plans- Give potential customers all the details they need to buy insurance products or update their policies.
Now the added advantages of using Chatbots for better customer services:
It helps the insurance agency in educating the customers about the policies, how the process works, etc. It also helps them to compare and suggest the best policy, from several carriers, based on the profile and inputs.
The bot segments different queries and provides the users with relevant quotes and information. The data collected can be used by the sales team in having insight into the clients’ requirements and they can proceed accordingly.
Chatbots assist insurance companies to collect the contact details of users. These details can be added to the user database for social media updates, email, and newsletters.
It is an ideal way to obtain customer feedback and reviews.
One of the most obvious advantages of using digital technology is that it automates the process. Using insurance chatbots, the workload of the sales and marketing team reduces as they don’t have to respond to every query.
Insurance Chatbots assist in claim processing and payment assistance. They can be programmed and configured to resolve the clients’ insurance claims and also to take a follow-up on existing plans. It even reminds them of the upcoming payments and simplifies the payment process.
In a nutshell, bots benefit the insurance industry at a higher level. Customers will be happier and more likely to keep their policies. On the other hand, you improve customer support capacity and your agents’ job satisfaction while reducing your customer service costs.
This just scratches the surface of how chatbots can streamline customer service processes in the insurance industry. Bots can be customized to handle your organization’s specific needs and pain points.
Want to learn more? Discover some of the other ways chatbots help insurers’ customer service operations in our insurance blog!