Digital servicing has given CX teams the ability to conveniently and efficiently reach out to more customers, and COVID-19 has enabled many companies to adopt digital platforms at scale.
But there’s an inherent danger with focusing completely on digital: losing the empathy of the human touch.
Dipu KV, President & Head of Operations and Customer Service at Bajaj Allianz General, talks about how the focus in CX is on transitioning from digitizing the physical, to humanizing the digital.
We discuss:
- New CX innovations in the insurance industry
- A 5-step CX process
- Bringing an analytics mindset to the role
- How AI and automation enabled a seamless switch to digital servicing
New CX innovations in the insurance industry
A customer-first approach is rising in popularity across all industries including insurance. The challenge for insurance, however, is that customers are not comparing digital experiences in insurance only to other insurance companies—the experience is compared to the top digital experience of any industry.
Combined with the task of selling a product that is in the back of mind for most people, innovation through the digital experience in insurance is crucial to staying relevant.
A 5-step CX process
For Dipu and Bajaj Allianz General, the customer experience is more than an industry necessity, it’s built into the DNA of the company. Dipu explains the company’s 5 step CX process to live by:
- Listen to customers
- Classify customer needs
- Understand your current landscape
- Engineer with customers in mind
- Deploy the right digital solution
”Customer service lies at the heart of everything that we do,” Dipu explains.
In looking to the future and recognizing COVID-19’s impact on the world, humanizing the digital experience is top of mind for Dipu. Otherwise, the distancing that most have experienced in the recent past may make customers feel cut off from their insurance providers.
In the same way, Dipu and Bajaj Allianz General emphasized a family first approach for employees:
[ctt template=”11″ link=”V2vko” via=”no” ]”You need to maintain a good combination of ensuring that you’re digitally enabling your teams to carry out work from home, yet, they’re able to have those coffee table conversations with colleagues.” -KV Dipu, Bajaj Allianz General[/ctt]
Bringing an analytics mindset to the role
With the shift to digital, companies have been given the opportunity to collect data at scale compared to what used to be available.
Before, if a customer were to frequently utilize in-person tools within the insurance industry, there would be a hefty blind spot in that customer’s journey. They might have had a negative experience that wasn’t tracked and, therefore, couldn’t be rectified later.
Once the data is collected, instead of having the information collected and understood from a central location, Dipu and the team decentralize the data so that real-time decisions can be made for the customer.
How AI and automation enabled a seamless switch to digital servicing
Bajaj Allianz General had begun to integrate AI and automation into their processes prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic; so, when everything shifted to digital virtually overnight, Dipu and the team were ready.
One of the biggest ways AI and automation has influenced the insurance industry has been the time taken to report a claim and receive compensation.
Pre-pandemic, if you were to get into an accident, an inspector would need to come and physically inspect the vehicle. Now, after you send in pictures of the accident using your phone, you can settle without ever needing a physical inspection.
As we look down the road five years from now, harmony between maintaining the human touch with digitization will remain one of the highest priorities for every industry. As more technology emerges like advanced automation and AI, companies will need to adopt a mindset of evaluating the customer landscape daily. Only then can a company stay on the razor-edge of innovation.
Parting advice from Dipu: listen to customers—a simple idea but very hard to do in practice. Only then can you provide the level of customer service you aim for.
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