Customer experience (CX) is just about the most critical differentiator these days, and Gartner's research proves it with hard numbers: 81% of companies expect CX to become the key battleground in the race for market dominance.
Unfortunately, the insurance coverage sector has traditionally been more product- than customer-focused. This discrepancy now makes insurance companies rethink their attitude toward doing business and become more customer-oriented.
Technologically, a good place for insurers to start this shift would be to adopt a web-based self-service portal. The numbers prove that it's quite in demand: 88% of U.S. customers expect a company to have a self-service portal.
If tailored well, a portal may help insurers to obtain closer to their customers, increase their loyalty and improve service quality, which greatly bring about the general CX.
Let's break up exactly how self-service portals boost CX for insurance businesses.
- First, portals help insurers deliver their services in additional accessible and convenient ways. Portals let policyholders submit claims, pay an insurance policy and look up their recent activities whenever and from any location, so there is no more need for people to visit a workplace. This also means you don't need to spend time on commuting there as well as filling out any paper blanks: The system will store all the details. Also, so far as insurers don't have to process claims manually, they can focus positioned on verifying their legitimacy and accelerating further steps. Consequently, claim approvals accelerate.
- Besides accessibility and simplicity, security defines self-service portals. As web-developers from Iflexion rightly note, industry trends come and go, but security concerns are not going anywhere soon for both businesses as well as their customers. With all the relevant security mechanisms in position, self-service portals let policyholders safely subscribe to insurance coverage, pay for policies and navigate their account history, paying no heed to cybersecurity risks.
- Search-optimized content is one more reason why self-service portals count considering. Customers prefer trying to find an answer online before contacting a helper. That’s why it can be reasonable for insurers to use self-service portals as platforms with helpful information. For instance, such information may include reviews of different insurance types, conditions and terms, pricing plans and answers to common questions. Within the latter case, a page with faq's (FAQ) might be useful. Users can navigate such a well-organized base of knowledge faster, without having to dig through tons of other information.
- If customers fail to find information, they'll need to consult an assistant. By giving your visitors access to live chat or other contact options, self-service portals establish easier 'insurer-policyholder' communication.
- Another advantage of adopting portals is about personalization, the staple of today's consumer culture. For insurers, self-service portals could make one-on-one service a reality through some simple personalization options for example customized toolbars, reorganized sections with billing transactions, claims and policies, as well as cross- and upselling recommendations.
Think about the “recently viewed” section that returns policyholders for their latest activities. Users do not possess to look their browsing history but get access immediately as to the they've looked through. As a result, customers get an quick access to their own personal activity feed.
Not by CX Alone
To sum up: Self-service portals boost CX in insurance as customers will get personalized and secure services faster, look for information more effectively and get in touch with support assistants more easily.
However, there are other reasons to adopt a self-service portal aside from CX improvements:
- Insurers can automate routine tasks such as filling out and submitting reimbursement requests. This partially frees staff for other tasks such as insurance data check or claim legitimacy verification.
- Insurers can lower their support costs: A well-maintained FAQ section can help to save your support staff's working hours and, by extension, associated costs.
- A self-service portal can also reduce paper and printing costs. It could seem just a little thing, but it is not: Considering yearly volumes, printing becomes an essential budget-drainer.
- Digitally stored histories of customers' activities accelerate the insurance coverage claim process, while there is forget about will need to go through piles of paper forms.
The good news is, a self-service portal can begin paying off nearly immediately. As it picks up traffic and starts bringing value for your customers, you will see your support team unloaded and customers' satisfaction steadily rising.
