Every aspect of the approach we take to interact with services and product providers has become digitized, but it doesn’t try to go partway. As insurers, we have to ask ourselves, “What does an entire digital experience for the customers and policyholders seem like?”
In my travels during the last year, I've run into experiences with very large companies and enterprises that have excelled in customer support in the past, however nowadays are falling short in the new digital experience realm. I'll share some examples, and, insurers, lend an ear. There are valuable lessons to become learned here!
Earlier this season, I took my loved ones to Disneyland. Disney, of course, is really a leader in customer experience in addition to digital transformation. Disney has gone out of its way to improve a customer's use of park information. The organization has digitized the ride process with fast pass as well as offer a suite of apps to enhance the client experience. Things i experienced though, in my view, was a fundamental failure to organize a digitally transformed end-to-end experience.
See also: Today's Digital Customer: It's Me
Most use their Disney passes on-line. That's great! That's easily. However the park entry process continues to be highly manual. Season pass holders are included with day pass holders; check-in agents manually process the passes, check IDs and passports and take photos for multi-day pass holders. Meanwhile, day pass holders wait in a type of lots of people all corralled into 20 lines, 100 people deep. This results in confusion, frustration and many children having meltdowns in the hot California sun. It took our family Forty-five minutes simply to walk into the park.
The point is, digitization is excellent, but you have to consider the holistic experience – from purchasing a pass for you to get customers into the park by having an easy check in to getting them out again, and all things in between. Disney is among the best, but even Disney can are unsuccessful. The reason is because digitization changes not just the front-end buying experience but the back-end processes, too. Disney has access to immense levels of data, including online ticket sales, and it has the ability to calculate wait times and improve service at check in. The lesson here? When creating a digital experience, use all the tools available to you and don't forget about the how to go about the experience. #disneyland
Of course, I have had some good and pleasantly surprising digital experiences during the last year, too. I took a ski trip and also got to experience the Vail Resorts Epic Day Pass. Ski lift tickets have been replaced with RFID-enabled cards which are read without having to wait in line to become scanned. These Epic Day passes also synch towards the Epic Mix app, which tracks your runs as well as your day around the mountain from the quantity of scanners placed on the lifts and through the mountain. The Epic Day pass may also load your charge card for use all around the mountain, so no need to have a wallet. This can be a great illustration of innovation and digitization with pure customer experience in mind from start to finish.
Just as surprising is exactly what my daughter recently told me about the new online application to register my grandkids for swim lessons in her tiny New Hampshire town. The days are gone of telephone calls and paper applications. She states that, because of the online application, registrations are the highest ever!
Now, back to insurance. I adore that we recently renewed our professional liability policy? Every year, we are required to create a formal submission. Our agent was on top of it this year, we renewed early, and we actually received our quote and policy – all electronically! And then this happened: I simply received a paper letter informing me the expiring policy isn't being renewed! Old, irrelevant and confusing. This automated paper form letter is disconnected with the renewal process and status. Unfortunately, you may still find many cases like this happening in insurance.
See also: Customers' Digital Expectations
These are just some thoughts from my travels about getting digitization right or missing the mark when it comes to the end-to-end customer experience. But insurers, be aware: You should look at what outside companies are doing to determine how they are digitizing their customer experience. If a tiny New Hampshire town can do it for preschool swim lessons, there is no reason insurers can't make some significant steps to go digital.
