Despite the growth of digital channels, insurers seem to be stuck within an analog world, not able to respond accurately, quickly or consistently to customer queries asked through the web, email, Twitter, Facebook or chat, based on new information that we’ve done.
Insurers could perfect solution 28% of queries across digital channels, and 14% of companies failed to respond successfully on either email, social networking or chat. While email was the best channel for answers, having a 37% rate of success, the typical time for you to get a response was nearly 2 days (One day 23 hours 38 minutes).
These are the top-line findings from the 2021 Eptica Insurance Multichannel Customer Experience Study, which evaluated 100 leading U.S. insurers, spread across 10 sectors, on their capability to provide answers to routine questions via email, the net, chat, Twitter and facebook. Additionally, 1,000 consumers were polled on how long they were willing to watch for responses on these channels.
The study measured the ability of insurers to provide answers to 10 routine questions through the web, as well as their speed and accuracy when responding to email, Twitter, Facebook and chat. Questions were deliberately similar to the ones that consumers ask, such as around purchasing or administering policies online, reduced prices for multiple products so when cover would start.
Insurers provided solutions to 30% of questions on their websites, 23% in response to Facebook messages and 12% to tweeted queries. There have been big differences between particular sectors – pet insurers answered 57% of questions online, in contrast to 16% among long-term health care providers. One dental insurer responded to an email in 13 minutes – yet another took more than 6 days to reply to exactly the same question.
The insurance market is in a crossroads, with the rise of digital disrupting traditional ways of conducting business. To achieve this new world, insurers have to prioritize digital customer experience, the Eptica study implies that they're struggling to change and escape from analog channels. Digital doesn't only benefit consumers, but also drives greater efficiency and enables innovation – therefore, it is time for insurers to understand from their peers in other industries and apply best practice to their operations to meet changing customer needs.
The research discovered that insurers are from step with consumer expectations. While more than half of consumers (57%) expect a response on Twitter within 30 minutes, just 26% of insurers met this deadline, with the most of replies not answering the queries. 61% of consumers complained that they could not learn more on company websites half the time they sought out it.
On social media, speed varied wildly. One long-term-care insurer successfully taken care of immediately a tweet in under two minutes, while 13 companies answered on Facebook within within minutes. Yet in the other end from the spectrum, 20 insurers took a lot more than six hours to respond on social networking, with three taking a day or more. There is little consistency between different channels, showing that many take a silo-based method of customer support that pushes up costs and slows service.
Additional key findings included:
- 68% of responses on email, Twitter and Facebook asked the researcher to alter channel and call, even for the standard queries
- 47% of insurers failed to provide consistent answers between different channels
- Just one company replied on all four channels of email, Facebook, Twitter and chat
- 17% of insurers claimed to offer chat, yet only 5% had it operational once they were evaluated
- Nearly half (46%) of consumers said they'd spend just five minutes searching for info on a company website before giving up and going elsewhere
- U.S. performance trails the U.K., where insurers answered 54% of all questions, 80% of these asked via email and 45% of those made through the web.
Eptica Insurance Multichannel Customer Experience Study methodology
In total, 100 company websites across 10 different insurance sectors were evaluated in September 2021:
- For their ability to reply to 10 basic, sector-specific questions via their website, for example, Can I purchase my policy online, or, How do i cancel my policy?
- On the speed and accuracy of their response through the email, Twitter, Facebook and chat channels.
- On the consistency of responses across the web, email, Twitter, Facebook and chat.
Consumer research on channel expectations was conducted by Toluna with 1,000 American insurance buyers in September 2021.
The full 2021 Eptica Insurance Multichannel Customer Experience Study, which includes a full report on companies evaluated, a detailed sector by sector introduction to performance and full analysis, obtainable from http://www.eptica.com/insurance-multichannel-customer-experience-study.
An infographic illustrating the outcomes is available from:
PDF: http://www.eptica.com/infographic-insurance-multichannel-cx
JPG: http://www.eptica.com/infographic-2021-insurance-eptica-multichannel-cx
