Chief information officers (CIOs) are responsible for decisions and implementations that promise to provide on enterprise goals. A CIO's job is not only to invest in projects that will improve and streamline a company's internal processes but to help keep an eye out for initiatives and capabilities that will keep them ahead of industry shifts – shifts that may potentially challenge the company’s core business. Increasingly, improving customer engagement to promote loyalty and drive growth is becoming vital that you most insurers.
Understanding the scope of the process, where to begin and how to monitor progress remains problematic, so here's a quick checklist of products CIOs can focus on right now to start improving the consumer experience:
Start from the customer's perspective –
- Know who your customers are comparing you against:
Keep in your mind (and remind your colleagues, whether or not they have been in senior management or in the mail room) that consumers aren't comparing you solely with other insurance companies. They are also comparing you with the other areas they are doing business – including online businesses (Amazon, for example).
- Understand what their expectations are.
Here is a reality check: No consumer will be thrilled to fax a wet-signed renewal application. However, there are good historical and legacy system justifications for demanding it, this is no longer acceptable for today's consumers, who rightly demand immediacy.
- Meet them where they are- or will be.
Online is outdated; mobile may be the new norm. You need to be thinking about how even mobile devices is going to be substituted with something newer and greater. At a time where cars can drive themselves and televisions are “smart,” how much harder do you think it will be to market insurance?
Follow up by taking a look at things out of your employees' perspective.
- What skills do your products development and marketing teams possess?
They probably know a whole lot about insurance – its concepts, steps to make it work from the business perspective as well as how you can present it to customers. Odds are, however, they are not versed in software engineering and technical concepts or tools.
- What tools are employees acquainted with and that they will use in their daily work?
Can tools like Word, spreadsheets, email and interactive shared drives or repositories be leveraged?
- How much IT engineering adopts translating a product vision into actual products (forms and online/offline interactions, whether direct or through agents and brokers)?
If you are like most carriers, once an insurance offering continues to be defined on the business side (product, marketing, claims, legal), IT steps in. The length of time and money do you spend recreating that which was already completed in Microsoft Office? Wouldn't it not be more efficient if the subject material experts could handle a lot of strain on their very own?
Take it all in from the systems and procedures perspective.
- What core systems do you have in position today?
It is a safe bet you have many systems in place, many of which overlap or are similar in features and purpose.
- When – and just how – are you going to consolidate, upgrade or replace those systems?
Realistically, this will take time. Quite a long time. Probably too long to pay for waiting for it to be done.
- Look for plug-and-play capabilities and opportunities for an enhanced experience which do not make you throw away all your investments.
At the end of the day, you've got a lot of smart individuals your business. Listen to what your customers are suggesting, empower your people by removing extraneous and overly technical steps and look for methods to increase your company's communication capabilities without needing to start everything over on your own.
