Technology is a great enabler, but if you don’t have happy employees facing your customers, building relationships and caring about your products, you aren’t capitalizing on your greatest asset – your people.
This was one of the conclusions from a McKinsey survey (September 2023) of more than 8,500 insurance customers of the 40 largest North American insurance carriers across the life and property and casualty (P&C) segments.
The results were clear: Customer experience (or CX) is a strong predictor and driver of financial and organizational outcomes.
“Customer experience” leaders, defined as those with above-median customer experience scores, outperformed their peers across the board—from revenue growth to employee and agent satisfaction, the survey said.
Overwhelmingly, customers surveyed said the human touch cannot be sacrificed in Customer Experience.
AI ‘CREATING CAPACITY’
Exdion Insurance President Steven Salar asks what this means for brokers?
“It’s so important to make time for personalized advice and relationship management?” he says. “This is one of the drivers for digitalization by brokers – creating capacity in their workforce.”
“The automation of administrative, repetitious tasks can free up time for people in our industry to spend less time on admin/checking and basic tasks and more time on customer satisfaction and experience.”
“Exdion Insurance has years of experience as the industry leader for AI products used by many of the top brokers in the US. Now we are able to offer clients our end-to-end solutions which bring together generative AI, machine learning and other advanced technologies and services.”
In today’s digital world, customers have come to expect personalized advice, seamless end to end journeys and omnichannel experiences, (which means the customer experiences your brand in many channels both physical and digital but always has the same experience).
MORE FROM THE SURVEY
The McKinsey survey revealed that customers typically interact with their insurance carrier once or twice a year. This is in stark contrast with other financial-services industries such as banking, in which customer interactions take place ten to 20 times more often.
The low frequency of customer touchpoints or moments-of-truth in insurance industries, means that it’s extremely important to get each one right.
Agents and advisers are still the highest-rated channel when it comes to customer satisfaction, and 20 percent of customers reported that they would likely switch insurance carriers if their adviser left.
But, we are operating at a time when the inherent complexity of insurance products requires a more deliberate effort from insurers to inform and educate customers.
In fact, 40 percent of insurance customers surveyed, who considered canceling their policy, were considering doing so because they believed the policy was not necessary or did not provide sufficient value.
Products need to be simplified and transparent, and product information must be widely accessible and easy to understand.
Insurers need to use the expertise of their agents and advisers to provide personalized advice that can help customers navigate the process and understand the various trade-offs of their decisions. And agents in turn will need to leverage latest technologies especially AI, to enhance CX.