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Automation in Insurance: gaining the competitive edge through real-time Conversation Intelligence

Insurance is one of the most complex legacy industries globally. What makes insurance operations more challenging is the diversity of products and services. There is a wide range of insurance products and distribution processes. In recent times, customer-centric market forces have also led to insurance companies increasingly focusing on customized offerings which further increase the diversity of products on offer.

With the emergence of digital technologies and insurtech platforms, consumers are now increasingly researching the products and contacting the contact centers of insurance companies for detailed info and support. This is where a number of complexities come into the picture. For instance, the health insurance policy’s coverage/eligibility and premium would be dependent upon the applicant’s age, medical history, income, etc. These factors vary from one person to another, implying that the costs of buying a policy could be different for person X compared to what person Y paid. Contact center agents are expected to be the primary advisors who would know all about such finer details and provide accurate information to the seekers.

However, if agents fail to provide the anticipated support in the form of accurate information, hand-holding, and promptness then the customers might end up drifting towards the rival insurance companies. That’s where the integration of advanced technologies especially Conversation Intelligence has emerged as the major enabler for the insurers. There are multiple ways in which the technology helps them overcome their everyday challenges. These include the following.

Increase in revenue – Detailed QA evaluation helps identify the most common sales objections that the agents face on a daily basis and to use it as a coaching tool to help agents learn more effectively. This way Conversation Intelligence helps in determining the winning behaviours of the top agents and replicating them across the team to improve revenue performance.

Agent training and awareness–With the frequent introduction of new products, changes in policy processes as well as rules related to various insurance categories, it is often challenging for agents to be well-versed with various aspects of the policies on offer especially pricing and premiums or coverage benefits. This is where with the real-time support of the Conversation Intelligence platform they can remain in complete control of the situation. These systems are integrated with CRMs and have complete access to all the details of the products on offer. Thus, by analyzing the live conversations, the system is able to pull out relevant information, and even make suggestions to agents about the right response or questions to be asked. As a result, the conversations prove to be more meaningful, helpful, and prompt for customers and help in creating greater brand value.

Optimizing operational efficiency – There is a significant value addition that the Conversation Intelligence platform provides to all the operational tasks in contact centers. At the backend, they can analyze each and every conversation and generate accurate data-driven insights. This is a far superior and holistic process than the typical human QA practices of listening to a handful of calls randomly. During the live calls, the Conversation Intelligence platform can perform multiple tasks such as automatic bookmarking of important moments in the conversation, generation of informative call summaries automatically at the end of each call, and even creating call transcriptions.

As these systems automate the search process for product or account information related to the customer, there is a significant saving of time that agents usually spend on search by putting customers on hold. The elimination of this wait time leads to shorter Average Handle Time (AHT), with the callers reaching to resolution at the first call interaction. There is also the element of process automation for routine and repetitive tasks which further reduces agent burn.

Conclusion

 

A large number of insurance enterprises are reinventing themselves digitally now. The transformation was partly driven by the pandemic and is now being deemed necessary as they have been facing intense competition from new-age digital insurance platforms. Since customers are keen to get the best propositions, wider coverage, and superior as well as hassle-free experience, they are not shy of switching away from traditional players that fail to match the newer Insurtech brands. The addition of the Conversation Intelligence platform can give the desired digital firepower and customer-centric makeover to the operations of legacy enterprises, and help them retain the pole position. This is the potential on offer, and there is no doubt that automation powered by Conversation Intelligence is going to be the future of customer operations in insurance.

 

(The author is Mr. Debasish Mitra, Vice President of Engineering, Mihup and the views expressed in this article are his own)

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