Webinar replay: How carriers are leveraging large language models (LLMs) and automation to drive better decisions
Watch Now
  Everest Group IDP
             PEAK Matrix® 2022  
Indico Named as Major Contender and Star Performer in Everest Group's PEAK Matrix® for Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)
Access the Report

BLOG

How automation and technology can help raise insurance net promoter scores

By: Christopher M. Wells, Ph. D.
May 4, 2023 | Customer Experience, Intelligent Intake, Unstructured Unlocked

Back to Blog

Insurance companies are always interested in ways to improve customer satisfaction and their net promoter score (NPS). As a company focused on a form of intelligent document processing called intelligent intake, we naturally have some thoughts on how they might use technology to go about doing just that.

My co-host Michelle Gouveia and I batted around some ideas on how insurance companies can apply automation and technology in general to improve NPS and take advantage of, or even create opportunities to improve the customer experience. Gouveia focuses on insurance technology for Sandbox Industries, drawing on her experience with firms including Travelers and Hartford Steam Boiler (HSB), a global specialty insurer and reinsurer that’s now part of Munich Re.

In general, a few simple elements add up to a good customer experience: transparency, accuracy and speed. And let’s face it, the two times when clients connect with their insurance company are when they first secure a policy and when they file a claim. That makes your underwriting and claims departments the face of your company to the vast majority of clients, so they’re a good place to focus automation and customer satisfaction efforts.

On the podcast, Gouveia and I readily admitted that neither of us are exactly experts on customer satisfaction in insurance, but we are pretty savvy about technology and automation. And it didn’t take long to recognize that insurance companies can draw on technology long employed by e-commerce companies to improve their NPS ratings.

Listen to the full podcast here: Unstructured Unlocked episode 17 – How automation enables insurance companies to increase CX metrics

 

Chat-bots add speed to insurance processes

 

Chat-bots are one example. We all see them everywhere now and they can be useful for answering simple questions. They can also be effective for first- or second-level triage, such as in claims processing, before you get passed to a live agent. They key there is to make sure the live agent has access to the chat, so you don’t make the customer repeat everything. We’ve all been there, too, and it’s frustrating to say the least. Avoiding such a scenario involves both technology as well as attention to the process involved. In short, don’t automate a flawed process.

Artificial intelligence technology may be able to bring chat-bots to the next level. Gouveia talked about how insurance companies that focus on small businesses may be able to use chat to aid in underwriting, for example. The insured could answer some simple questions about their business via chat, and an AI engine behind the scenes could offer up policy recommendations. To the extent that makes it simpler for the client to work with your company, it can provide a positive customer experience and ultimately raise your NPS.

 

Transparency: taking inspiration from e-commerce

 

In terms of providing transparency, Gouveia and I agreed insurance companies would do well to learn from e-commerce companies like DoorDash and Amazon.

DoorDash provides a good user experience by keeping customers apprised of where their order stands, from, “We’ve got it,” and “We’re cooking it,” to “It’s on its way.”  I could see insurance companies providing a similar experience during underwriting, for example, keeping clients apprised when they receive the application, when they determine all required information is intact, when it’s with the underwriter, and so on.

Gouveia noted the Amazon experience may also be relevant, in terms of making suggestions. When a client is making a policy decision, find other, similar clients and show what they opted for, essentially providing educational information to help clients make more informed decisions.

That could be either in an online experience or, more likely for commercial insurance, a prompt you can give live agents as they’re speaking with brokers. If you think about what’s likely to increase a customer satisfaction score, it’s being able to get things done quickly and having some comfort that you bought the right thing. This sort of suggestive technology helps meet both goals.

And with technologies such as ChatGPT, you can start to enable clients to ask meaningful questions and draw on a repository of data to provide effective answers.

 

Related content: How ChatGPT and other GPT-3 AI technologies may apply to the insurance industry

 

Insurance automation: Starting from scratch

 

If I were starting from scratch in building an insurance technology platform, I would map out the typical customer journey, from initial policy application to claims and any touch points in between. Collect all the information that’s relevant at each step and keep track of it all in that central repository.  Then you can start analyzing where the gaps are. At what points do customers sort of disappear, where you don’t hear from them for long periods of time, and is there something you can do about that?

That’s an important exercise because, as Gouveia pointed out, clients typically connect with their insurance company only when they first secure a policy and when they file a claim. So, finding ways to connect outside of those (potentially stressful) interactions can give carriers a way to stay top of mind with clients.

Perhaps it’s a weather situation like a hurricane or blizzard bearing down and you can provide reminders on steps to take to prevent property damage. Whatever the case may be, I would think finding ways to stay in touch with clients with useful information can go a long way toward improving those NPSs.

Find the full transcript of the podcast here.

Those are some of my highlights from our conversation, but draw your own conclusions by checking out our full conversation on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform, including:

Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter.
[addtoany]

Increase intake capacity. Drive top line revenue growth.

[addtoany]

Unstructured Unlocked podcast

March 27, 2024 | E43

Unstructured Unlocked episode 43 with Sunil Rao, Chief Executive Officer at Tribble

podcast episode artwork
March 13, 2024 | E42

Unstructured Unlocked episode 42 with Arthur Borden, VP of Digital Business Systems & Architecture for Everest and Alex Taylor, Global Head of Emerging Technology for QBE Ventures

podcast episode artwork
February 28, 2024 | E41

Unstructured Unlocked episode 41 with Charles Morris, Chief Data Scientist for Financial Services at Microsoft

podcast episode artwork

Get started with Indico

Schedule
1-1 Demo

Resources

Blog

Gain insights from experts in automation, data, machine learning, and digital transformation.

Unstructured Unlocked

Enterprise leaders discuss how to unlock value from unstructured data.

YouTube Channel

Check out our YouTube channel to see clips from our podcast and more.
Subscribe to our blog

Get our best content on intelligent automation sent to your inbox weekly!