Insurance providers, such as AA Ireland, are transforming customer engagement and increasing sales conversion rates using chatbots and conversational AI, explains Cathal McGloin, CEO of ServisBOT (www.servisbot.com):
Introduction:
Writing in Insurance Times, Oliwia Berdak, principal analyst at Forrester, commented that, among all the technologies that insurers are exploring, “pragmatic AI has the biggest potential to deliver on insurers’ top business priorities in 2019, improving customer experience and generating revenue.”
Rules of engagement:
Within the sphere of ‘pragmatic AI’, conversational AI interfaces, such as chatbots, offer a whole new engagement model where customers can obtain a quote, file a claim, renew a policy, request information, and complete onboarding more conveniently and at a lower cost to the insurance provider.
Insurance companies can no longer expect people to engage nine-to-five. Consumers want to interact on their time and using their preferred channels, which may include voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa, or Google Home, messaging apps, SMS, web or mobile apps, as well as the more traditional email, live chat, and phone channels.
Premium service:
While price will always be an important factor when purchasing an insurance policy, the customer experience is key. Is the policy information easy to find, or is it hidden in the small print? How responsive is the insurance provider when customers make a claim? The more positive interactions they can provide, the more likely the insurer is to increase loyalty and retention.
Virtual assistants or chatbots that integrate securely with relevant business systems and third-party data, can provide more contextual and personalised engagement that enhances the customer experience. Deploying these task-oriented chatbots drives business results such as higher retention rates through renewals, increased conversation rates on policy quotes, and increased revenue through more effective onboarding.
Besides an insurance company making services more accessible and automated, chatbots also make it easier for insurers to understand the exact intent, or need, of the customer. Chatbots can work across different functions more seamlessly so that, for example, a Policy bot can work alongside a Quote bot to better inform customers on the difference between policies and which one best suits the customer’s circumstances. This leads to greater transparency and personalisation, positively impacting conversion and sales.
A friend in need
Since chatbots work 24/7, services are always available when a customer needs them.
A customer reporting an accident and filing a claim on the spot provides a perfect example of the benefits of having a chatbot constantly available to engage at the point of need and in the customer’s preferred channel. The customer may choose to interact via the insurance provider’s mobile app, SMS, or a messaging app, on their mobile device, while they’re stood on the roadside awaiting recovery of their vehicle. A claims bot can request image uploads of a driver’s license, registration plates, and photos of damage, on the spot, helping to shrink the claims filing and processing timeframe. This also reduces a lot of the friction that customers normally have to deal with in filing a claim.
ServisBOT works on the principle of deploying and co-ordinating an army of insurance bots that can do everything from generating a quote, on-boarding a new customer, renewing a policy, collecting payments, and many other use cases: bringing convenience and lower costs, while improving the customer experience.
Case study: Using Bots to Win Business
To combat rising digital advertising costs and reduce the incidence of missed webchats, AA Ireland investigated how to employ chatbots to improve conversion rates on incoming quotation requests that came in out of hours, or when call centre employees were busy on calls.
AA Ireland used our conversational AI platform to develop its own Quote Bot, within seven weeks the bot was trained and ready to use. Within twelve weeks AA Ireland Quote Bot had increased conversion rates on online quotes by 11 percent and reduced the number of missed webchats by 81 percent. Additionally, where customers had interacted with the Quote Bot to answer their initial queries online, they spent 40 percent less time on the phone with customer service employees.
AA Ireland reports that the Quote Bot is reaching people who haven’t previously contacted the insurer. Working in combination with the Quote Bot allows customer service specialists to focus on answering more complex queries and overcoming objections to win customers’ business.
AA Ireland Customer Lifecycle Manager, Louise McCormack comments, “Increasing conversion even by one to two percent helps to make the business more profitable. The potential to use AI-powered chatbots to improve our conversion rates, while providing operational efficiencies across customer service, was an opportunity we couldn’t ignore.”
Following the success of Quote Bot, AA Ireland has deployed a customer service bot and a travel quote assistance bot, with plans for additional bots.
Conclusion:
Lloyds of London has drawn up its six-part transformation blueprint, with five of the areas involving building out a technology platform. The goal is to double the value of insurance business done, to increase the efficiency of processing policies and reduce the cost of sale of premiums which is currently 40p in every £1.
AI in all its forms is becoming integral to business systems, processes, and engagement models. For our part, we are making it easier for insurance providers to implement and launch conversational AI without needing a data scientist or solutions architect. We take away technical complexity so that insurance providers can focus on how they can apply AI to help them engage with customers more efficiently.
In 2020 as more pragmatic AI success stories emerge, we foresee other insurance companies moving beyond tactical deployments and adopting a chatbot strategy that is cross-functional across the whole business and customer life-cycle. This strategic approach will allow them to benefit from the genuine transformation that chatbots can bring.
