Packing a punch: How conversational AI can revolutionise insurance

Philipp Heltewig, Co-founder and CEO of conversational AI firm Cognigy.

 

The insurance industry and the sport of boxing might not have much in common at first glance – but both are benefitting from enhancements in conversational AI. The 2021 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Belgrade recently deployed AI that analyses the ‘cognitive functions of the brain’ to detect bout manipulation, such as that experienced at the 2016 Rio Olympics. This same technology is used in military, diplomatic, and insurance sectors.

A recent ISG report found that insurance companies know they must prioritise digital investment and accept that to date they have been slow adopters of technology. According to the report, insurance companies also specifically regret not having invested further in AI before the pandemic, with 95% of firms in this space agreeing that customers are demanding more digital products and services.

But what exactly can insurers seek to gain by deploying conversational AI?

 

Improved customer experience

There is huge potential for insurance firms to reap benefits from implementing conversational AI. In addition to supporting employees to transition to working from home during Covid-19, there are plenty of examples of daily use cases for conversational AI in insurance. These can vary from automating insurance quotes, to assisting customers with billing questions, to improving internal processes such as HR.

Philipp Heltewig

Improving response times for customers is one of the primary advantages of conversational AI. Tools such as chatbots can instantly reply to simple customer queries. This enables human agents to focus on the more complex queries and escalated customer concerns, streamlining the customer’s journey. This in turn strengthens an insurance firm’s brand image and business personality. A smooth and short call where customers can swiftly obtain calculated premiums and settle claims can speak volumes about an insurer’s commitment to delivering high quality customer experience. Simultaneously, conversational AI allows insurance firms to save operational costs without risking a loss of quality – with digital insurance agents able to significantly increase the call deflection rate and divert customers to the channels best suited to help them.

In fact, conversational AI can enable full end-to-end self-service – something that was unthinkable for the insurance sector not so long ago, given the complex nature of insurance products. Empowering customers to be autonomous in this way can prove to be a huge asset in the relationship-building process for insurers. Conversational AI can respond to customers in a language they understand, using simple words and complete phrases. With Natural Language Understanding and machine learning, conversational AI solutions can also improve upon their responses, and become better equipped to handle increasingly complex customer inputs.

 

Empowered employees

Implementing conversational AI not only empowers your customers – it can empower your employees too. Low-code AI tools allow technology to be more accessible to more employees within your business. Instead of having to rely on designated tech experts, non-technical business users can feel able to engage with conversational AI and use it to improve their own workstreams. After building the system once, the AI platform can then be upscaled and deployed across the business for widespread use, offering a high return on the initial investment. This includes international expansion across different geographical regions, as the digital agents can be configured to interact with customers in different languages, creating a multilingual support system.

 

Increased diversification

In addition to speed and autonomy, AI-powered virtual assistants enable insurers to capitalise on growing demand for more personalised services. Accompanying analytics platforms can provide real-time dashboard insights into the exact pain points within customer conversations and extract data from human-human conversations to improve virtual agent performance. Not only does it allow more personalised interactions with customers – but it also allows analysis of the common issues experienced, enabling insurers to tailor and amend products and services in line with customer wants and needs.

 

Transforming the global insurance landscape

Traditionally, customer support teams in insurance companies face huge pressure to staff numerous calls and queries from customers, placing strain on employees. Simultaneously, the complexity of the customer’s journey can inhibit a consumer’s view of insurance firms and the industry holistically.

Conversational AI allows insurers to offer a more dynamic service model – lightening the load on employees and freeing their time for more complex tasks, improving response times for customers, and reducing operational costs. The process of buying insurance, making claims, or resolving queries with an insurer can become more streamlined than ever before.

But the onus is now on insurers to not let technological adoption to continue to fall by the wayside. Customers are increasingly expecting a seamless experience resulting from the recent rise in e-commerce and online activity – and low-code AI tools make it easier than ever before for businesses to implement, use and maintain advanced digital systems. Rather than viewing conversational AI as a difficult and costly investment, there are great opportunities for cost-savings, product diversification and competitive advantage to be gained.

 

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