By Faisal Abbasi, Managing Director UK&I, IPsoft
Much has been written about the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to revolutionise insurance. The sector has made huge strides to drive innovation by investing in new technologies over the last few decades. Indeed, the financial services industry has long been ahead of the curve in terms of elevating the user experience for both customers and employees, and many have already invested in building a Hybrid Workforce, in which human and digital colleagues work together.
Today, amidst unprecedented sudden challenges that have upended industries, businesses and lives with a strong impact on insurance services, it doesn’t really come as a surprise that many are already looking to AI-powered digital employees and investing in cognitive solutions to upgrade and scale customer-facing processes. So, where can AI be implemented to transform processes and improve operational efficiency and customer service within insurance firms?
Empowering customers
Digital employees, like Amelia, can automate common user engagements, such as claim enquiries and quote to cash functionality at scale through Natural Language Processing (NLP) whilst securing backend integrations with an organisation’s specific CRM and data management systems. For example, a customer can get immediate answers to questions like, “When is my monthly premium due?” or “How much would it be to add my daughter onto my auto insurance policy?” and leave expert human agents to handle individualised customer needs. This benefits both employees and customers by firstly speeding up the customer resolution process and secondly giving back time for agents to focus on higher level requests.
By automating straight forward enquiries, insurers can improve customer satisfaction rates by empowering them to get answers more quickly and efficiently. In turn, employees can instead focus their time on higher-level interactions that are both more rewarding for the employee and beneficial for the business, such as building rapport or handling sensitive enquiries.
Streamlining the customer journey
Insurance firms want to make the customer experience of their contact centres as seamless as possible. So, many have chosen to integrate AI at the beginning of the customer journey to help authenticate users and identify the intent of enquiries. For example, a digital employee can confirm the routine information, such as asking “What is your name and policy number?” or “In a few words, describe what we can help you with today.” and get the customer in front of the right agent from the outset. This again allows human agents to avoid repetitive information-gathering tasks, saving them huge amounts of time and helping better manage incoming calls.
Augmenting agents’ experience
As well as automating simple tasks, digital employees can also support in augmenting the work of human agents by acting as a ‘whisper agent’. Digital employees can work directly with customer agents by discreetly sharing instant, relevant information with them – hence the term, ‘whisper agent’. This is key for ensuring all customer calls are compliant with the industry’s significant regulatory requirements as well as being in line with company protocols. Having the relevant information at hand in turn makes the call more seamless for customers and means employees do not have to spend time searching through databases, policy guidance or FAQ documents before responding to customers.
In this capacity, digital employees can significantly enhance employee satisfaction. By providing staff with instantaneous, on-demand information, human agents can feel safe in the knowledge that they are not only working quickly and efficiently but that their customer engagements are compliant. In addition, whisper agents reduce the time it takes to upskill new employees on company and customer processes, meaning organisations can get new recruits into client service roles quicker.
The future of insurance is in the Hybrid Workforce
According to Deloitte estimates, more than 85% of customer interactions are predicted to be managed without a human by the end of this year. A similar McKinsey report suggests that AI will transform every aspect of the insurance industry over the next decade. The role of insurance agents is changing dramatically, and with it, so are customer expectations. We will see an increasing number of firms adopting a Hybrid Workforce, in a bid to speed up processes and enhance the customer experience.
It will no longer be feasible for organisations to expect customers to wait in long phone queues to get the answer to a simple claim query. AI is causing significant changes and improvements to customer service across nearly all industries, and insurance is no exception. As more and more organisations get onboard with the notion of a Hybrid Workforce, there will be widening divide between the AI-haves and the AI-have-nots.
But it is not just about being ahead of the competition – it is also about being able to scale quickly and flexibly in order to cope with our fluctuating circumstances. Today, more than ever, it is vital that insurers can manage spikes in customer enquiries.
