The world is fast becoming digital, in a trend that the limitations on physical movement imposed by the pandemic have only accelerated on a global scale. This places a massive strain on all industries to step up their game and fast-track their digitization efforts to keep up with customers’ expectations of a streamlined digital experience.
The challenge is particularly strenuous in industries with traditional business models, heavily reliant on human-to-human interaction and physical documentation, like the insurance business. Yet this is also where digital, AI-powered tools can have the most significant impact – chatbots are one of the most effective solutions for improving the customer experience, especially in a context in which insurance is often seen as a necessary evil, not a commodity.
The insurance industry is currently being hard-pressed to overhaul its business model and customer interaction, as consumer and policyholder expectations for immediate service and always-on availability continue to grow by the day. Direct interaction is becoming obsolete as customers shift their preference to messaging and mobile apps. In 2020, the client felt pressure from customers to respond faster and with digital ease to their demands.
Moreover, the growing online presence of both its legacy and newer competitors meant that a slow response from an agent dramatically increased the chance to miss the sale, as the customer would simply go elsewhere. For the insurance company, the focus on digital customer experience had suddenly become essential. The company needed a simple solution to automate the process of receiving information, requesting, and obtaining a new policy, starting with the area of travel policies, one of the most dynamic and time-sensitive aspects of its business.
Faced with the challenges outlined, the company was looking for a fully digital alternative to issuing travel policies, via the Internet, for customers accessing the company website from anywhere, anytime, and from any device. The solution was CLARA, an intelligent virtual assistant powered by DRUID’s conversational technology to offer 24/7 customer service. CLARA is hosted on client’s website. Thanks to the full integration with existing internal systems, it allows customers to choose among the entire range of travel insurance policy options. Once the appropriate policy is determined, CLARA can process the customer request and onboard the customer using OCR technology.
Thus, the virtual assistant solution enables scanning the customer ID with 99.95% accuracy, then sending and validating the data in just a few seconds. CLARA is also integrated with ING Bank’s digital payments solution, allowing customers to complete the payment for the policy online fully.
The entire data processing is approved by the user, who automatically receives by email the data processing agreement according to GDPR, the payment confirmation, and the insurance policy in less than 10 minutes from initiating the process.
Technology can be both disruptive and beneficial, even in a complex and regulated industry as the insurance one. Chatbots are now emerging as a time and resource effective solution for handling multi-faceted interactions.
As the number of implementations increases and the technology matures, they will likely change many aspects of the sector and help it keep up with customer demands for fast digital access. Customer interactions will be shorter and more meaningful, with each of them tailored to each client’s exact, specific needs. New models of doing business that capitalize on how technology helps insurers meet changing consumer demands are essential.
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