Amidst the wave of declining top-line revenues and profits, new competitive threats, and drastically changing customer expectations, insurers have been thrust into an industry fundamentally altered by the advent of digital transformation. While some see this wave of change as a threat, strategically-minded institutions see this as a tremendous opportunity.
When insurance executives were recently surveyed on their objectives for business operations transformation, the combination of improving customer experience and growing top-line revenue accounted for 52% of responses.
So how would an insurer drive both top-line revenue and an outstanding customer experience?
Let’s Start with Customer Experience
Customers today are demanding that organizations provide experiences aligned with what is offered by consumer-focused companies such as Amazon and Apple.
Self-service, transparency, speed, and a mobile-first experience are now must-haves for customers.
Think of the processes that customers experience throughout their tenure, from onboarding to claims administration. Are these processes transparent, expeditious, and capable of being done on a browser and on a mobile device? How many manual, inefficient processes are making it harder for customers to do business with you?
There are an increasing number of insuretech providers who are ready and willing to provide such seamless experiences. They are making the experience so effortless by employing intelligent automation to remove unnecessary costs, drive efficiency, and create experiences that actually delight customers.
With such streamlined offerings, customers are far more willing to share more about themselves, which means that additional telemetry data can be collected.
Part Two: Driving Topline Revenue
Let’s drive some revenue! With this additional data, smart insurers can not only determine the right time and place to introduce solutions based on customer needs, but are also gifted the foundation for new products and services.
These provide lucrative avenues for additional revenue streams and further engagement opportunities with current customers.
So, Where to Start?
The first step towards achieving these two goals is to look at existing processes. Which are the most manual? Which are the most customer facing? Which cost the most to run?
Application processes, policy underwriting, client onboarding, and claims processing represent some of the most impactful areas to initially target, but they only represent a small portion of the total opportunity. McKinsey & Company, in fact, found that automation could reduce the cost of a claims journey by as much as 30 percent. Imagine those kinds of results across your top ten processes!
Stay tuned for my next blog post, where I take a deep dive into an insurer use case known for heavily manual processes inundated with paperwork, and how it can be modernized with Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).
Interested in learning more about Nintex’s IPA platform? Sign up for a free demo today!
