The Digital Insurer: Empowering engagement
In a digitally connected world, social media is empowering insurers to put the customer at the centre of everything they do.
Social media and mobility have transformed the way people connect. Every minute, millions of users across the world are sharing experiences, advice and opinions across an increasing array of social platforms and devices. Insurers who harness this trend stand to benefit from real-time intelligence and a proactive, customer-centric way of working.
Social channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provide a rich seam of up-to-the-minute information about the requirements, expectations and sentiments of current and prospective customers. Interacting with consumers and tracking their interactions with the company across these channels is essential to gaining a true 360-degree view of the customer.
“Insurers are starting to more aggressively use social media,” says Chad Hamblin, global industry director, financial services at Microsoft Business Solutions. “They’re using it as a vehicle to interact with customers at an individual or household level, enabling personalized communication that is especially important to younger people and millennials. They’re also using it as an early warning system that can alert them to an issue or an imminent request, so they can take a proactive approach. Third, insurers are trying to better understand social sentiment and better gauge consumer feedback on anything from new products and campaigns to the brand and its competitors. In doing so, they are harnessing social media as a powerful, realtime intelligence tool.”
Dennis Vanderlip, industry solutions director, worldwide insurance at Microsoft says that sophisticated software solutions are enabling insurers to gather, analyse and present all that information in a meaningful, actionable way. “Using solutions such as Microsoft Social Engagement and Dynamics CRM, insurers can set up a search for a product, brand or other item. The software will then monitor all the discussions around that across the different social channels and present the information on a dashboard. It automatically assigns a sentiment to each piece of information so the insurer knows whether consumers feel positively or negatively about it. It provides location insights to show where those views are being posted from, and tells you who is influencing the discussion and what language they are using.”
That insight can be put to work in many ways to monitor campaigns, identify leads and build competitive intelligence, as well as enabling staff to deliver the proactive service that is essential to a truly customer-centric business. “An insurance agent who uses these tools can gather insights about what their customers care about, their situation and the help they need right now,” says Vanderlip. “For example, an agent might search for the term ‘hail damage’ across social media. When there is an increase in negative sentiment on that subject, the agent can investigate further and identify where the posts are coming from. If they originate in an area where the agent has customers, there’s an opportunity to reach out to those who might be affected and ask what help they need. That early-stage, proactive service can enrich the relationship with the customer while helping to minimize disruption, damage and subsequent claims pay-outs.”
But engaging with consumers outside the organization is only half the story. By adapting their internal processes to this digitally networked world, insurers can empower their people to be more productive and deliver exceptional levels of service.
“Social media is not just an external focused tool but something that can be used to improve internal collaboration,” says Hamblin. “Tools like Dynamics CRM, Yammer and SharePoint can be used to improve collaboration and communication, to connect isolated or disparate groups and departments that don’t collaborate well – in turn leading to improved productivity and allowing those groups to better serve their customers.”
The more sophisticated social media becomes, the more urgently insurers need to reflect that networked connectivity across the organization. “The apps and services available in our personal lives – the ones that help us make new connections, engage in open discussions and discover new information – look nothing like the tools we use at work,” observes Vanderlip. “Many companies still rely on traditional hierarchies and legacy tools that leave people and information trapped in silos. Companies that are not built to respond effectively to a networked world are finding it difficult to keep up with changing customer needs and market landscapes, and in the future they will find it hard to attract and sustain the next generation workforce.”
Leading insurers are now putting in place integrated collaboration software and business applications to enable networked connectivity and engagement, and there are already signs that this will become a key differentiator.
“We’re going to start to see separation between the insurers who are enabling this customer-centricity and those who lag behind,” says Hamblin. “If customers are not getting the level of service they want they will look elsewhere. Those insurers that are enabling a 360-degree view of the customer through collaboration and networking technologies are creating something powerful and empowering right across the business.”
