Earn Insurance Customers for Life with Meaningful Customer Service Experiences

The adage that retaining current customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones has never been more critical than in today’s insurance industry. Faced with increasing competition, insurance companies must closely monitor existing customers’ needs to succeed in any market.

However, the criteria for customer retention have changed significantly over the past 10 years. Today’s insurance companies must provide exceptional customer service experiences to retain customers in an increasingly competitive market. Those experiences must be delivered through efficient customer interactions. Customers now expect personalization at every customer touch point.

The digital transformation needed to address customer expectations can be challenging. But with advanced unified communications (UC) solutions, insurance companies can create meaningful customer service experiences to help them earn customers for life.

Exceptional Experiences Start with Do-it-yourself Service

The new expectations of customers reflect the significant role technology now plays in everyone’s life. Connected consumers are now accustomed to making purchases online. This connected reality is heightened by the fact that the demographics of the insurance industry market have changed. Today’s insurance consumers are younger, digital natives who have grown up with communications technology at their fingertips. These customers expect seamless, omnichannel, self-service experiences and are likelier to switch to other providers if they don’t get them.

This means that the days of in-person consultations and paper-based processes are long gone. Insurance customers now want direct, online access to self-serve portals and digital workflows to get insurance services without ever speaking to an agent.

Insurance companies can enhance customer experience by implementing self-service at all touch points. This gives customers direct access to their policies and greater control over them. Customers can review products, purchase and manage coverage, customize policies and coverage to fit their needs and add or delete benefits as their needs change.

Efficient Interactions Require UC Solutions

These self-serve processes can be made possible by UC solutions that streamline customer interactions and guide customers through insurance workflows.

For example, online chatbots can act as virtual agents, deliver services, promote new products, and provide personalized customer experiences — all without connecting a customer to an agent. Along the way, these bots can capture critical information that can populate customer profiles and update preferences so that they are readily available to a contact center agent to provide relevant and personalized service when the customer wants to speak to one.

For customers who choose to call rather than access service online, contact center self-serve options can include voice recognition systems, which can authenticate customers and take them through an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) workflow that routes the call to the best agent to handle the request. Suppose the agent needs input from other colleagues to address the customer’s questions efficiently. In that case, UC collaboration tools with advanced messaging and file exchange capabilities can eliminate the need to put customers on hold. At the same time, the answers are found, making the whole process seamless and efficient for agents and customers.

Proactive Personalization Improves Customer Retention

This level of reactive personalization can make the customer experience much more meaningful, either online or during direct calls to a contact center.

An additional level of proactive personalization can be added with artificial intelligence (AI) features. With AI, UC platforms can be configured and programmed to anticipate customer needs based on previous interactions and proactively reach customers with customized service offers, suggestions, and reminders.

For example, data captured through all interactions can be used to:

• Alert customers that their policy is due to expire and provide renewal options.
• Suggest policy options to address changes in home, auto, or life insurance needs at specific life milestones, like weddings, anniversaries, or home sales.
• Promote new products and services that may be relevant based on a customer’s insurance history or recent queries.
• Offer loyalty discounts for specific features to longstanding customers.
• Connect customers with qualified third-party partners, such as appraisers, emergency service contractors, and recommended auto body shops.

These proactive interactions can be delivered online when a customer logs into a self-serve portal or via email and even text based on the preferred communications methods the customer has authorized and that have been logged into the customer’s profile.

Deliver Exceptional Customer Service Experiences with Mitel

Choosing and integrating the UC solutions that will enable your company to provide exceptional customer service experiences and earn customers for life can be challenging. You’ll want to work with a partner who understands the insurance industry and can provide the right solutions to meet your specific customer service objectives and unique market situation.

Mitel takes a personalized, partnership approach to the process. We help insurance companies choose, deploy, and implement UC solutions and technologies that take customer service to a new level. It’s a key reason why insurance companies like Ellinger Riggs Insurance, Brightside Insurance, and Brown & Brown Insurance trust Mitel to help make their customer experience vision a reality.

Mitel’s MiVoice Business Solution is a complete UC, collaboration, and contact center offering core business communications capabilities, including:

• MiContact Center Business is an enterprise-grade, omnichannel customer experience management platform with built-in IVR and AI-powered Virtual Agent and Agent Assist features.
• Mitel Voice Assist is an intelligent cloud-based auto attendant for insurance companies with an increasing inbound call flow management need.
• MiCollab is an all-in-one collaboration application for softphone, messaging, and video meeting needs.

Contact us to learn how Mitel Financial Services Solutions can help your company deliver exceptional customer service experiences that earn customers for life.