“By 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will have abandoned native mobile apps in favor of messaging for a better customer experience.” – Gartner
Against the backdrop of so much global turbulence, customers’ insurance needs and customer experience (CX) expectations are greater than ever. However, two years of lockdown have prompted a mass shift to the digital space, meaning that customers don’t necessarily want to meet with brokers in person, or have to spend time on the phone. So, what’s the solution for insurance businesses? Chat! Whether it’s live chat or a chatbot, this innovative communication tool is revolutionising the insurance experience for customers – and the insurance industry. Here we’ll look at how chat can help your business.
Live Chat vs. Chatbot
When it comes to ‘chat’ as a business messaging tool, there are two predominant channels – this is live chat and chatbot. These can be used across a number of messaging apps, with WhatsApp generally the most popular option, considering there are 2 billion users globally.
Live chat: This communication platform connects your customers directly with someone in the office who can provide information related to their insurance queries. This proactive channel offers real-time support, but is mostly limited to office hours.
Chatbot: This self-service chat is an automated option that provides your customer with support, although it will be related to simple queries that generate pre-determined responses.
Top Six Ways Chat Can Improve the Customer Insurance Journey
Here’s a look at some of the ways chat has shown to improve the customer’s experience when enquiring about and purchasing an insurance product.
1. Chat breaks through the jargon
Insurance is an incredibly specialized field that comes with its fair share of jargon. For customers with little background in this, buying a policy can be a daunting undertaking. It’s important that customers are not scared away from purchasing a valuable insurance product simply because they can’t grasp the language used. By engaging through a live chat platform, any technical terms can be quickly resolved and the customer made to feel more secure in the decision.
2. Chat provides an instant connection
“Millennials have been dubbed the generation of ‘instant gratification’. In a recent survey of nearly 3,000 US adults, 45% of Millennials said technology has made them more impatient than they were five years ago.” - Medium
If a potential customer makes an enquiry about your insurance products, then they’re not going to wait around for a delayed response. There is simply too much competition on the market and they will move onto the next provider. With a chat box, your agents can attend to customers’ responses in real-time and even attend to more than one query at a time. This just isn’t the case with call centres which leave customers frustrated while waiting on hold.
3. Chat answers FAQs
Every customer service provider knows that the majority of queries will be extremely similar in nature. And it’s the same for the insurance sector. Rather than having to take on the burden and costs of hiring customer service employees to provide repetitive information to customers a chat box is able to automate these responses, and then direct customers to someone in customer service for more complex matters. With these frequently asked questions being attended to, insurance brokers and agents are free to generate more leads and attend to paying customers’ needs.
4. Chats help sell products and services
When a customer approaches an insurance agent about an insurance product, such as for car or the home, it’s likely the have other insurance needs, such as life or travel insurance, that they’re either getting elsewhere, or don’t have enough information about. When a customer engages via chat, this is a great opportunity for insurance brokers to provide customers with some details about other insurance products that could be of interest to them. In this way, chat is a useful feature for cross-selling as well as upselling.
5. Chat facilitates insurance claims
Existing customers that need to make insurance claims can also enjoy a much more streamlined service through the power of chat. Chatbots are available 24/7 and allow policyholders to file insurance claims whenever they require them. The customer can provide the chatbot with the relevant data supporting images or videos which will then be processed by the firm. Chatbots can also be used proactively in the event of something like a natural disaster or an event such as the Covid-19 pandemic. They are able to send out information related to the claim ahead of time, so that the system is not inundated with the same queries.
6. Chat provides valuable feedback
Businesses can only continue to improve their customer’s journey and ensure customer retention by finding out what customers actually need. And the only way to access this information is by asking the customers themselves. Through the chat platform, insurance agents are able to make a personal connection with customers and collect valuable customer data in the process. In addition, the chat platform is a great way to encourage customer surveys and reviews which can then be used to improve the insurance offerings. This doesn’t need to be a lengthy undertaking, a simple rating’s system or comment section can make all the difference.
Can Clickatell help you?
If you’re in the insurance industry and are looking to improve your customer’s experience, then Clickatell can provide you with a user-friendly chat service through chat! Chat can be done through SMS messaging or the WhatsApp platform. These are proven to be the best chat solutions for business as it’s well-connected and easy to use. Through these chat options, your business will benefit from:
Interactive and proactive communication channels.
Personalized conversations and interactions.
Businesses can build and deploy customized workflows.
Businesses and their teams can handle a higher volume of messaging with the help of automation.
Better support for customers throughout user and buyer journey.
Provide the best in customer care for your insurance business and benefit from enhanced profitability by connecting with Clickatell.
Step into the future of business messaging.
SMS and two-way channels, automation, call center integration, payments - do it all with Clickatell's Chat Commerce platform.
