Insurers Need to Go Beyond Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel Customer Interactions

By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor

Enhancing the customer experience is now a top priority for virtually every organization of any size around the world. Realities are that being able to properly interact with customers in a multiple media/multi-channel world, however, presents challenges.  The insurance industry, which is extremely customer interaction intensive, is an example of the challenges that must be overcome since just making all of the channels available for customer interactions is merely a technology starting point and not necessarily a new and better way of doing business.

In the insurance business, success has always been centered on the relationship. Agents are often engaged in personalized selling, focused on building the relationship for optimal impact and profitable sales. When a claim must be made, the agent may be involved, but it also draws in the skills of the larger staff. Call center agents, supervisors and claims adjusters could enter into the mix, all contributing to the experience.

As a recent Insurance Tech post by Mark Breading, SMA, that focuses on the insurance industry observes, insurers need to be thinking about an omni-channel experience, as opposed to merely a multi-channel one. This is not mere semantics, and while a number of organizations try to get this right, many are falling short.

As Breading explains, the key to the omni-channel experience is to truly create a single experience across all channels. The challenge in doing so is different individuals bringing different skills to different channels and a lack of training to achieve ultimate consistency. For instance, the agent may be completely focused on the experience of the customer, while the claims adjuster is much more focused on gathering the facts. The customer service rep is concerned with making the right connections.

In addition, in many instances various lines of business may have created their own channels which are siloed and were purpose-built rather than part of a strategic vision that incorporated the need for tight and seamless integration so the customer service people always have the right and best information at their disposal when they are interacting with customers.

All of these individuals are still working toward the same goal, but are they customer-centric in their approach?

This is an important question. Breading explains there are a few elements that need to be in place to ensure the success for an omni-channel platform. These include:

Customer Experience:Breading notes the trend generally swiping the contact center solutions industry where focus has gone from speed and cost-cutting to assuring an experience that encourages loyalty and stimulates permission to upsell.

Part of this is a need to provide consistency.A simple example would be calling customer service and having the person on the other end answer with the name of a different company of the one you thought you called causing consternation. There are lots more where not providing a consistent interface regardless of channel used for interactions can have costly consequences.

Customer Journey – Breading points out that it used to be that contact centers were measure on a single transaction, and now they need to focus on the lifecycle value of the customer and be able to analyze all of the interactions with them. 

For instance, what was your experience when you contacted a firm and they knew about your latest purchase and asked you about it? Was it weird or did you feel like they are really paying attention to your needs? Tying in the customer to your CRM platform and managing their journey is important for the omni-channel experience.
 

Unified Platforms – we’ve heard a lot about unified communications (UC), but Breading explains that this is really just the first step in omni-channel operations. A unified platforms approach means what you are trying to achieve in the customer journey and through consistency are possible thanks to the technology you have readily available and synching it all together. The clear message is that you need to align your systems so you can get the value you need.

What insurers need to appreciate is that taking multi-channel interaction capabilities to an omni-channel approach really is the path to enhanced customer experiences which translate directly to the bottom line. As noted at the top this is not a matter of industry jargon, but is about the best application of technology for a rapidly changing world where the customer experience is recognized differentiated value.