Simplifying the customer experience
Editorial by Andrew De Kock
There was a time when ‘being digital’ meant an insurer had a website. For some this evolved to having an app (most likely for getting real-time policy values – oh the excitement!). These days this sort of papering over the cracks just doesn’t cut it. Customers are digitally savvy now and have higher expectations based on their experiences of other industries, and as a result are more demanding.
The focus of this month’s InsurTech Insights is simplifying the insurance customer experience as a way to improve engagement and to help meet consumer expectations.
In a previous article I gave the example of how a FMCG retailer used my payment details to automatically present me with my usual shopping list. Maybe not earth-shattering today, but that happened in South Africa in the very early 2000s! By removing that pain point, it created a much better customer experience for me when I least expected it.
In our first article, KPMG’s Will Pritchett and Louise Portelli point out that in a world where trust in insurers is low, loyalty not assured and expectations continuing to rise, simplifying the customer experience is vital to improving engagement and meeting those expectations. Insurance customers aren’t interested in the industry’s complexity, it’s our job to remove that as a client issue.
They set out five key areas to consider when working to simplify the customer experience, with viewing your employees as customers being one which is often overlooked. They also highlight the importance of resolving legacy infrastructure issues.
In his article, Rick Huckstep notes that the Big Four tech firms have reshaped customer expectations, not just for their own, but for everyone’s customers. He illustrates, with some real-world examples, how InsurTechs have removed many of the barriers insurance customers usually face by simplifying processes, and how this allows the customer to take control with associated benefits to both parties.
For me, the intelligent collection and use of data is the enabler of simplification and is a thread running through both articles. We need to learn all we can from the data we already have and marry that with other non-traditional sources.
I also found the lack of focus on price in both articles in stark contrast to how insurers have been differentiating themselves for some time now.
Together these articles should give you food for thought, with a mix of areas to focus on, backed up with real-world examples of what some others have already achieved.
We hope you find them a worthwhile read.
Yours digitally,
Andrew de Kock
The InsurTech phenomenon is making the customer experience simpler
An in-depth look at InsurTech’s transformative approach to the insurance customer and product.
KPMG Perspective - Simplifying the customer experience
Trust in insurance firms remains low, while expectation of service is getting higher, how can the gap be bridged?