Customers are becoming less loyal to insurance brands as they increasingly rely on their smartphones for company interactions – and it’s not just the millennials – says an industry specialist.
Reggie Twigg, Director of Product Marketing, Data Capture, at US-based digital intelligence company ABBYY says the digital transformation seen during the past 12 months – driven by both customers and Covid – has forced many insurers to become more customer focused.
“Insurance customers are becoming more tech-savvy,” says Twigg in the Insurance Hound podcast. “It’s the millennial and younger generation who are entering the insurance market who are the major drivers, but older generations are also becoming tech-savvy.
“And what that means is that their interaction with service providers – banks and insurance companies – are becoming more focused on using smartphones.”
He says customers have a lot of choice when it comes to insurance products “…so insurance providers are competing on price, customer experience, and customer satisfaction”.
He says that one bad experience for a customer, such as a poorly-managed claim, can send them to a competitor.
“Insurers have realised they can’t rely on customer loyalty so they have to use customer experience for creating that loyalty,” he says.
“And those were the conditions leading into this year – and so we saw insurance organisations investing heavily in digital transformation technologies. What Covid has done is put the foot on the gas and accelerated those initiatives.”
Twigg says that in an age of Covid, working from home, fewer face-to-face meetings, and social distancing, have become normalised “…particularly for professionals”.
Insurers have realised they can’t rely on customer loyalty so they have to use customer experience for creating that loyalty…
“That has clearly impacted insurance operations and how insurers work, and accelerated organisations’ investment in digital technologies,” he says.
“As a baseline, digital transformation was moving organisations toward more smartphone-based interactions with customers, and defining customers around that paradigm.
“Covid accelerated that and if it was the future before [Covid], our evidence suggests overwhelmingly that insurance firms have put them on the front burner and made them a priority.
“interactions via smartphones, and processing documents for claims and all the other interactions via mobile technologies and computers have become a higher priority.
“We have seen that especially for claims processes, but also for underwriting and customer onboarding.”