Chatbots, a Technology Success Opportunity

Dawayne Eason, CPCU

May 6, 2020

Chatbots, a Technology Success Opportunity

Organizations are continually searching for a process to improve business and to provide additional benefit and information.  One process is through the use of Chatbots.  A Chatbot could be helpful in growing your business and the results are readily substantiated through the data gained from the use of Chatbots on websites or a social media channel.

Chatbots represent a new trend in how people access information, make decisions, and communicate. — Christie Pitts, Verizon Ventures[1]

Chatbot Use & Function

All of us likely have accessed websites where a little box pops up in the right-hand corner offering “Chat”, “Live Chat”, “How can I help you”. This little box is a chat window designed to answer any questions, day or night.

Chatbots are designed to help the customer out by not having to wait on hold to speak with a live person. You type in a question and in a few seconds a response is provided.

Consumer and policyholder expectations for 24/7 self-service continues to grow every passing day. Web forms are no longer preferred and there is a shift from phone calls to mobile apps and messaging.

Today, digital marketing gives the insurance industry several channels to reach its potential customers. However, what happens if a customer were to knock on the door of an insurance company and receive no response? If an agent isn’t available to offer relevant information, whether searching for a quote or servicing a claim, the potential customer goes on to find another provider.

With Chatbots and multi-channel integrations coupled together, insurance providers can genuinely have a solution in place to bridge the expectations of their consumers and switch from the traditional transaction into a two-way interaction.

Insurance Chatbots can be deployed as your customer’s personal insurance manager while equipping your sales team with valuable and contextually relevant insights. Below are some of the many use cases for deploying Chatbots in insurance. 

Customer Awareness & Education

Chatbots in insurance can educate customers on the workflow process, compare or suggest the optimal policy based on the customer’s profile and inputs. The service could be internal to one carrier or multiple carriers.  The Chatbot can engage and interact with every visitor, either on your website or any other channel, thereby increasing conversions.

Claim Processing & Payment Assistance

Bots can be programmed and configured to address a customer’s insurance claim submission as well as follow up on existing claims. It can also prompt for upcoming payments as well as simplify the payment process across the customer’s preferred channel.

Lead Profiling and Conversion

Based on the different queries and inputs provided by the users, the Chatbot can segment differences and provide relevant quotes and information. This data can be instrumental for the sales team, providing full context of what a potential customer is looking for and proceed accordingly. Research shows that if a customer query is not responded to within 5 minutes, the odds of converting into a lead decreases by over 400%. In such situations, the presence of an insurance Chatbot not only increases the chance of lead conversion, but also gratifies the user with an instant reply.

Chatbot Benefits

Customer Feedback & Review

Research suggests that 73% of customers are more likely to respond over live chat than e-mail, and 56% of users are more likely to contact the business through a message rather than a call. This is because people view websites as a static medium, so any kind of engagement happening on the medium makes for an excellent customer experience. That apart, Chatbots can also encourage customers to drop positive reviews and collect their feedback.

Reduced Workload

Perhaps the most significant advantage of technological intervention in the insurance industry is automation; using Chatbots or enhancing with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Deploying RPA in Insurance has provided support to help insurance companies in automating a multitude of whole work processes and streamlining a significant number of back-office processes. Similarly, the workload on the sales and marketing team is considerably decreased through an insurance Chatbot.  The team is spared from the hassle of individually responding to every query, instead focusing on converting leads into sales.

24/7 Support

Prospects will always be greeted with a dedicated 24/7, mobile-optimized, personal assistant taking care of their insurance-related needs through clear communication.

More Efficiency

By addressing almost all the mundane and time-consuming jobs, the bots enable employees to utilize their time more efficiently; reducing overall staffing, onboarding, and training costs.

Easy Deployment

Chatbots can be deployed on any of the channels a customer is using on a daily basis; whether it is a website, Messenger, WhatsApp or even SMS. A record of the interactions with individual customers can help the marketing and sales team obtain a complete overview of their ideal customer profile. This organized profiling can help create a contextually relevant design and highly personalized marketing campaign.

Analysis & Key Insights

You can monitor the overall performance via Chatbot to identify success or challenge points.

• Unlock insights from data to create the right artificial intelligence (AI) powered conversational experiences for customer service.
• Continually analyze and optimize virtual agents or any other conversational experience (whether voice or text), uncovering gaps, and suggesting fixes.

Conclusion

Many companies throughout the world utilize Chatbots to automate and streamline their business. Chatbots assist in helping companies become more efficient, increase employee engagement and create a positive on-boarding experience. Chatbots free up redundant tasks employees usually tackle to focus on more creative and productive ways to contribute to an organization.

Technology has successfully introduced Chatbots into the business world and this communication tool has proven successful for many insurance organizations.  Now is the time to improve business processes and provide insightful information. With the recent boost to daily business on a technology platform, Chatbots would be a useful addition through a website or any social media channel.

Works Cited

Christine Crandell, “Chatbots Will Be Your New Best Friend”, Forbes, October 23, 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2016/10/23/chatbots-will-be-your-new-best-friend/#640d1dbca245. (accessed May 6, 2020).