Six Digital Customer Experience Strategies Insurance Companies Must Prioritize in 2024

Wondering how to improve customer experience in insurance? Discover the list of surefire digital CX strategies composed by our insurance experts and learn the best practices to employ insurtech trends for maximized value.

While insurance customers eagerly try digital self-service options, the actual experiences often fall short of their expectations. Over 30% of customers are dissatisfied with the digital channels available at traditional insurance carriers, and the level of customer satisfaction (CSAT) with digital delivery in insurance is the lowest compared to other BFSI domains, meaning that the sector may be losing its clientele to insurtechs and finance giants. Neo-finance players set the new standard for customer digital experience, and consumers today don’t expect less from insurers. So, a win-win strategy would be to look objectively at where your digital solution lags behind the leading e-insurance offers and first bridge the apparent gaps.

How to Improve Customer Experience in Insurance: 6 strategies

The following action points are a must to lay the foundation for winning insurance digital CX:

Offer self-service across the core insurance processes

With 80%+ of customers trying to solve the issues on their own before asking for help, empowering clients with self-service options becomes a must rather than a need for insurers looking to provide excellent client experience. Client-side functionality for quote calculation, onboarding, insurance application, premium payment, claim filing, policy renewal, and service progress tracking is the minimal loveable set to ensure consistent digital CX throughout the insurance life cycle.

Bring automation into the process to eliminate manual routines for your clients. For example, intelligent OCR and RPA techs help automate customer data capture from the submitted multi-format documents and insurance form auto-population with relevant details, making the data provisioning a matter of a few seconds.

Notably, offering self-service benefits both insurance customers and employees. One of ScienceSoft’s clients achieved a 50% reduction in staff workload and saw a 20% rise in employee satisfaction after equipping its clients with digital claim self-filing and claim resolution monitoring features.

Introduce mobile-friendly experiences

Launching a dedicated mobile insurance app is a proven way of CX improving, albeit you should expect to invest $120,000+ upfront. A more budget-friendly option would be implementing a web portal with a responsive design (or converting your existing web platform into a responsive layout). The alternative goes without CX tradeoffs: a mobile-responsive solution offers the same functional scope and visual looks across all devices.

Sample interfaces of a homeowner insurance mobile app by ScienceSoft, for illustrative purposes only

Provide personalized user journeys

There’s no one-size-fits-all option to address the demands of heterogeneous insurance clientele, and providing a personalized customer journey is the only viable technique to maximize digital service value for each particular client. Notably, roughly 60% of consumers believe businesses should use the data they collect about them to personalize their experiences, so the expectation bar is high. Luckily, so are the gains: investments in personalized customer service strategies and tailor-made insurance products pay off as an 80%+ increase in customer retention, up to 90% higher engagement, and reduced client acquisition costs.

Behavioral analytics tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Microsoft Clarity can aid in tracking major customer experience metrics and segmenting your audience based on shared characteristics across geographic location, demographics, engagement, loyalty, and more. Converting each segment into a customer persona and mapping a dedicated user journey helps easier plan customized content and compile rules for dynamic content optimization quicker. Major insurtech players went beyond segmented paths and trailblazed AI-based contextual and prescriptive customer analytics to deliver hyperpersonalized CX. Custom AI algorithms help tailor landing page contents, search results, and product recommendations to the preferences and actions of each visitor on the fly, ensuring maximized relevance of the offer and improved engagement.

Prioritize intuitive UX/UI

Zarina Babko: After 11 years in the insurance IT consulting field, I can say confidently: poor app usability is the primary insurance CX disruptor and the main barrier to user adoption. Due to the domain’s complexity and specificity, digital insurance purchasing and claim filing processes may seem intimidating per se. If your solution inherits the complexity, chances are, your clients will go a good old path and interact with an agent, which obviously contradicts your goals.

Opt for straightforward and clear UX. Do not overload pages with UI elements and balance the screen contents via hidden dropdowns and popups. Also, be careful with aesthetics: while the app’s catchy visual appearance contributes to brand awareness, it may overwhelm insurance customers, who mostly turn to the app in situations of perplexity and distress. A neutral color palette and laconic UI elements would be the safest choice.

Sample interfaces of an auto insurance app by ScienceSoft, for illustrative purposes only

Educate your clients

In a physical environment, educating and informing insurance clients stays on the agent and advisor side. Digital customers are to navigate the complexity by themselves, so giving them access to abundant, transparent, and easy-to-understand information about insurance products is essential. By providing content on key insurance concepts, risk evaluation models, and claims processes, you allow your clients to understand the value of your proposition better and make more informed decisions. Also, consider providing your clients with a knowledge base on risk mitigation and loss prevention. It will demonstrate your commitment to client well-being and contribute to customer trust.

Remember that your knowledge repository should be easily accessible via digital channels. Showcasing the educational content section in the website or app menu and implementing quick search functionality will help your prospects find what they are looking for without hassle.

Stacy Dubovik: A combo of IoT and intelligent contextual analytics opens up the opportunity for proactive insurance customer guidance on loss prevention. AI can analyze real-time data from connected consumer wearables, vehicle devices, and enterprise systems of business insurance clients, instantly spot risky events, and notify customers of the appropriate steps to avoid losses. You kill two birds with one stone, both driving better CX and minimizing claim payouts.

Leverage AI-powered virtual assistants

In the insurance industry, advisory is an integral part of every customer interaction, so it’s critical that your digital customers quickly get a helping hand at any stage of their journey. Employing AI-powered virtual assistants helps ensure 24/7 immediate responses to common customer inquiries and introduces basic guidance through the policy purchasing and claim submission processes. Intelligent bots can process up to 50% of queries outright; the rest are routed to human agents who can engage in real-time conversation and help clients navigate complex and non-standard issues. While 29% of customers say bots are ineffective, insurers that use smart advisors report, on average, a 7% increase in CSAT.

A note on successful implementation: care about thoroughly training the bot’s underlying conversational model to ensure accurate and unbiased responses. Model training on your company’s proprietary data will help accommodate the specifics of your insurance offer and maximize the relevance of AI-supported advice.

Laying the Foundation for Superior Insurance CX

Excelling at digital insurance CX promises up to a 4% increase in revenue and EBIT growth rates alongside lower operational expenses. The key to success is prioritizing the digital CX transformation strategies that align with your strategic business goals and cater to the needs and preferences of your particular clientele. In our recent guide, we dive deeply into the benefits of a data-driven approach to transforming customer experience in the insurance industry and share insights into the right collaborative and technology framework to drive CX enhancements. Feel free to employ our best practices in your CX endeavors, and don’t hesitate to contact ScienceSoft’s specialists if you need advice on your specific case.