Technology - Out of the tin can age

Technology is generally considered a ‘good thing’ in insurance, having come a long way from such primitive beginnings. But which technology, and how does it fit protection? Stuart Hayman investigates

While the humble telephone has always played a key part in the sale, underwriting, servicing and retention of protection business – and will undoubtedly continue to do so for years – the capabilities of the technology have never stood still for long.

In recent years, the capabilities of ‘tele-technology’ – technologies relating to the use of the telephone – have developed to the point where credit and debit card numbers can be automatically removed from call recordings to minimise the risk of fraud, while the same calls can be automatically mined for insight and intelligence using increasingly sophisticated speech analytics software.

These enhancements have enabled new ways of delivering service and understanding customers that were not previously possible. But while ‘tele-technology’ has come a long way, its convergence with the internet and mobile is what has really benefited both providers and customers.

Phone line to online

In some cases, improvements have arisen from thinking about ways in which existing, well-understood technology can be applied in different ways.
Perhaps the best most recent example of this is tele-underwriting. By redesigning processes and deploying resources in different ways, the telephone has increased underwriting speed, increased disclosures, put clients more at ease when discussing intimate personal details and improved the speed of commission payments.

Interactive voice response (IVR) systems – seen as an effective means of reducing servicing costs, but loathed by many – have also improved. By tracking customer journeys through IVR systems, call routing can be optimised to further increase efficiency and, perhaps more importantly, reduce customer frustration.

And if a customer’s needs cannot be met through automation, the technology also exists to use details captured early on in the IVR process (e.g. account number) to route the customer to the most appropriate servicing agent. ‘Most appropriate’ may be determined by the nature of the query, but it is also possible to use ­demographic information held within the customer data (e.g. age, sex) to ‘empathy match’ customers with servicing staff, thereby providing the customer with the best possible experience.  

Mobile telephony has added further opportunities to extend the scope for service improvement and customer convenience. Most obviously, the mobile phone removed the shackles of the landline and exponentially increased the time window within which customer contact was possible.

Early mobile phones saw the emergence of text ­messaging – SMS – and provided a means of contact that was not only immediate, but did not rely on the recipient either needing to answer the phone to receive the message or even have it switched on.

The web is also already well-established as a sales and service channel in the industry, despite lagging behind other sectors when it comes to maximising the potential.

Retailers, in particular, have moved online sales and service to a new level, presenting customers with increasingly personalised product offerings and support options underpinned by an ever deeper understanding of likely customer behaviour.

And of course, the web no longer means just the PC. The emergence of the smartphone, combining ‘tele-technology’ with everything that the web has to offer, has extended the concept of ‘anytime, anywhere’ to include the ability to do pretty much ‘anything’ given the rich functionality offered by such devices.

The end result is that there are now more options to engage with customers than ever before. But what does this mean for the industry?