The difference between a good customer service and a poor one, in any type of business dealing with consumers, has always been pretty clear. However today with the explosion of social media, with the digitization, with the multichannel, the customer experience is even more important and should be considered holistically as a whole, and its effects are produced directly in the growth of the company and its profitability.
McKinsey docet. A revealing article highlights the importance of the customer experience in the insurance industry, the barriers preventing a positive customer experience, and the indications to follow to overcome these obstacles.
The main reason why so many companies fail to improve the customer experience is the fact that understanding what is valuable for the customer is not an easy task. Identify what determines customer satisfaction and transpose it into improvements in operational performance requires in-depth information, sound analysis, and modeling of the most important pathways of the customer, through the different end-to-end channels.
Currently, in fact, insurance carriers offer customers a very fragmentary experience in marketing, distribution, underwriting, claims; using different platforms (the website, call centers, agents, the mobile application, the claims management), each of which is almost a universe unto itself, with different targets and metrics. From the point of view of the customer, this type of structure , is not good and certainly, it does not resemble a good customer journey, namely that type of homogeneous and positive experience that must support the user at all stages of relationship with the carrier.
According to McKinsey, the first step for the company, is to determine which kind of experience and target should be offered to the customer and to what end, being aware of the involvement of the entire enterprise.
There are 4 items to to be considered and enhanced, to improve the customer experience and which can be a starting point for startups and professionals who intend to cooperate with companies in this respect:
– inspiration: The customer-centric philosophy must be accepted by the entire organization, from senior management that must serve as a model, to the call center operators or agents. The culture focused on the customer needs to take root throughout the organization and push towards the common goal of customer satisfaction.
– insights: deepen and understand the customer’s needs, turning them into operational facts (changes). Most companies today collect insights into reports, verify metrics, in some sense chasing the needs of customers, but are not really capable of assessing the impact of their work in terms of satisfaction and cost-benefit ratio for the company.
– improvements : it is necessary to redesign the whole customer journey from the ground up, through digital channels and of course in a “customer centric” vision
– institutionalisation : build a customer-centric corporate culture pervasive throughout the organization, at each hierarchical level.
Ultimately, according to McKinsey, the customer experience is the most important issue for insurance companies, the challenge (impressive at organizational level) through which competitive advantage and diversity, can be gained. It is not an easy challenge, but it can’t be bothered, because in the digital era, consumer power is on the rise.
