The pandemic has forced insurance companies to focus on the digital transformation of customer interaction systems. They are developing new service portals to support customers, agents, and employees from anywhere on any device. Unfortunately, these projects can involve long-tail development efforts, especially when addressing several legacy policy administration systems and providing once-and-done service experiences.
Insurers tend to focus on self-service channels and inquiry-only services. Many insurance contact centers will need to make do with existing technology as a result.
Insurance contact centers have evolved to incorporate the latest telephony technology. These capabilities have enabled them to support voice response, sophisticated skills-based routing, workforce management, and security. However, the most effective technology additions have been extra monitors and single sign-on.
Call center representatives (CSRs), as a result, must be literate in multiple administration systems (many with green screens), workflow solutions, security protocols, complex policy rules, and undocumented procedures. Navigating this environment can contribute to call handle time increases and poor customer satisfaction.
This insurance call center infrastructure does not lend itself to the virtual environments that the pandemic requires. Multiple screens can be problematic for some CSRs’ home offices, as can handling calls by switching between windows on a single monitor.
Many insurers made it work in the short term by implementing stop-gap solutions. Now, insurers are contemplating “return to work” plans at the same time they are investigating how to expand virtual service models. Insurers must consider how their call centers will need to evolve to accommodate working from home.
Insurers and vendors are investigating solutions with delivery via “single pane of glass” designs. This design involves understanding the workflow of a service call and developing user interfaces that allow the CSR to step through the call, ask the appropriate questions, and provide the necessary controls to handle the reason for the call intuitively.
These solutions utilize AI and natural language capabilities to assist CSRs throughout the duration of a call. They present a logical flow for verifying the identity and credentials of the caller, anticipating and ascertaining the reason for the call, retrieving the relevant information, formulating the transaction request, and logging the activity of the call. They also guide CSRs through complex policy terms, rules, and procedures. Some vendors are already providing solutions that can integrate with existing carrier solutions—developed initially for BPO and TPA environments.
Companies should incorporate these requirements into their digital transformation efforts at the onset, ensuring they do not develop call centers as an afterthought and that they work seamlessly with digital self-service solutions. Virtualizing the call center will be imperative as the workforce shifts to a decentralized model.
See Novarica’s recent snapshot, Virtualized Contact Centers in Insurance and executive brief, Life Insurance Contact Centers: Key Issues and Trends for additional information on virtualized call centers and call center best practices.
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