Each industry has its own milestones, touchpoints and challenges. But when covid struck, the industry that got impacted the most was the healthcare sector.
With complete lockdowns and a lot of unknowns, customers wanted to get in touch with their doctors and telehealth gained prominence.
For insurers as well, the emphasis shifted from leveraging tech to deliver seamless credit card payments to servicing the customer. Below are some of the areas that came to the spotlight.
Business Continuity
During the pandemic, no insurer had planned for 100% business continuity, which is no surprise. Most organisations plan for 15% business continuity. The challenge was how you deliver superior service with reduced staff strength for a full composite insurer? Medical insurance was a heavily demanded category. Thus digitization came to the rescue where even with 95% of staff working from home, service delivery was maintained.
Service Delivery
The other challenge was to reimagine service delivery when the customer was not being able to step out of the house. There were several questions, and a lot of chaos, in the minds of the customers. There was data feed from news channels and media that complicated their expectations and requests.
Thus, there was a clear need to reach out to business partners and evaluate technologies like telehealth. Most services were repositioned so they could be delivered online with the click of a button.
Customer Satisfaction
All industries went through a massive transition, but more so Insurance as it has to support and service frontline workers. People needed attending to claims, access to doctors, fast-tracking diagnosis, and everything had to be delivered with speed. Patients were not unreasonable in their requests and for Insurance organizations, the realignment of process and service delivery became a priority.
The customers responded by appreciating the changes that were made. The mood shifted from 86% satisfaction to 89% satisfaction during the pandemic in the monthly feedback. This was a great testimony to how well the customers were supported in challenging times.
- Sreedhar Suragouni, CIO, Oman Insurance
Post pandemic customer behaviors are changing, and technology has paid a big part in driving that change. Whilst earlier the customer wanted to speak to a customer service agent, now they are ready to talk to a bot and place a request online. And this is where the value of AI and ML kicks in.
Next: More budget needs to be allocated to CX. Are we allocating enough? Read on.
