Over the past decade, many businesses have witnessed the enormous benefits of offering technology enabled customer service, from cost-savings and customer retention, to helping to build overarching customer advocacy. Digital transformation is being adopted on a mass scale, so it’s imperative that companies keep up with and maintain an on-demand, digital-first approach at all times.

A recent LinkedIn article highlights that As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows, expands and becomes more accessible to the consumer, insurance companies will be forced to change their business models to accommodate the new technologies. 

Accenture support this with their recent study, identifying that 86% of insurers believe that if they want to remain competitive, those insurance companies simply have to implement innovative solutions to their business.

As a result, insurance companies have started investing in various new technologies that would make them more customer-oriented and cost-effective, which would eventually lead to a greater return on investment (ROI). And so, this leaves a big question on every insurers’ mind: what do technology enabled customer services really mean for my business?

Video communication: it isn’t impersonal or informal

In todays’ modern landscape, real-time conversations and lengthy commutes are seen as a thing of the past. Technology allows customers to communicate face-to-face with their vendors digitally, at a time that suits them best.

But, we all know just how powerful eye contact can be when having a conversation. It helps to improve relationships, build trust, and allows people to read each other’s body language, making for a much more personal service. 

That’s why for businesses, video calls and meetings aren’t just something that was born as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic – it’s now considered a viable business-improving standard work. So much so, that companies have started integrating video voicemail tools such as Loom, or video conferencing services like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, into their daily operations.

Using omni-channel to streamline processes 

Customers no longer need to physically travel to an office or stay on hold to get through to a customer service team. Social media, e-commerce, third-party review websites, even WhatsApp integrations – all of these digital mediums act as a suite of communication tools for customers.

The best part though, is that when all of these mediums are synced together, it means that your team can respond to customers on whichever digital channel they’re engaging with your business. It also means that if the problem can’t be solved on one communication channel, your reps can easily transfer the case to another medium where they can better support the customer.

This reduces friction in the service experience because customers don’t have to log off one interface just to log into another one to continue working on the same problem.

Live-chat is the new go-to

In one way or another, customers are “always on”, and they expect their vendors to be as well.

In a recent survey by Verint, 71% of customers fully expect brands to offer customer support messaging, because for the most part, customers want to be able to solve problems on their own through self-service instead of having to call, email or set up a meeting to resolve them.

Facebook Messenger, for example, was one of the original channels utilised by businesses, and some even integrate this directly into the websites or online software for their social media team to manage directly and immediately.

However, it’s also a customer expectation that real-time messaging and responsiveness should be authentic, and with an actual human being on the other end. Something very different to the automated chat-bots taking on the technology-based customer service role of today.

When chat-bots should be used  

According to Hubspot, customer support representatives spend close to 90% of their time repeating the answers to the same questions and helping customers with the same issues over and over again. So, what if your team could programme all those questions into a clever machine to answer them all for you?

That’s the main reason so many businesses integrate chat-bots today; to automate those common responses and to free up time for their customer service team to actually help customers on bigger projects.

Chat-bots are also added value as they allow businesses to extend their customer service hours. I.e., a chat-bot can be online throughout the night, or even in different time zones to accommodate different customers.

But, technology doesn’t mean less human

The future of technology enabled customer servicecomes down to one thing: choice.

Customers want the option to choose how they interact with businesses. Just as someone may choose to use self-checkout lanes at a supermarket or wheel their trolly to a person, a digital customer may choose to self-serve via a chat bot or book a video call to have a more personal conversation.

Ultimately, customer service and new technologies will always go hand in hand, and it’s important to remember that using or investing in the latest technology doesn’t mean that your business no longer needs a real-life customer service team. When it comes to nurturing customer relationships, one-on-one, person-to-person engagement will always be important, and technology is here to help to make that interaction even more effective.

A symbiotic relationship: cutting edge technology and claims handling expertise

At ECSG, our people and processes come together to improve both claims spend and experience, and we pride ourselves on using the most appropriate technology, along with our professional motor claims handling platform, to achieve the fastest and most accurate resolution.

As specialists in technical claims handling, our goal is to deliver the best technology enabled customer services, and each and every member of our team share the belief that, through collaboration and honesty, everyone, regardless of fault, should have access to market leading services and be treated fairly and respectfully.

To find out more about our professional motor claims handling platform, reach out today.