It’s fair to say the human race has really been put through the wringer over the last few years. From massive geopolitical events such as the global COVID-19 crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to a cost-of-living crisis which continues to spiral and drive up the cost of even the most basic essentials such as food and energy. Empathy is one of the qualities which most defines us as humans and our ability to place ourselves in the metaphorical shoes of another and try to understand the world from their perspective is a core component of how we relate to one another and develop relationships. This is also true in the world of business and perhaps in no other field is this more relevant than the insurance industry.
Amazon has officially entered the insurance market. Not content with absolutely dominating the ecommerce space, the retail juggernaut has recently launched an insurance price comparison platform in the UK. Initially launched to select test groups in late 2022, the company plans to roll the service out to all customers sometime in 2023. "We understood that the process to find and purchase a home insurance policy was often time consuming and confusing, so we set out to deliver a simple, convenient and transparent way for UK customers to shop for home insurance,” said General Manager of the Amazon Insurance Store UK, Vassil Gedov. "Right now, we're solely focused on helping customers shop for home insurance via the Amazon Insurance Store in the UK.”
Since Open AI’s ChatGPT platform exploded onto the scene in late 2022, the world has been going nuts for artificial intelligence. The rate at which the technology has evolved since then is truly staggering. The latest iteration of ChatGPT, GPT-4, is eight years ahead of where industry experts predicted the technology would be at this point and we are already seeing other platforms emerge which can carry out even more complex tasks. Within the next ten years, there will likely be very few roles which have not been either replaced or significantly altered by artificial intelligence technology.
The morning paper has been replaced with a constantly updating real-time news cycle which delivers the latest events in the moment. And social media has led to a situation when a trend dominates feeds for a matter of hours before our fickle attention spans move onto something else. The same is also true for customer service. Your insurance customers need to get their issues resolves quickly and effectively and will look elsewhere for alternatives if you are unable to provide a satisfactory experience in record time.
Having interacted with dozens of chatbots, I can say that aside from the most basic of customer service queries – account balance, next payment date, etc. – chatbots are often incapable of even recognizing which category a question falls into with any reasonable degree of accuracy. In fact, I’ve never had an interaction that didn’t end with me needing to speak to a human operator to resolve the query. Even so, there clearly is a case to be made for the deployment of chatbots as a first point of contact.
As with your own interpersonal relationships, it’s critical to ensure your business messaging is appropriate for the audience you are trying to reach. A GenZ customer will likely respond to vastly different marketing techniques and communications than one from the Baby Boomer generation – and what works for one will not necessarily work for the other. This is why customer segmentation is so important in modern marketing. With so many demographics to get your messaging across to, you need to make sure your advertising is striking the right chord.
It’s no secret that the insurance industry is in a state of flux, with new technologies, data-driven processes, and evolving customer demands driving huge changes in no short order. However, while the digital transformation of insurance is largely a good thing for both firms and customers alike, it nonetheless introduces a slew of new challenges. We take a look at five of the key challenges facing digital insurance and what might be done to overcome them.