- Product recommendations
- Lead Generation
- Quote/Illustration
- FAQ & Common enquiries
- Policy Renewal
- Document Submissions
- Claims FNOL
Product recommendations
According to a survey done by one of the worlds most popular messaging apps: Facebook messenger, 53% of consumers are more likely to end up purchasing online if they can message the business directly.
One of the benefits of an insurance chatbot is that it can not only bridge the gap between potential customers and your brand by building a relationship, but also distinguish the customers based on their purchase intent. Based on initial conversations, the leads that lie further down the purchase funnel can be assigned higher intent scores, before being passed on to the sales representatives as qualified
For example, AA Ireland, one of the largest providers of car, home, travel, and life insurance in the country, increased customer conversion by more than 11% thanks to the ‘Quote-to-Sale’ bot.
Customers could activate the bot from the AA quotation page, both on the website and mobile app, and the bot, in turn, helped them navigate and interact with the form so they could find the right coverage at the right price. If a customer required more assistance, this chatbot for sales conversion could easily transfer them to a human agent via the bot integration with Zendesk, a live chat software.
Customers didn’t have to look for menus and fill in application forms on their own. A chatbot that spoke to them using natural language assisted them throughout the process, making it an easy and efficient experience. The same can be said of chatbots that help customers with claims or policy changes, though the technology can quickly become more personal when necessary.
Quotes & Lead generation
Based on the different queries and inputs provided by the users, the bot can segment different and provide them with relevant quotes and information. This data can be instrumental for the sales team as they have the full context of what a potential customer is looking for and proceed accordingly.
Research shows that if a customer query is not responded to within 5 minutes, the odds of converting them into a lead decreases by over 400%. In such situations, the presence of an insurance chatbot not just increases the chance of lead conversion, but also gratifies the user with an instant reply.
Research also suggests that 73% of customers are more likely to respond over live chat than e-mail, and 56% of users are more likely to contact the business through a message rather than a call. This is because people are used to seeing websites as a static medium, so any kind of engagement happening on the medium makes for excellent customer experience. That apart, they can also encourage customers to drop positive reviews and collect their feedback.
FAQs, Common enquiries & Troubleshooting
This is the starting point of most insurers’ chatbot implementations. However, based on our analysis, the troubleshooting and education capabilities of chatbots are still very elementary, as they’re mainly rule-based. To maximize value and fulfil the true potential of AI, companies are continuously enhancing their capabilities to move from an informational to a transactional approach.
Chatbots in insurance can educate customers on how the process works, compare as well as suggest the optimal policy, from multiple carriers, based on the customer’s profile and inputs. That apart, it can engage and interact with every visitor, either on your website or any other channel, thereby increasing conversions.
One very clear insight from our analysis is that companies are implementing chatbots where customer traffic is highest, i.e., at the prepurchase point of the insurance value chain. This use case is not only less complex to implement but also reduces the need for human-based service, leading to higher cost savings.
Document submission
Another relatively simple chatbot application is in document intake and processing.
Chatbots can provide users with an option to upload claims or identity-related documents within the chat window. Not only can bots process these documents within seconds, but they can also accept, reject or redirect them in case of a discrepancy. Bots can also pick up customer information from these documents, and thereby enhance the customer experience; for example, the Lemonade claims bot asks users to upload video and images of damage, and analyzes them on-the-go for faster processing.
Policy renewal
Does a customer remember everything your company’s policy offers them?
Most customers don’t remember every little detail of their policies and can often find it difficult to navigate through the policy documents to find answers.
For example, a customer might want to know whether or not their spouse is covered under the current insurance policy, or want to know which hospitals are covered under the cashless scheme. In these instances, customers will often call customer service to find out details. However, considering that most people are tech-savvy these days, many people often prefer to just send their queries to a bot rather than go through the effort of calling someone. A bot can easily help customers find answers for their questions, instantly.
There are a variety of opportunities for automation when it comes to policy renewal such as:
- Automate renewal reminders and update policy information
- Ensure that renewals don’t lapse
- Smooth management of any required paperwork
- Frequent engagement in channels that matter, such as Facebook Messenger & Whatsapp
- Price matching with competitive offers
By enhancing the customer experience, a range of benefits will occur. For instance, by making the renewal process more efficient, retention rates will increase and you also get to free up human agents time for more complex renewal issues.
Claims FNOL
Chatbots can help customers lodge a claim. Customers won’t need to call the company in order to file a claim, instead, they can do it through the bot. Especially for the younger demographic, where usage of messaging is more intuitive.
Because of the chatbots 24/7 nature, customers can acknowledge claims, update on the process and pull the customer’s insurance information for a more personalised walkthrough of the claims journey.
Related Questions
What are some of the key challenges insurers face when implementing chatbots?
From our experience, Insurers come across these 5 challenges when implementing chatbots:
- Overestimating chatbot capability
- Deployment management & version control
- Managing multiple chatbots (30+)
- Managing errors and human handover
- Lack of uniform agenda across global objectives
We write more about what it takes to implement a chatbot here.