4 ways self-service helps insurers cut costs and time

Ndagi Job Goshi, GM, Liferay SA

When an insurance customer self-services, they handle specific transactions without an employee or agent’s help. For instance, the customer might pay a bill online or add a vehicle to their car insurance using your website.

To get the most out of self-service options, businesses must first review common processes and map out the customer journey through those events. Then, they must commit to creating more frictionless experiences by pinpointing places where automation and self-service can add significant value.

Here are four benefits of self-service:

Turn a money drain into a revenue centre

Insurers need to run a lean operation in order to remain profitable. There’s more competition on price than ever before, and any process with long delays or a high error rate needs to be addressed.

When the customer can self-serve in sales, customer service, and claims, you can save agent time and do more with a lower staffing level. You’ll maintain your revenue while cutting costs, which can turn a financial drain into a revenue producer. The more activities customers can do online, the less time you’ll need to spend on non-revenue-generating processes. Your business will be more efficient if an agent can save five minutes by not needing to attach a new payment method to a policy and instead spend that time doing something more productive.

Create a streamlined customer experience

A self-service portal creates a platform where customers can access all the information they need in one place. Customers gain a high-quality user experience that can improve retention rates. You can include a variety of services from chatbots and FAQs to account management and billing.

A modern, consistent user experience internally and externally improves workflow, and offers an engaging customer experience.

Build community around your brand

Having a community built around your brand is an important way to boost loyalty and create meaningful conversations that can benefit your organisation. A community can create social proof that helps grow your business and also helps your insureds feel like they belong to a larger group of people. This sense of belonging reinforces to your customers that they made the right decision when insuring with you. And, satisfied customers are your best, and arguably most effective, marketing channel.

Use self-service to be proactive

Think about concerns that cause your policyholders to follow up with customer service. Callbacks happen when the original process didn’t resolve the problem fully. Self-service can be used to anticipate these customer needs and fill in the gaps in the journey.

Help your customers help themselves

Self-service options make it easy for a policyholder to understand their policy, review coverages, understand their rates, and make changes as needed. When customers take care of these processes on their own, your company can do more with the same level of staffing.

The benefit of self-service is that it helps you save time and money to use toward more critical tasks. This sets your company apart from competitors and enables you to grow your business in a highly competitive industry.