Insurance carriers need to offer a self-service portal for customers. This is the need of the hour since people are now self-reliant. They don’t want to wait for customer service to respond and instead would be willing to look for a solution themselves. An intuitive portal would help companies offer a great customer experience.
We look at the importance of self-service and the business value it offers.
Why self-service and how it helps?
The earlier generation of customers wanted an agent to do all the paperwork to get a policy. Today’s generation want to do it themselves using a digital option. A study shows that 70% of customers belonging to the 25 to 40 age group prefer a digital application for policies. An interesting analysis reveals that while younger people quickly took to online transactions, even the older ones were not left behind.
In fact, as on 2020, 62% of millennials (born after 1980) preferred online transactions. Of Gen X and older generation (born before 80), 64% preferred online transactions. With the wide adoption of online services, offering a self-service portal becomes important. The benefits it offers are:
- The workload on customer support would reduce significantly with a self-service portal.
- Routine activities can be done through a self-service portal. This would free up the time of employees.
- Using the self-service portal will help customers get automatic notifications about policy renewal and other issues.
- It helps to reduce paperwork and improves efficiency.
- Improved efficiency allows the carrier to offer better quality service to customers.
It is important to understand the business value that a self-service portal offers. A study shows the expenses a company incurs when customers contact their customer support. It costs $12 for a call center, $5 for an online chat, $2.5 for email replies, and $0.5 for self-service. As can be seen self-service is the most cost-effective option.
If a company is receiving 5000 calls a week, even if 30% of them choose the self-service option it leads to savings of $900,000 every year. This is significant savings that adds value to the business. This is a key reason that explains why insurance companies should look to creating a self-service portal.
The article has been published by the editorial board of the Fintek Diary. Happy Reading. For more information please visit www.fintekdiary.com
