How V2T Enables Dramatic Shifts

Insurance companies are at a crossroads. They have unprecedented opportunities to transform as consumers become increasingly digital-centric and demand seamless, personalized experiences, but they have historically been slow to adopt new technologies due to the conservative preferences of traditional customers as well as limitations of legacy infrastructure.

Organizations are beginning to invest in new technology to deliver heightened and highly curated experiences for digitally inclined policyholders. At the same time, they’re navigating the regulatory jungle to ensure end-to-end compliance. For example, at TCS we recently helped transform the contact-center experience for a large insurer using a combination of voice to text (V2T) and AI to help deliver next-best-action and next-best-offer services in real time. An agent who receives a call gets a 720-degree view of the customer, interaction history and top two reasons for the call within seconds—all before the call even begins. Upon answering the call, the agent can see a real-time transcript of a customer’s voice, is informed if the customer is happy or unhappy based on tone analysis and more. AI is also used to prompt the agent with contextual next-best offers. This provides the customer with unparalleled customer service and improves the quality of work and agent experience, as well. Successful digital transformation for insurers relies on their level of investment in four broad business behaviors of Business 4.0. They are: AI for actuaries (unbiased risk modeling); intelligent bots for brokers and customers; prediction and prevention of claims (through connected ecosystems); and balancing both traditional and usage-based pricing and underwriting (exponential addressable market). In fact, recent studies have shown that the banking and financial service industry (which includes insurance organizations) has more leaders in Business 4.0 digital transformation than any other industry. See also: And the Winner Is…Artificial Intelligence!   When it comes to bringing innovation to life, it’s no surprise that a key driver of this change is adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the lifecycle of the insurer-customer relationship. AI enables optimization and hyper-personalization at every stage of the relationship—from prospecting and planning, to customer service and beyond. A recent study shows that 70% of insurance providers in North America have already begun investing in AI. But AI is only as useful as the quality of data it receives. Therefore, other technologies—specifically V2T—are integral to aggregating the data needed for meaningful AI innovation in the insurance industry. Going Back to the Basics V2T provides both the agent and the customer with convenient, time-saving alternatives to traditional conversational interactions. On the provider side, V2T can take prerecorded voice notes and organize them as text emails to be sent instantaneously. Additionally, insurers can use V2T capabilities to prioritize all inbound inquiries from customers without having to listen to every call. But where V2T innovation begins to set itself apart, is when AI is used in parallel to V2T technology—bringing actionable data aggregated from V2T interactions to life in groundbreaking ways. Identifying and Targeting Experience Gaps Customer service capabilities are judged by the efficiency and accuracy of their responses. AI enables insurers to identify trends among recurring service requests and complaints—allowing them to produce templates for new solutions and capabilities that bridge these experiential pitfalls. Likewise, if insurers notice trends among customer service interactions that are relative to a specific product bundle, they can reshape product offerings to reflect customer preferences, driving long-term satisfaction and enhancing brand affinity. Whether it be in quality, pricing, CRM, user experience, etc., V2T provides AI with the necessary data sets to pinpoint areas for strategic investment. Pinpointing Potential Growth Areas V2T data isn’t solely beneficial for reactively fixing experiential problems. V2T-enabled AI will let insurers identify trends among prior V2T transactions to predict what technological innovation might increase customer satisfaction by understanding the attributes that customers appreciate about their insurance-related interactions. See also: Innovation: ‘Where Do We Start?’   For example, if an insurer realizes that most customers prefer to host agent-to-holder interactions online, then the insurer can develop digital tools to make other, more traditional aspects of the business a digital-first experience. V2T and AI are tightly knotted. V2T is essential in gathering data while AI is integral in successfully processing it. Both are necessary in providing insights and influencing key business decisions, especially when it comes to customer experience. Customer preferences for researching and buying insurance policies will continue to evolve – and possibly fragment even further – which means there can be no cut-and-paste solution. For instance, recent studies have shown that young adult consumers prefer in-person interactions when purchasing homeowners insurance, but prefer online interaction for auto and renter’s insurance. AI weighs the checks and balances of these behavioral complexities and generates intelligent solutions to best meet the needs of all existing and future customers. Through V2T data aggregation and AI integration, the possible solution-based outcomes are limitless.