Why Mobile Messaging Boosts Insurance Customer Experience

Insurance companies haven’t had it easy in the customer experience stakes.

In a recent Forrester US Customer Experience Index, just 17% of insurance customer experience (CX) scores received a ‘good’ rating.

So it’s no surprise that widespread CX transformation is underway in the industry.

Mobile messaging should be at the heart of this transformation.

Every insurer wants to deal with customers more empathetically. But how can they go about doing it?

For CX leaders, mobile messaging comes in at the top spot. On the consumer side, mobile messaging is second only to email.

But while email is effective for some communications, it doesn’t have the immediacy and ubiquity of communications via the mobile inbox. A compelling 98% of mobile messages are read, 90% of them within three minutes. Email open rates, on the other hand, are nearer 20%.

Everyone’s comfortable with SMS – even your older customer base. And developments in rich messaging are making multimedia experiences easier too.

Mobile app notifications are another possible channel for empathetic interactions.

But for insurance customer experience, mobile apps fail at the first hurdle: many consumers tend to feel the interaction level isn’t worth the download. Our research found only 16% of people felt branded apps were ideal for brand interactions.

So consider whether your customers actually need an app. Rich messaging (RCS for Android and Apple Business Chat for iOS) is an alternative option. It enables video-rich, interactive messaging – giving your customers an app-like experience, without ever downloading an app.

It means you can engage them with easy interactivity – for example, one-tap replies instead of having to type out a message. Rich messaging also offers customers the ability to send picture messages so they can document and share any damage to their property after a flood or car crash.

Importantly, rich messaging also ensures you can prove your identity to your customers. Mobile operators place strict controls on the registration of RCS channels, so it’s almost impossible for anyone to imitate your brand for fraudulent purposes.

SMS can help insurers create empathetic moments throughout the customer lifecycle.

But there are three huge opportunities you can get started with. The first is the underwriting process, where complex forms can be replaced with simple text-to-quote workflows and friendly reminders to help your prospects complete the process.

At the other end of the insurance lifecycle, there’s the claims process. Like underwriting, claims processes are often complex and frustrating ­– so they’re a great candidate for simple, intuitive, messaging-based workflows. And with rich messaging on the rise, the claims process can be transformed by the efficient exchange of visual evidence.

Finally, one of the biggest opportunities is to use SMS to keep your customers (and their property) safe. For example, weather alerts can help homeowners protect their property before a storm hits. And avalanche warnings can keep your customers safe when skiing.

When your mobile messaging service is hooked up to your CRM and other systems, a whole range of automated interactions can be triggered.