High call volume and a large flow of inbound messages have been consistent obstacles plaguing insurance companies for years. Without efficient digital engagement processes in place, these calls waste many hours of valuable agent time. The introduction of automated processes within an insurer’s communication strategy can correct this by properly routing high-intent messages to a live agent, while simple queries can be solved through automation. A live chat strategy alone won’t suffice, and full automation can become frustrating for new and existing policyholders.

Live vs. Automated Chat: When Should They Be Used?

Always in unison. Providing a well-strategized mix of live and automated communication can enhance the agent and customer experience, increase profit and revenue for your company, and yield tremendous efficiency benefits. Live conversations will always be more effective as they allow agent/lead relationships to form. But, due to staffing and financial restraints for many companies, it’s unreasonable to expect a live agent to be available for every inbound messaging opportunity. At Botsplash, we allow human interaction to inform our automations to provide an optimized experience for both the agent and the customer.  

When set up correctly, automation can tackle minor tasks that are general and redundant. This simple process frees up time for busy insurance representatives to focus on building and maintaining new and current relationships.

Automation

When is it best to automate a conversation?

Automation thrives in predictive circumstances. Scenarios that are repetitive or demand the same responses are best left for automation as it will be more accurate and error-free than human interaction. We think of automation as a supporting element to your live communication processes already in place. Uncertain or unusual queries require a human approach to deliver a meaningful engagement experience accurately. When automated processes complement live agents correctly, your insurance company or brokerage firm can improve efficiency, reduce operating costs, and provide better overall customer support.

Common Self-Help Tools that Can and SHOULD Be Automated

The average policyholder prefers the ability to manage their policy without working directly with an agent. Whether they are updating personal information, filing a claim, or checking the status of a claim, all of these functions can be conducted through automation. The following tasks can be performed by a bot securely on a 24/7 schedule:

• Scheduling appointments with an agent
• Filing or checking the status of a claim (filling out information about the incident, uploading pictures or supporting evidence, or sharing documents such as police reports and other sensitive files)
• Making a payment
• Requesting a quote
• Cross-selling

Reminders and Notifications

A recent survey conducted by Global Consumer Insurance Insights showed that 14% of consumers had not received a renewal reminder from their insurance provider and one third of the individuals surveyed stated that they never hear from their insurer on an annual basis. This same survey showed that a staggering 95% of participants indicated that they would like more claim status updates sent to them.

Policyholders want to stay updated, but many insurance providers fail to provide adequate notifications, alerts, and reminders. Helpful messages about payment reminders, claims updates, and rate changes can all be automatically sent by the insurer. This simple outbound strategy can keep your insurance company top-of-mind and is an excellent customer service strategy.

Live Chat

It’s no secret that people are most effective at selling and managing insurance policies, not robots. Providing live support builds personal agent/client relationships and aids in overall customer retention. There are many things that a bot can’t achieve, and the dynamics of a genuine human conversation is one of them. A study has shown that 86% of customers prefer to interact with a human agent, while 71% are less likely to use a brand that doesn’t offer live support.

Botsplash was built with live consumer engagement in mind. Combined with supportive automated processes and features, customer wait times decrease, agent availability increases, and overall satisfaction goes up. While live chat is more of an intimate way of interacting with customers, we do offer tools to speed up the engagement process without going fully automated. Some of those tools can be found below:

• Canned Messages - These are pre-saved responses that allow the agent to manually pull commonly typed questions or responses. These can be saved at an individual, team, or company level for the agent’s convenience. Like automated processes, canned messages are always accurate, follow compliance regulations, and increase the speed that a representative can respond to a lead.
• Scheduled Send - This feature allows agents to schedule an outbound message for a time in the future. Once set, the agent no longer has to remember to send that important follow-up message. This is especially useful if the agent is out of office, on lunch, or it’s after hours.

Why Use Botsplash?

We would love to show you in a live demo! Every client onboarded receives in-depth training of our platform to ensure that they feel confident in their ability to utilize the features, navigate the dashboard, and adjust the settings within Botsplash. Throughout the onboarding phase, we will work with you and your team to optimize your live and automated process so that a results-driven communication approach is implemented for optimal performance. Every client is assigned a dedicated client success specialist that is ready to assist.

Chat is a vital part of B2C communication and the experience that your leads or policyholders receive through it can dictate whether or not they will do business with you. If you have questions about your current communication process or would like to learn more about how we can enhance your insurance company’s communication efforts - email us at bizdev@botsplash.com.