The Role of Automation in Streamlining Customer Onboarding in the Insurance Industry

The seamless onboarding process in insurance is a crucial component for driving policyholder experience. Think of it as a trailer for product or service quality and the level of customer service one can expect while handing you their care. Setting off this relationship on the right foot can earn insurers life-long business.

Despite this importance, onboarding is often overlooked or treated as an afterthought, which is why it comes as no surprise that 9 out of 10 customers believe that businesses can do better when it comes to onboarding.

One can argue that onboarding involves a series of interlinked activities that can be difficult to orchestrate or manage. At the same time, it calls for a degree of personalization. However, the wonders of workflow automation can address a chunk of such concerns. Here’s a deeper look at how automation can help streamline onboarding for a rich customer experience in insurance.

Challenges in Traditional Customer Onboarding in Insurance

Insurance customer experience, especially during the onboarding stage, can be mired due to the following reasons:

• Procedural inefficiencies, such as manual data extraction and entry or lengthy paperwork, are not only time and resource-consuming but are also error-prone due to the lack of digital transformation in the insurance industry. Compiling, processing, and utilizing data at such a late juncture will only delay customer onboarding in insurance.
• Even in cases where insurers already possess a wealth of customer information, poorly executed insurance digital transformation can give rise to data silos and bottlenecks that come in the way of effective data-sharing. Such barriers or breakdowns in communication can present challenges in the customer onboarding process in insurance.
• Garbage, inconsistent, erroneous, or outdated data can affect the quality of customer service delivery and insurance customer experience. Whether such an issue stems from manual data entries, data obsolescence, insufficient digital transformation in insurance, or poor communication, it will dilute the customer experience in insurance.
• Insurers must comply with an array of rules, regulations, and laws. These variables also change from region to region. For instance, these would be stricter in the European Union versus countries with weak data protection and privacy laws. Ensuring that the customer onboarding in insurance is consistent with the prevalent laws and regulations can be a challenge.
• Digital transformation in the insurance industry has been a significant liberator from the chains of time and resources. However, very few insurers have managed to achieve this feat, which is why the lack of time and resources adversely affects the scalability, resilience, and adaptability of a business. Such rigidity also spills over in making the customer onboarding process in insurance severely deficient.

Benefits of Introducing Automation in Customer Onboarding

The integration of automation with customer onboarding in insurance can fetch the following benefits:

• Increased Efficiency and Speed

  Automation reduces the time required to process applications, identify best onboarding practices, and curate personalized customer experiences. As such, what once took days, if not weeks, can be done in a matter of a few minutes!

• Automated Data Processing

  Automation can help in insurance data entry and processing as per business rules in order to complete the onboarding process faster. Bots can sign new customers up for insurance plans, educate them about the new policy features they purchased, solve inquiries by providing useful information, and even collect feedback about their experience.

• Enhanced Accuracy

  Automation increases accuracy by cutting down the risk of human or clerical errors. At the same time, it can pull in and validate information from various internal and external sources to ensure accuracy and recency.

• Focus on Personalization

  Since automation can flexibly work with data, it can also deduce ways to personalize the customer experience in insurance, right from the onboarding process. It can build a customer onboarding journey that best aligns with the customer’s likes and preferences.

• Cost Efficiencies

  Automation can introduce cost savings in various ways. For starters, it reduces spending on resources. Insurance digital transformation, which goes hand-in-hand with automation also cuts down paper usage and records storage. Similarly, time sinks that have cost implications can also be addressed through automation. Finally, the increased accuracy and greater compliance minimize the possibility of fees or fines.

• Seamless Communication

  Automation requires system modernization and digital transformation in the insurance industry. The successful implementation of the latest digital framework with modular integration capabilities will also set up robust channels of synchronous and asynchronous communication.

Automated Customer Onboarding: Tips and Best Practices

Here are some tips, tricks, and best practices that will allow insurers to truly enjoy the benefits of an automated customer onboarding experience:

• Develop intuitive, user-friendly forms that capture just the right amount of data through minimal fields to commence onboarding and personalize it effectively.
• Encourage customers to upload necessary documents directly onto the online portal or mobile app.
• Use digital signatures or other online authentication techniques to allow customers to validate documents and decisions electronically.
• Make use of intelligent data validation paired with automation to perform a range of tasks with minimal intervention.
• Select the right tool sets and platforms to set up digital customer onboarding in insurance.
• Collect customer feedback and perform sentiment analysis to update and improve the onboarding process.

Conclusion

A well-crafted customer onboarding experience drives up retention by an impressive 50%. This finding just goes to prove that first impressions matter and insurers must strive to make it a good one with a memorable and customer-friendly onboarding experience.

From everything discussed above in the preceding sections, it is evident that automation can be the backbone of successful customer onboarding operations. It is also an instrumental piece in the digital transformation in the insurance industry and an imminent force that must be embraced by all.

With such a solid and compelling case in favor of using automation for strengthening and streamlining customer onboarding in insurance, it would be a mistake to not hop aboard this trend.