With more customers moving to digital, contact centers provide a unique opportunity to strengthen customer relationships, especially in times when the relationship could be in jeopardy and a customer is likely to call. Insurers should be integrating contact centers within the overall mix of marketing, sales and service; making them more efficient and effective; and optimizing their role in a positive customer experience. We identify five key steps for insurers to take as they evaluate their contact center assets and plan for the future.

1. Transforming the
insurance contact
center customer
experience

2. The need for change
More than 55% of insurance customers say they use the
contact center channel to communicate with their carrier. But
other factors are forcing insurers to reexamine their role:
Channels are evolving rapidly; customers want more info
delivered across more channels
The customer experience is increasingly important in building
trust, but current interactions might do more harm than good
Insurers are trying to use innovative technology within the
confines of their existing IT systems and regulatory constraints

3. Five key steps for insurers
when evaluating and planning
a contact center
5

4. Determine and clarify contact center strategy
Define how success will be measured across four categories
Determine how requests/inquiries will be handled—
by customer segment or interaction type
1 Define where the contact center fits within the overall
strategy; transaction-based, agent support, cross-sell, etc.
Identify the optimal customer experience for each
customer segment
Identify what business rules are needed to determine priorities,
special handling and routing to specialized teams
Consider customer expectations for each interaction
Operational
Efficiency
Financial
Performance
Customer
Feedback
Employee
Engagement

5. Define and design a “digitally blurred” experience
Sharing of transaction capabilities, customer
data, communication and workflow management
across all channels
No re-keying of information; once entered it
is available across the entire network
Provide all data—contact history, accounts,
etc.—to contact center staff so they can
anticipate customer needs and act quickly
2 Single channel experiences are obsolete and customers cannot be
“owned” based on their channel selection
A customer experience that reflects the new omni-channel
reality must be enabled:

6. Integrate innovative technologies within strategic vision
3 Telephony for intelligent routing and self-service
The target state for contact center
technology is an integrated, all-
encompassing design that provides
agents, customers and contact center
representatives with needed
knowledge in real time. To accomplish
this, carriers face challenges
implementing the various
technologies needed, including:
Correspondence, document, and communication management
Automated, rules-driven management of work items
Call interaction recording and analytics for both voice and screen
Core CRM applications for customer-facing representatives
Omni-channel customer feedback and customer insight analysis
Knowledge management tools driving quality and speed
Computer-based workforce training
These technologies require orchestration, integration and
alignment with business strategy
Digital technology is also consolidating what were once front-
and back-office functions

7. Leverage technology to improve performance
While selecting and
integrating the best
technologies is critical, it is
equally important to
leverage these
technologies with defined
performance goals
Better workflow
management
4 Technology improvements
fuel better outcomes and
effectiveness, but the
architecture has to be
extensively defined so changes
can be implemented quickly
When these elements are in
place, it becomes easier to get
the right decisions to the right
people, to automate more
processes, and to align the
operational metrics needed to
evaluate these improvements
Sales conversion
rates
Higher percentage of
first-call resolutions

8. Increase workforce engagement
• Establishing new key performance indicators (KPIs) for contact center performance,
as well as new approaches to coaching, recognition and incentives
• Improving training and content
• Reviewing recruiting criteria employing analytics to identify desirable candidates—as well
as the approaches to selection, interviewing and background checks
• Developing new career paths and exploring other ways to increase employee engagement
• Once established, insurers must collect feedback and make continual improvements
5 The human element is a key challenge confronting insurers as they develop
a strategic approach to contact centers.
As carriers migrate routine requests to automated or self-service options, the
percentage of “tough calls” will increase, and so will the need for suitably
trained, empathetic and experienced people
Modernizing how the workforce is recruited, trained and motivated encompasses:

9. Summary
Re-thinking and re-working contact centers to create the
“contact center of the future” can help insurers increase sales,
reduce their costs to serve, and enhance customer relationships
By taking a strategic and integrated approach to contact
center optimization, insurers can use innovative
technologies to achieve desired ends
RE-THINK. RE-WORK.
In an increasingly crowded competitive environment, creating
the best possible customer experience may be one of the best
strategic options for insurers

10. Download the full report
https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-transformation-
insurance-contact-center