Log into the website of any service provider today and you are most likely going to have a chat bot pop up and ask you if you need assistance of any sort. The introduction of chat bots to interact with a customer, existing or potential, came into use around a decade ago. What used to be a simple – How may I help you – often in terms of navigating the site or finding the right link to visit – has now grown into detailed conversations that are on-point as well as intuitive to a large extent. With the millennial coming of age, their connect with technology has been deeper and the appreciation for an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based chat bot solving their problems at any given time is high.
Chat bots have found their way into most fields. Perhaps the one that has benefited a lot is the insurance sector. Most chat bots, if you have noticed, are given every day human names, making them much more relatable to the customer who comes online. Here are some of the ways these chat bots have helped bring on board more customers and retain them as well.
- Chat bots are available round-the-clock and when triggered from an insurance site are equipped to answer all your questions on a particular policy, its returns, your investment and how your returns will be handled. These chat bots can do this efficiently without getting tired or bored of repetition (as can happen with a human employee). For someone looking for insurance, this can be a great way to connect and understand more.
- Insurance companies use chat bots to predict a series of questions based on the first query. They are then able to put together links with information on further questions that may be anticipated from the first interaction. Top 10 lists work very well with consumers who then have the information on hand to peruse at leisure.
- Chat bots are also used to connect potential customers to relevant sales and marketing teams of the insurance company based on a first level of interaction. Besides this, it also fields a whole load of basic questions such as how to pay a premium, questions on claims, interest rates, add-on packages, delay in premium payment, fines, penalties, etc.
- Chat bots can also be used internally to enhance client facing representatives interaction with customers. Based on a few initial questions done on a chat, the chat bot will be able to pull up all the relevant information needed for a human employee to effectively personalize an interaction.
- If a potential consumer is unsure of the kind of policy to opt for, chat bots are equipped to provide customized information that can give some clarity before decision-making.
Chat bots have grown to become the perfect automated insurance agent and can take care of a range of activities related from connecting potential customers to handling distribution and claims as well as customer service. All of this can be done directly from the platform.
Automating jobs such as fielding inbound calls to making simple changes to a policy or answering the top 10 FAQs that customers often have, becomes easier for representatives when they have all the relevant information on hand. This can be used to support an in-house staff or may be used to directly deal with consumers, to allow human representatives time to deal with more pressing matters that arise. Consumers are given the choice to receive updates relevant to them as well as intimations on policy confirmations, premium reminders and the like.
With larger number of people preferring to connect via social media or through messages and the telephone, having a chat bot to respond instantly enhances customer relations. It reduces the burden on insurers having to deal with thousands of customers with similar queries, yet does not allow them to be perceived as lax in anyway. We live in times where consumers are socially empowered and are keen on deciding where and how they would like to interact. Chat bots fit into that desire perfectly.
Getting into Chat bot Mode
What most insurance companies have realized is that to make a start towards a decision, a potential customer needs a lot of basic information. This is the starting point that companies can work toward when bringing in chat bots into their insurance system. The technology is a huge stepping stone to dealing with the current generation’s preferences of communication modes and expectations.
Insurance chat bots can be augmented with AI as well as Virtual Reality (VR) based technologies. In fact, there is constant work afoot to bring in more human-like attributes to chat bots that interact with humans, and to make them increasingly engaging and user-friendly. There will come a point when chat bots will be able to gauge customer emotions and respond accordingly.
For insurance industries that are looking to initiate chat bots into their systems, it would be ideal to begin with a simple one that works at assisting users on the basics and then moves up to more complex interactions
