Customer Journey Mapping: Meeting Insurance Customers Where They Are

In part 3 of our Insurance Customer Journey Blog Series, we delve more into why customer journey mapping is critical for insurers today and how an end-to-end journey perspective ensures better outcomes

Why should insurers pay attention to the customer journey? Because if you don’t, the journey might take your customers to the one place you don’t want them to go: your competitors.

The Bar Keeps Rising

Today’s insurance customers have high expectations for customer service. Customer journey mapping helps insurers understand the customer experience so they can improve it.

According to J.D. Power’s 2021 U.S. Insurance Digital Experience Study¹, “With more property and casualty (P&C) insurance customers than ever migrating to digital channels during the past year, expectations for a superior user experience have grown and many insurers are struggling to keep pace.”

If it seems like customers are getting harder to please, that’s because they are. And when these expectations aren’t met, insurance customers might start looking elsewhere.

Challenges to a Quality Insurance Customer Experience

Insurance customers want a better experience. Insurance companies want to deliver it. So, what’s the problem? Well, there are a few.

Customers want a simplified, streamlined, and unified omnichannel experience, but today’s insurance customer experience can be complex.

• Multiple Players – Insurance companies and customers aren’t the only parties involved. There can also be independent brokers, claims adjusters and vendors. Coordinating all of these parties into one seamless experience can be difficult.
• Multiple Channels – Customers want to be able to use the channels of their choice, whether that’s an app, a website, a phone call, an email, or a text message. Making these interactions frictionless, from one channel to the next, can lead to challenges.
• Multiple Touchpoints – Although premium payment may be the most frequent touchpoint for the average policyholder, they may also interact with the insurer when there’s a claim or coverage issue. Often, these touchpoints are unpredictable and involve problems that make it harder to provide a good experience.

The Benefits of Insurance Customer Journey Mapping

Some insurers conduct a survey after each phone call. They prompt the customer to rate the phone call on a few key metrics, such as how friendly and helpful the representative was and whether the issue they called about was resolved. This strategy can tell you about each individual call, but it might not tell you anything about the broader customer experience.

For that, you need customer journey mapping.

A customer journey map is a lot like a regular map. It’s a visual representation of a journey. For insurers, it’s the journey your customers go on from quote to policy issuance to billing; from premium payment and possibly claim filing, all the way, hopefully, to policy renewal.

According to McKinsey and Company², “The explosion of potential customer interaction points – across new channels, devices, applications, and more – makes consistency of service and experience across channels nearly impossible – unless you are managing the journey, and not simply individual touchpoints.” Their research revealed that many times the touchpoints themselves weren’t broken, but instead larger processes and even the whole experience. They discovered that an excellent customer experience must last the entire journey.

And according to HubSpot³, “Simply understanding the customer journey isn't enough. It's best to visualize this complicated journey into a diagram that you and other employees can refer to as a resource.” You want to be looking at the complete picture. You want the organization to see what your customer sees and feel what they feel. It’s what will allow you to create a truly customer-centric culture that puts the customer first.

Your customer journey map should include the following:

• The Travelers. Who are your customers and what are their personas? It’s important to visualize persona-specific journeys that include key stakeholders.
• The Destination. What does your customer want? There may be multiple answers. You can think of it as a road trip with multiple destinations along the way.
• The Landmarks. These are the touchpoints you expect on the journey. They help shape your customer’s experience and perceptions.
• The Dangers. These are the pain points your customer may encounter while traveling. Like traffic jams, construction zones, and speed traps, these problems can make the journey less enjoyable, and they can prevent the customer from reaching their destination.

The Path Forward

To continue on the path to a seamless omnichannel customer experience, insurers need to move beyond transactional surveys and look holistically instead at the end-to-end customer experience – across all channels and touchpoints. It’s how you can meet policyholders where they really are today in their digital insurance journeys. And it’s the only way you’ll be able to keep innovating in the right direction so you can meet your customers where they’ll be tomorrow.

One Inc

We’re here to help. One Inc’s comprehensive payment solution enables insurers to deliver on their promise to provide a secure and superior customer experience. Our omnichannel digital communication capabilities allow insurers to proactively engage policyholders on the channels they prefer. We provide carriers with the ability to give their customers what they want and expect: control, convenience, consistency, and continuity. That’s the strength derived from the Power of One™ - a cohesive and seamless experience for both inbound and outbound digital payments.

To discuss your digital payment needs, please call (822) 209-1688 or email inquiries@OneInc.com.

Stay tuned for Part 4 of our Insurance Customer Journey Blog Series where we’ll take a look at new technologies insurers can leverage to optimize the customer experience.

Sources:
¹ https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2021-us-insurance-digital-experience-study
² https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/from-touchpoints-to-journeys-seeing-the-world-as-customers-do
³ https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-journey-map