Conversational AI in Insurance: 5 Use Cases and Benefits
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Conversational AI is becoming significantly more important in the insurance industry as its capabilities to revolutionize customer interaction and the provision of service continue to increase. By integrating AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants, insurance firms and providers can enhance the policyholder’s experience by providing instant and constant support, personalized recommendations, and detecting potentially fraudulent claims. AI also benefits those working in the insurance industry by providing analytics of interactions between customers and representatives, identifying common keywords in customer interactions, and improving agent behavior to better communicate with customers in the future.
Below are five cases of the use of conversational AI in insurance.
Use Cases and Benefits
- 24/7 Customer Assistance
Having virtual assistants as an option for customer service ensures that policyholders will be able to get the assistance they need, whenever they need it. Chat and voice bots can assist with common requests like retrieving policy information, claim management, and handling questions regarding billing. Virtual assistants are designed to provide personalized assistance based on each customer’s specific needs and preferences. This, combined with 24/7 availability, makes chatbots an important asset for insurance companies. Often, with insurance-related inquiries, there is a sense of urgency motivating customers, so immediate and detailed responses are crucial for customer satisfaction.
This increased satisfaction is proven in the fact that 69% of people prefer to communicate with a chatbot, specifically because of their prompt response time and ability to provide solutions almost immediately. Using AI to offer round-the-clock customer service enhances not only convenience for customers but also efficiency for insurance companies.
- Automation of Routine Tasks
Conversational AI tools can also be used by companies to reduce unnecessary costs by automating routine tasks that many insurance agencies face daily. Using chatbots to handle these routine tasks will ensure that human agents are spending their time on more complex tasks that require extra attention, instead of those that can be easily automated. Tasks like simple filing of claims, or ordering and mailing new insurance cards do not require the attention of an educated human agent, and can therefore be delegated to AI to maximize cost effectiveness for insurance companies.
Vision AI is also being used to automate routine tasks in the insurance world. This type of AI is enabled to interpret and understand the visual world and has been harnessed by the insurance world for tasks like damage assessment. Customers are able to upload images of incidents they’d like to file a claim for, and vision AI can assess the image and provide claim information to the client.
- AI-Powered Insights
AI analytic tools are useful in the insurance industry as they can provide insights into customer interaction and company efficiency. Analytical tools are capable of transcribing phone calls and online customer interactions, providing managers with information about effective customer interaction. With this information, analytics can then perform keyword identification for these interactions, allowing companies to pinpoint terms that are used most often, and understand which topics, or issues, customers typically call for and plan for an increased amount of attention in these areas. Additionally, keyword identification through AI analytics can also be used to connect what terms used in customer interaction most often lead to a sale, which, again, allows companies to equip their representatives with this critical information.
- Personalized Recommendations
Conversational AI plays a pivotal role in transforming the insurance agency landscape, particularly through its ability to offer personalized recommendations. Insurance agencies can utilize conversational AI platforms to provide tailored recommendations to clients based on their unique needs, preferences, and risk profiles. For example, a chatbot for an insurance agency could analyze specific customer data, like past interactions, insurance claim history, and demographic information to provide the best possible service to the client, including potential policy enhancement. This kind of customization and personal experience enhances customer satisfaction, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of sales.
- Customer Engagement and Education
In the insurance industry, it is important that customers be aware of things like their needs, policy options, and important terminology relevant to the industry. Insurance agents and representatives have more pressing responsibilities than to educate their clients on some of this information and can, therefore, use conversational AI to engage with policyholders to streamline this duty. Virtual assistants can send out routine reminders, alerts about things like coverage changes, and relevant information based on individual needs. To ensure policyholders’ awareness of important information, insurance companies can delegate conversational AI to send information to clients regarding information on insurance terminology, emergency alerts, and risk management strategies.
Future of Conversational AI in the Insurance Industry
As conversational AI technology continues to develop, becoming increasingly more popular across industries, it is important for the insurance industry to understand how their future use of AI will look. With advancements in natural language processing and machine learning, conversational AI will accelerate claim settlements, and reduce operational costs for insurance companies. Additionally, conversational AI is being developed to integrate with emerging technologies like IoT (Internet of Things) and technological wearables. This will allow insurance companies to collect real-time data for risk assessment, and individualized pricing. There are also many use cases being investigated to increase efficiency in different areas.
Why Born Digital?
The progress of conversational AI within the insurance industry foretells transformative changes, driven by both current applications and the emergence of new use cases for the technology. As the number of insurance companies adopting conversational AI into their business models continues to increase, insurance providers are going to be faced with higher expectations from customers in terms of response times, availability, and streamlined overall customer interaction. Luckily, Born Digital conversational AI solutions allow for these expectations to be met.
Key features of Born Digital AI include:
1. Advanced Integration Capabilities: Seamless integration with many policy management systems, as well as CRM, makes Born Digital simple to implement for any insurance firm.
2. Multilingual Capabilities: Serving companies all over the world, Born Digital bots interact in almost all languages, making businesses accessible to a diverse clientele.
3. Sophisticated AI Conversations: Born Digital voice and chatbots engage in natural, dynamic conversations, replicating human interaction for clients to feel heard and understood, enhancing their experience; this is important in insurance as sensitive information is being dealt with, and it is important that customers feel comfortable speaking to chat/ voice bots.
4. Vendor Expertise: We have helped global insurance companies adopt conversational AI and streamline their customer support. One such multinational company is AXA which entrusts Born Digital to provide them with conversational AI solutions to speed up their digital transformation post-pandemic. AXA uses Born Digital to streamline customer communication in both voice and chat form, to automate email communications, and to detect potentially fraudulent claims.