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Four Requirements for Insurance Call Centers

By Miguel Leiva-Gomez, TMCnet Contributor

The insurance call center has changed to accommodate a new age. It has gone past its original role of resolving customer issues and providing them with supplementary information. Now, the call center has become the center of every company's support structure, and the customer expects no less. In fact, customers have come to expect a bit more out of call centers each time new innovations have become mainstream. As the contact center beefs up, so should its security.

Privacy and customer data protection policies have to wrestle with new technologies (such as cloud call center solutions) that come into the fray, and the world of the modern call center can get quite confusing as a result of this.

There are four general rules that insurers should follow to make sure that their call centers can rise above the expectations of their customers.

The first requirement involves keeping everything secure and integrated. Rich Leonard, Aetna's CTO, advises insurers to ensure that the customer's identity can be verified before anything about his/her account is shared. “We're very conscientious about verifying identity before sharing any personal information,” he said. “We also do a lot of due diligence before implementing any technology solutions in the contact center and give extra scrutiny in terms of technology under vendor selection.” Leonard also suggests integrating mobile technology.

“In some scenarios, [mobile technology] may replace other channels in terms of tasks, like paying your premium with your smartphone app rather than calling or going on your PC, or taking a picture of a claim and uploading it rather than faxing it,” he added. “It also may simply complement a customer's experience with other channels, such as a CSR (News - Alert) having the ability to send an image of a member's ID card while on a call with them.”

The second requirement focuses on capturing and using customer information to increase satisfaction and participation. John McNally, the senior principal in Accenture (News - Alert) Distribution & Marketing Services, speaks about making sure that the information taken from customers is used to provide better and more advantageous services. “Insurers have been extremely protective of customers' privacy and their record in this area has been good,” said McNally. “Accenture research indicates that the majority of consumers now expect insurers to use all information they have provided to serve them better or place them in the right products. Capturing and using this information is a large opportunity for insurers to satisfy, retain and grow the customer base.”

As a third requirement, Seth W. Hall, VP of customer service at Philadelphia Insurance Companies, explains that customer service representatives need to act like customers in order to serve customers better. “In other words, we need to stop playing catch-up with our customers and we need to start becoming more innovative from a service perspective,” he said. “We need to understand that if someone is texting from their phone, what's the best method in which to respond to that customer? If someone is sending in an inquiry through e-mail, what is the most efficient way in which we can respond?”

Finally, the fourth requirement is related by Jennifer Wilson, the solutions marketing manager of insurance at Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert). She says that insurers must facilitate the transition from mobile apps into the call center. “Today, policyholders expect to communicate with insurers how and when they want,” she said. “Newer communications technologies such as SMS, Web chat, social media and mobile apps are vital to meeting these new policyholder expectations.”