Weekly Wrapup: Following up on good tech is crucial for customer experience

The Weekly Wrapup is an analysis of the week's insurance tech news from the editors of Digital Insurance.

It's no surprise that insurers are leveraging the digital revolution in their sector to improve the customer experience: After all, financial services is one of the least-trusted industries in existence. This manifests itself in many ways. This week, we saw Lincoln Financial roll out a chatbot to help improve it in that area; on the P&C side, Security First Insurance started working with the ratings and reviews insurtech Clearsurance to see how satisfied its customers are.

Insurers have had some success in this area: J.D. Power released data last week finding that auto insurers are doing much better than they have historically because of their digital customer experience improvements. Policyholders like that their insurance companies are modernizing; a report from Bloomberg indicates that most young adults are happy to share data with insurers for financial rewards.

For insurers who feel like they're falling behind in the race, there are opportunities to improve. Writing in the "US Auto And Home Insurers Customer Experience Index, 2018," Forrester analysts Ellen Carney, Faith Adams and August Du Pont offer four tips to help carriers get the most from their customer experience investments. They are excerpted below.

• Customer service is the most important driver category for insurance CX. Drivers relating to how well the insurer resolves customer issues have the most impact on an insurer’s overall CX index score. Seventy-one percent of policyholders reported having a positive experience with their insurers’ customer service.
• Website and mobile app is the least important driver category. Sixty-nine percent of policyholders had a good experience with the website and the mobile app. However, these touchpoints have the least influence on the overall customer experience, meaning that good digital experiences have less impact on overall perceptions than other aspects of customer experience.
• The top emotions that boost loyalty are feeling appreciated, respected, or valued. Contrary to conventional wisdom, making customers happy does not have the biggest effect on loyalty. What emotions do lead to customer loyalty? The top three are making customers feel appreciated, respected, and valued. Among policyholders who felt valued, 76% plan to stay with the brand, 90% will advocate for the brand, and 89% plan to spend more with the brand.
• Annoyance, disappointment, and frustration drive customers away. Making your customers feel annoyed, disappointed, or frustrated is the most harmful to their loyalty. Out of customers who feel frustrated, just 14% will advocate for the brand, 13% say they will stay with the brand, and 18% will spend more.

For a full list of home and auto rankings, download Forrester’s report, The US Auto And Home Insurers Customer Experience Index, 2018 [subscription required].