Customer service is playing an important role in the BSFI sector. Some of the service orientation is introduced in BFSI through extensive customer relationship management systems and advanced analytics. These systems appear at the background and facilitate the front end service providers to deliver a personally crafted service experience based on needs. If one walks into any bank today, tellers and personal bankers provide an extensive service orientation and help the customer feel empowered into making any decision. Further personal bankers these days help the customers through processes of onboarding, engagement, problem redressals and discovery. 

As a result paperwork is facilitated and the service experience becomes fantastic with minimal cognitive stress for the customer. As a result, the customers leave the institutions with a lot of positive feelings and share their engagement experiences in their social and professional network. In short, the service experience helps the BFSI sector create brand ambassadors, and these brand ambassadors are won through the customer service orientation of the banks.

The insurance sector is a domain within BFSI which is witnessing miracles in terms of customer orientation in recent times. Customer orientation is changing the face of the Insurance industry. While insurance is the need of the day for every working professional with a family, the hope for every investor is that it should never be needed. However still one cannot really discount the fact that accidents happen in life. Further during such hard times, it never rains but always pours. Products like term insurance protects the family in those dire times of need, from the financial hassles which may arise.

However, for every investor, the challenge arises when choosing an option for investing. There are so many options and each appear as bankable as the next one. One really doesn’t get a chance to validate which is the more suitable option for one’s personal needs, and thus often relies on financial advisors whose domain knowledge is often questionable, whose interest lies in the incentive mechanism and knows little  (care lesser) about your actual needs. Investment in term insurance is not only for the insurance dimension but also serves as a critical instrument for investment purpose, so the latter aspect also needs to be taken care of. When so much information is required and needs to be processed, having an unfriendly or impersonal face at the point of service delivery rarely helps. Service providers are increasingly cognizant on the need to be empathetic to the requirements of customers, in the zeal to become a customer oriented service provider.

This is where insurance providers today provides a service that is hugely different from other platforms and from what used to be provided in earlier days of insurance. So where does the service orientation of these insurance plans come into the picture? One is guided in choosing the most suitable option by the consultant, and that too online, by empowerment of the customer.

A few things which could really differentiate the insurance offerings these days which explains the customer service orientation are as follows:

1. Real time experts interact with the buyers through chat support, call support, and application support. This helps to establish the real needs of the customer and a customised offering helps to meet needs and expectation. Interactions and discussions online facilitate the customer in taking an informed decision. The developments in Web 3.0 and interactive technology can easily facilitate this.

2. Further since the process of application is often complicated and involves filling up of complicated long forms, the co-browsing facilities introduced by some of the insurance providers, facilitate the customers a lot in the journey. where you give access of your screen to the customer service and they fill form on your behalf, facilitate the entire process without the customer being over-burdened with jargons and less useful formalities. Information representation science has also helped in making user interfaces more user friendly while reducing cognitive load.

3. Provisions like policy trackers to track the policy issuance, paying premiums, managing funds and filing claim, are all available online on click of a button. This frees up the hassle of standing in long queues to get what is owed to you and your family can concentrate on the more important things in their lives. Information management tools have really helped in this area.

4. Since some of these facilities are completely online, you don’t need to take time out of your busy schedule to run down to the offices of your insurance provider, for every small requests. Digitization of products and process workflows have helped to eliminate the physical presence needs for getting work down.

For example, these few features and best practices are now provided by HDFC Click to Insure, with a lot more.  Ab #YehBhiOnline kar hi lo. And while doing so, ensure that you get a product which is customised to your actual needs with suitable guidance from experts. I am convinced that you won’t go back to the older ways when buying and managing insurance was pretty challenging.