Insurance customers demand a lot more than they used to. They expect to be able to use the communication channels of their choice, whether that’s phone, email or chat, and they won’t put up with long wait times – no matter how busy you happen to be.
Challenges with Insurance Call Centers Today
For decades, call centers have been an integral part of how insurers deliver support to policyholders. However, maintaining in-house call centers in the modern business landscape presents a number of challenges for insurers.
Primarily, insurers are facing a widespread talent shortage. A meaningful portion of existing insurance professionals are set to retire over the coming years, with fewer new graduates choosing to enter the insurance space. This means insurers are left without access to knowledgeable professionals to fill call center vacancies.
In addition, running these operations in-house can weigh on insurers’ profitability. Not only do they need to pay more competitive salaries to attract and retain scarce talent, but they also have to invest in and pay to maintain dedicated call center infrastructure and technology.
Unveiling New Stats for Insurance Call Centers
In recent years, policyholders have grown to expect even more convenience and speed when it comes to the customer support they receive from insurers.
For one, customers are putting a greater emphasis on speed of service. In fact, in a 2023 study by Jay Baer, a customer experience and marketing expert, two-thirds of customers now say speed is just as important as price. Another study from Zendesk, found 66% of companies report customers today are less patient. The report also notes customer support activity is growing, leaving frontline agents in a delicate position to serve more customers in less time.
We know that people are impatient. But why? Because technology has raised the bar and completely overhauled our expectations. In the late 1990s, you might have waited minutes for a web page to load, but these days, you’d probably give up and go to a different site long before you reached the 30-second mark. Technology can provide instant results, and as a result, we have been conditioned to expect this in all corners of our lives.
Even though technology is shaping customer expectations for faster service, customers still want the opportunity for human support. According to Statista, over half of customers in the United States name phone support as their preferred method for resolving customer service issues.
So, despite the increasing popularity of using technology in customer service, the data shows that policyholders don’t want to completely lose all elements of human interaction.
The Value of the Human Element in Customer Support
Technology can be beneficial to insurers when automating routine tasks or processing large data sets. However, it leaves much to be desired when offering empathetic, one-on-one insurance support–something that humans are much more equipped to handle.
Let’s put it simply: most of the time when policyholders contact their insurer, it’s not because everything is going great. Maybe they’ve experienced a loss or property damage, and they need to initiate a claim. Or, maybe they’re trying to save on their premium and want to lower their coverage limits.
In either scenario, the last thing they want is to be met with an automated messaging system or sent to an online knowledge base that provides no actionable resolution for their unique situation. Policyholders want to be able to call their insurer and speak with an agent who is well-informed and attentive to their specific inquiry or issue.
Human agents with years of experience in the industry understand the subtle nuances that can occur with insurance coverage, claims, or policy management, and can tap into their expertise in a way that automated systems cannot. Instead, their rigid rules can frustrate and alienate loyal policyholders, leaving them feeling that their issue is not worth the insurer’s time. Thus, the human element is how insurers can offer the personalized and relevant support that policyholders are looking for when they reach out over the phone.
Adapting to the Shift: What Does This Mean for Your Insurance Call Center?
Even as the digital age continues to take hold and the rise of tech-enabled support solutions like chatbots and self-service portals gain traction, phone support will remain a crucial aspect of how insurers connect with their policyholders to address their inquiries and problems.
This is supported by a recent report by CCW which noted that 89% of companies expect phone support to remain important in the future.
So, insurers shouldn’t overlook the importance of maintaining high-quality call centers and phone support options even as they integrate new tech.
Instead, they should explore how they can make their call centers more efficient by adding more customer service agents, providing existing agents with more training, or outsourcing this function to a qualified provider, which we’ll discuss in further detail below.
Outsourced Insurance Call Center Services Can Help Your Company Keep Up
Outsourced insurance call centers provide scalable, multi-lingual support via phone, chat or email so policyholders can gain access to help when they need it, 24/7. They also provide industry experts who are knowledgeable in insurance matters and trained in your company’s policies, resulting in quick resolution without the need for a transfer.
There are a number of options for outsourcing the call center function in your business. However, working with an experienced onshore team that specializes in this area gives insurers confidence that their policyholders are still receiving accurate and specialized support. Plus, it helps free up the insurer’s valuable resources for core operations, providing favorable cost savings and efficiency improvements.
If you’re thinking of outsourcing some of your work to an insurance call center, read this guide first. It outlines the 13 questions you need to ask to ensure you find a partner that will positively represent your brand and enhance your policyholder experience