In this fast-paced digital era, customer expectations are evolving at an unprecedented rate. The age-old business mantra, “The customer is always right,” has transformed into, “The customer always wants more – and they want it now.”

As we navigate an increasingly interconnected world, customers seek more than basic services. They expect seamless, instant, and intuitive experiences. Policyholders want you to anticipate their needs, offer personalized solutions, and deliver innovation at lightning speed. These elevated expectations span across industries, and the insurance sector is no exception.

I was excited to join Stephanie Lobeck, Product Manager of the CoreSuite for Workers’ Compensation solution at Sapiens to discuss when carriers fail to provide digital experiences that align with modern consumer expectations, the resulting dissatisfaction among policyholders can lead to significant business challenges. We had an engaging discussion!

Listen to the full conversation or read some highlights from the transcript below:

Stephanie Lobeck: So Jacqueline, in the intro, we spoke a lot about the importance of the
customer experience and how payment experience is such a critical part of that. Tell me what
happens when carriers fail to meet consumer expectations, especially new customer
expectations.

Jacqueline Guerrero: Yeah, absolutely. That is a great question, Stephanie. A policyholder, paying their premium is one of the first interactions they have with their insurance carrier and with everything in life, first impressions are huge. If the payment process is complicated or unclear, customer frustrations [are] going to grow and turn that new customer into a potential churn risk. If it’s complicated to pay a premium as a policyholder, I would personally start thinking, if it’s this complicated, now imagine what it’s going to be like if I ever have a claim versus if that interaction is simple and pleasant, the carrier has the opportunity to grow customer loyalty and trust.

Stephanie Lobeck: Thanks for that, Jacqueline. On another note, how does customer frustration manifest in negative ways? What are carriers seeing?

Jacqueline Guerrero: Customer frustration usually manifests in three negative ways. So, starting off with high call volume and support requests, a subpar payment experience often leads to more customer service inquiries. It puts pressure on support teams and increases operational costs as they work to resolve issues that could have honestly, easily been avoided with a smoother process that would allow their customers to easily self-serve. And then that leads ultimately to low customer satisfaction. If a customer perceives carriers as difficult to work with, it is going to be harder to regain their trust, even if improvements are made later. And then negative word of mouth, reviews, social posts, etc., can significantly damage a carrier’s reputation and deter new customers. If it is too difficult to pay, the customer might abandon the process altogether. This directly impacts the carrier’s revenue, it delays their collections, and then a policyholder might switch to a competitor.

Stephanie Lobeck: Great. Thank you so much for that context, Jacqueline. So many great points there about the impacts, and we want our carriers to focus on what they do best, and they want the customer experience to be a great experience throughout and they can give them what they need in the insurance product that they are providing.

Jacqueline Guerrero: Exactly!

Stephanie Lobeck: To switch gears a little bit, let us talk about the reality of a full-scale digital transformation. What challenges should a carrier consider through that process?

Jacqueline Guerrero: Carriers should really pause and instead of doing everything all at once, which is going to overwhelm resources and potentially put the company at risk for failing a project and they should start really with optimizing customer-facing experiences like billing and claims payments. Crunchbase found that organizations on average waste $4.2 million on failed projects. I think it’s better to take that crawl, walk, run approach, and focus on what will give the highest impact with the least amount of effort. And that’s payments. Payments is the simplest, most effective method for improving that policyholder’s overall experience because when you really think about it, premium payments are the most often interaction policyholders have with their carrier and claims is the most sensitive. It’s crucial to get these engagement points right.

Stephanie Lobeck: So now can you explain how a carrier can reap the benefits of enhanced customer experience without the hazards of that entire system overhaul?

Jacqueline Guerrero: Yeah, absolutely. Payments, whether it is premium collections or claims disbursements are a quick win for carriers. It impacts retention, operational efficiencies, time, and cost savings. As we all know, core systems can take years to upgrade. Investing in payments allows your policyholders to have a modern experience, while the carrier figures out which core system they want to upgrade to on the back end. And then our payment solution requires no system downtime. We have proven integrations with the Sapiens core systems such as Workers’ Comp, P&C, MPL, so they really make for a quick and painless update to your existing system.

Download our ebook, Disrupting without Disruption: Payments as a Gateway to Modernization for Insurance Carriers and Insureds, to learn more about today’s payment experience trends
and the cost of doing nothing.