The efficiency of the software and systems used within an insurance company is of high importance; especially in an industry with a large amount of customer data being exchanged and stored in a variety of different software and systems. This means that software to help with different efficiency and processing needs is vitally important – without it, there are greater risks of human error, slow processing times and issues with efficiency. With the number of different systems being used for various differing aspects of the client journey; both internally and externally, it’s important to ensure that these systems are linked together in the most efficient way.
Improving communication effectiveness
It’s no secret that insurance affects everyone from businesses to people; car insurance, van insurance, business insurance – they all have one thing in common: vast amounts of user submitted data. This is why communication between people within organisations is extremely important and is also a touch point that can be improved upon through the use of bespoke software. Allowing and enabling clear communications methods including transparent customer account notes with full access; will lead to fewer chances of misunderstanding and miscommunication. In turn, the customer will have a better experience and be more likely to renew their policy.
Enable scheduling and staff data
Creating efficient scheduling processes for internal staff makes it much easier for people to understand their roles; leading to more targeted productivity. With various different touchpoints across a client journey right the way from marketing to onboarding, client services and renewals; the ability to record productivity helps massively in understanding areas of the business that could be improved. Armed with this data, software to record step by step productivity can reveal a vast amount of information about your business, the people that work within it and the external factors or forces that could potentially be costing you extra time and money. Unlocking this ability to review and analyse individual aspects of the business will help improve entire processes; giving welcome boosts in productivity and efficiency.
Business process maps
Having written about the best way to create process maps to help understand customer churn and improve business efficiency in a previous post, this one can be extremely beneficial in ensuring that your insurance business is as efficient and cost effective as it can be. The creation of process maps allows the ongoing ability to be updated and improved in a living, breathing document that evolves and improves as your business does. This map will enable you to monitor and track each part of the process that a customer goes on in their journey through becoming, staying and (hopefully) renewing their policy as a customer. There may be elements within the process map that you could have missed without writing down the physical processes of the business. Are there certain processes where data entry is being duplicated unnecessarily? Are there bottlenecks or breakdowns in communication that could be automated? It is time consuming but starting with this creation of an entire map will help you get through the project in a much more managed, streamlined way; inevitably leading to cost savings, improved efficiency and a higher quality output at the end.
Using data to its full potential
As many people profess, you just can not argue with numbers. With the huge amount of data and processing that happens in the insurance industry, data is arguably a company’s best friend (as well as the managers and board level employees that use it). Being able to properly capture, store, process and analyse data – legally; as well as keeping records of all of this information for GDPR purposes is paramount to keeping your business secure and profitable. Without understanding the existing metrics of your processes, be that success or failure; how do you know where you can improve? Well, the answer is (unless you’re planning to put a finger to the wind) you don’t. So proper analytics and data is extremely important and having access to this through the correct use of software that has been developed bespoke for your insurance business, is absolutely important.
All about the cloud
“The cloud” – it appears an evergreen tech buzzword that still crops up when talking about efficiency, profitability and “the future of business”. Adopting the cloud will enable you to access data and systems from different locations (internet permitting). This is something that is especially important for insurance companies because it will allow customers to easily login and download their policy documents, invoices or terms and conditions from anywhere.
In terms of the actual software that is built, this can be anything from the project management software that has been tailored specifically for your company, right the way through to infrastructure planning, workflow software, process mapping or even productivity tools – We recently put together another post on the 7 key benefits of bespoke software development; take a look here and see what you think.
