Insurance partners need to tailor their interactions to suit individual needs, build lasting relationships and help meet the challenge posed by digital disruptors.

Insurance partners need to tailor their interactions to suit individual needs, build lasting relationships and help meet the challenge posed by digital disruptors, according to Jason Gracanin, Head of Digital Services Group for TAL.

“The challenge for us is: not everyone wants self-service, some customers just want their problems solved. We need to tailor our approach to the individual customer,” Gracanin said.  

Speaking at FST Media’s 2nd annual Technology and Innovation – The Future of Customer Experience and Business Intelligence conference this afternoon, Gracanin said a multi-channel approach is integral to engaging modern day customers who are seeking “exceptional” personalised experiences.

“Digital encompasses many touchpoints in the network but we need to understand what a partner’s value proposition is and create a common platform for shared services,” he said.

“We also need to look at providing reassurance and we do that by connecting the physical and digital world through a unified multi-channel approach. It’s the same plumbing but different tap ware.”

According to Gracanin, the expectations surrounding how easy it is to service information from an insurance company today comes down to the relevance of their solutions and how simple it is for a customer to deal with that organisation.

“We did a survey at TAL last year that highlighted a few key areas that we need to focus on [including] being easy to deal with and understanding our partners’ environments,” he said.

“Another key area was integrating [our offerings] and removing waste and friction from our services to ensure there is a single streamlined process end-to-end in helping our customers.”

Gracanin said a common misconception for insurance partners seeking to build engagement is seeing digital as the “driving force” behind forming lasting relationships with individual customers, as opposed to viewing it as a means to an end.  

“My view is that the customer has many different hats and not forgetting exactly who it is that you are servicing is [paramount],” Gracanin said.

“We may talk in a digital sense but we need to engage our customers when they want to be engaged and on the platforms they want to [interact] on.”

Gracanin noted the rise of fintechs and digital disruptors with great interest, arguing that they are crucial to the future of engagement and customer experience in the insurance industry.

“Fintechs are not a threat but are a catalyst for change. It’s all about looking at new entrants, new standards and horizontal integration,” he said.

“A great part of the startup community is that it brings together different people talking about influential and new ideas. This is key and over the next five years that is where the industry is going.”

Jason Gracanin will be delivering a keynote at our Customer Experience and Business Intelligence for Financial Services event in Melbourne this Friday together with a distinguished panel of executives and industry speakers. 

Want to be a part of the conversation? See our live conference updates here or reach out to us at #FSTCXBI.