Improving First Call Resolution in Insurance

Author: Simon Black | Date: 12/08/2022

Identify the Next Best Action Using Awaken

Customer service is becoming increasingly important across industries as consumers begin to differentiate between businesses that go above and beyond from those that don’t. The insurance industry is no different.

This isn’t helped by the fact that customers expect more than ever before. For example, 84% of respondents to a recent survey stated that their expectations had not been exceeded during their most recent customer service interaction.¹

It’s clear that customers don’t want to work with insurance providers that don’t value their interactions. Even if it means they need to spend a little bit more, customer service is becoming a crucial factor when consumers choose their provider.

As a result, the insurance industry is collectively looking to provide low-effort, near-frictionless customer service experiences in order to satisfy demand and solve queries efficiently. That often means focusing on, tracking and improving key performance indicators, including first call resolution (FCR).

Unfortunately, that isn’t always easy, particularly with a legacy approach to customer service. That’s why we are seeing a significant increase in the use of contact centre software, with the market expected to be worth around $149.58 billion by 2030.2

In today’s blog post, we’re going to look at how Awaken’s cutting-edge contact centre technology can help insurance providers improve their customer service offering and increase FCR rates. Let’s get started.

What is first call resolution?

There are a number of KPIs often deployed in contact centres to measure performance and drive improvement, including:

Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
Average Handle Time (AHT)
Average Hold Time
Average Abandonment Rate

So, before we dive into the specifics of how Awaken can help insurance providers transform their customer service offering, let’s take a moment to consider one of the most important metrics — first call resolution.

FCR, sometimes referred to as first contact resolution, simply refers to a call or contact centres ability to resolve problems, answer questions and meet their customers needs the first time they call — eliminating the need for follow-ups.

It’s important to remember, however, that the concerns of some customers may warrant action by someone other than the agent who takes the initial call, which can be difficult to assess. For that reason, FCR should always be measured with caution and care.

Why is first call resolution important in insurance?

High FCR in contact centres is crucial for a variety of reasons. It doesn’t just help gauge how satisfied customers are with the service they receive. It also helps drive increased customer loyalty and measures the efficiency of customer service agents.

While it’s long been a vital metric across industries, insurers in particular need to take the appropriate steps to ensure FCR for their customers whenever possible. That’s because, given the nature of the industry, calls are often complex and challenging, and the claims process can be difficult for both customers and agents to navigate.

In this high-stakes, high-emotion environment, customers want clear, concise and relevant information whenever they contact their provider. By ensuring that as many calls as possible are resolved on first contact, insurance companies can make the claims process far less stressful for their customers and free up their agents to deal with more calls.

Transforming FCR rates with Awaken

There are numerous ways insurance providers can look to enhance their customer service offering and drive improved rates of FCR. In an age of ever-evolving technology, it should come as no surprise that software is leading the way in this regard.

Whilst there are a number of providers of contact centre technology, Awaken’s solutions stand out above the rest in helping contact centres:

Improve operational efficiency
Satisfy customers
Protect agent wellbeing

Let’s examine exactly how Awaken can help insurers improve first call resolution and thereby meet the ever increasing demands of their customers.

Enhance your understanding

With Awaken’s reporting and dashboards, you can start to connect people and data in order to better understand how to satisfy your customers and improve overall contact centre performance — including FCR rates.

The platform delivers insights by combining Conversational ai in insurance with customer and agent data, as well as analysing:

Phone system performance
Omnichannels
Web analytics
Financial data

With continuous and consistent call centre quality monitoring of interactions between customers and agents, managers and team leaders can easily identify opportunities and actions to improve agent performance.

As a result, agents can be provided with the training and feedback they need to deliver an excellent customer experience. Long term, this makes it much easier for agents to resolve more queries on first contact, increasing customer satisfaction in the process.

Deploy dynamic scripting

Call scripting is the process of providing agents with a script to follow during customer interactions to improve the customer experience. By including the information agents need during calls, scripts can simplify training regimes and help agents become proficient in their roles much quicker than previously.

Technology is also helping to take scripting tools to the next level. Awaken constructs scripts using a library of system controls that act as building blocks that can then be customised to look and behave as required. As a result, the platform works to ensure that agents:

Can access the right information at the right time
Don’t have to toggle between multiple systems
Don’t have to search for information
No longer have to liaise with multiple contacts to resolve a single query

All of this comes together to help agents provide customers with the answers and advice they need during the claims handling process. As a result, it’s far easier for agents to resolve queries without the need for follow-up calls later on.

Guide agents to the next best action

On top of providing cutting-edge edge scripts that empower agents during insurance customer calls, Awaken’s advanced software can also prompt agents with the next best action (NBA) to take with a specific customer.

NBA is a promising contact centre trend that involves the deployment of numerous preconfigured business rules alongside artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The end result is real-time suggestions to agents on the next steps they should take during a customer interaction.

By prompting agents with the next best action in this way, Awaken can help contact centres:

Reduce their call handling times
Deliver a more personalised customer experience
Increase agent productivity

In an insurance context specifically, NBA is a significant development in customer service. Due to the complexity of many of the calls and claims agents have to deal with, follow-up calls are often necessary to ensure a successful and satisfactory resolution for the customer.

However, by utilising Awaken to prompt their agents, insurance contact centres can work to eliminate repeat calls by ensuring that customers are provided with relevant and appropriate information on a consistent basis.

Get started with Awaken in your contact centre

At Awaken, we’re pioneers of contact centre software, underpinned by our leadership team’s decades of experience in the industry. We understand the challenges you face and that every business has different pressure points at different times.

That’s why we’ve developed cost-effective software that can seamlessly integrate with your legacy systems without disrupting the agent or customer experience. With our flexible platform, you can:

Unlock actionable insights that drive improvement
Support agents using intelligent agent guidance

At a time when customers expect better and more personalised customer service experiences, the insurance industry is having to adapt to meet this demand while still handling challenging claims processes. Awaken can help you do just that.

Get in touch today to learn more about how our platform can optimise first-call resolution rates in your call or contact centre.