According to a recent report, companies and organizations are using old technology for communicating.
According to a report that was sponsored by GMC Software Technology, many companies throughout the insurance industry aren’t supporting modern communications either within their own organizations or for interaction with their customers.
This, despite the fact that these same companies feel that multichannel communication is a priority.
The survey involved the participation of 90 different insurers and was conducted by Forrester Research. It placed its focus on communication between companies in the insurance industry and their customers, by way of methods such as invoices, letterhead, correspondence, campaign emails, policies, marketing materials, and statements.
What was discovered was that the communication technology of the insurance industry uses “antiquated approaches”.
Approximately 40 percent of the insurance industry is, according to the GMC survey, providing “good cross-channel communications”. On the other hand, the majority are not capable of effectively communicating with their customers by way of other forms of consumer friendly tech, such as mobile.
GMC stated that “Despite a further 30% investing in new solutions to address the problem, a worryingly large 30% has no adequate mobile support and does not seem to care.” It also went on to add that “This is short-sighted since the research showed cost savings of ten to more than 20% for 82% of firms.”
Making matters even more complicated for the insurance industry is the fact that it is also held back from adopting multi-channel communications because of security issues and a lack of IT infrastructure, suggested the company. It said that at the moment, the IT systems of insurers are complex and aren’t yet focusing on keeping up multichannel consistency, updating regulatory language, improving personalization, changing business rules and logic, or revising templates.
This is especially true within the insurance industry’s property and casualty sector, in which the importance of the online experience is on the rise at a far faster rate than the “human element”, says the report. This was mentioned in relation to quote comparison websites and opening online accounts. The report stated that transforming the communications process successfully will be highly dependent on strong internal leadership.
