The majority of consumers and policyholders are comfortable using the tech for basic questions.
Providers from insuretech like Lemonade to established, traditional insurers like Progressive are looking to insurance customer service chatbots to boost the response possible in support of their agents.
This technology is being used for low-complexity questions to leave agents open for more complex issues.
Progressive has built out its insurance customer service chatbots from a text interaction exclusively over Facebook Messenger, through to a Google assistant conversational experience that is voice activated. That tech is powered by Microsoft Azure.
“We’ve recently learned more of what it takes to build the conversational experience and the nuances behind interacting with customers through voice-enabled endpoints. Every time we launch, we learn a lot in the opening days,” said Progressive technology and innovation manager in the insurer’s acquisition experience group, Matt White. “Our first challenge is to be there [for the customer].”
The next step Progressive is taking in this direction involves a voice-enabled chatbot of Flo. This is a major step forward from the company’s original Flo chatbot, which was the text-only version available on Facebook Messenger, which launched back in 2017.
Voice-enabled technology is the next step in insurance customer serve chatbots.
Insuretech Lemonade calls itself “a tech company doing insurance, and not the other way around,” according to vice president of communications Yael Wissner-Levy.
According to Wissner-Levy, the insurer’s AI bots are available at all hours of the day and night, every day, to provide customer service quickly and conveniently.
“AI Jim focuses on handling claims while AI Maya handles all actions required to help our customers in finding the right coverage for them, resolving billing issues and more,” said Wissner-Levy.
Both AI insurance customer service chatbots make it possible for Lemonade to answer its customers’ questions. That said, they can also carry out a number of basic tasks such as sending a new policy to a new address when a customer moves or cancelling a policy. Moreover, they can also instantly review or pay a claim. “This level of automation in customer experience improves every day,” said Wissner-Levy.