Channel Alignment is Critical to Satisfaction

Despite the many challenges currently facing the auto insurance claims process, including the longest cycle times we’ve ever observed in our U.S. Auto Claims Satisfaction Study, insurers managed to increase overall satisfaction among claimants. Digital processes are playing a key role in moving claims along quickly and keeping customers informed. In fact, customers who prefer to manage the process digitally showed the largest increase in satisfaction year-over-year—up 11 pts to 889—suggesting insurer’s digital processes are working well for those who want to use them.  

However, not all customers want to engage with digital tools. The least satisfied claimants are the growing group (now 36%) that prefer working with people over digital.  

There are many drivers of these lower scores including insurers’ strained resources that often impact the availability and responsiveness of claims staff. Additionally, many of these customers report being encouraged to use digital tools that they may not want to engage with. In this latter scenario we see that satisfaction is particularly low when these customers use digital channels, especially for reporting their claim or receiving status updates as shown in the chart below. Customers who prefer using digital channels provide notably higher scores for these digital experiences. 

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Mitigating Channel Preference Dissatisfaction

To further explore the negative impact of encouraging customers to use channels they do not prefer, we took a look at the group of claimants who prefer interacting with people and compared their scores for reporting their claim via digital channels (i.e. website/app) vs. calling their agent. As shown below, these customers are almost 70 pts. more satisfied when reporting their claim to their agent. We see a similar impact when drilling into other digital experiences such as submitting photos of the damage or only receiving a digital copy of the estimate, both topics we explore further in the study. 

KEY TAKEAWAY: It is critical to offer customers the ability to choose their channel preferences and then to provide them with an experience that incorporates those channels. For customers that prefer interacting with people, make sure their experience feels personal – even if you need to include digital interactions in their process. For example, those who prefer dealing with people do not want to get updates by logging into an app/website. If you need to interact with them using a digital channel, instead use texting or email which is a more proactive, personable interaction type. The bottom line: know your customer and provide them with the experience they request and expect.

To explore this topic further, log in to PowerSource to access the 2023 U.S. Auto Claims Satisfaction Study - results are live as of October 24. If you’re not yet a subscriber, contact us today >