WhatsApp Chatbot For Insurance

The use of WhatsApp Chatbots in South Africa is steadily becoming a new and integrated way of doing business. Let's take a look of international use cases where WhatsApp Chatbots are used within the insurance realm.

The basis of winning over new prospects in insurance is achieved by providing excellent customer service. This not only includes the sign-up process when on-boarding a new customer, but maintaining an even and easy flow of communication if the customer wants to query something or even lodge a claim. 

Stages Of The User Journey

As little as three years ago, customers were accustomed to picking up the phone and calling in to speak to a consultant. Thanks to the evolution of communication during the digital age, the world is at our fingertips. The convenience of opening a ticket with an insurance company can now be done through their respective websites and online dashboards. 

But, there is a problem with this, and most of it is related to turn-around time. When submitting a claim via an insurer's dashboard, it can take up to 48 hours before a broker or consultant gets back to you, and then a further 48 hours for the claim to be processed. The same goes for call centres. Phone calls have been assigned to the backseat of customer support for years owing to long queue times, inconsistent service and data breaches. What if there was a way to speed up the process? Perhaps something as simple as sending a text message? Well, there is. 

Thanks to the integration of automated Chatbots into WhatsApp, most queries and claims can be dealt with through this method. It sounds good in theory, but how does it work in practice?

WhatsApp is the most productive communication platform known to man. From agents to customers, everyone uses WhatsApp. And with WhatsApp’s Business APIs, so can your company. Through WhatsApp, you can offer policy selections, claims tracking and premium calculation.

Need Help Setting Up Your WhatsApp Chatbot? 

This can be done automatically and in an established order. In a nutshell, by implementing a WhatsApp Chatbot, insurance companies can automate a variety of offerings. Let’s look at some use cases that will drive this point across. 

Automated Lead Generation

Lead Generation is what keeps the flywheel spinning, as more leads generated gives your sales team more deals to close and improve future growth.

Using a WhatsApp Chatbot for insurance comms, you can collect a customer’s name and contact details, as well as any other information that would benefit the sales process. What is quite interesting is that the system automatically captures and saves a customer's name and number if they send you the first message. Though, if you plan to use this information to send them outbound messages, you have to get them to opt-in first. 

Automated Lead Qualification

In insurance, leads are qualified based on an individual’s monthly salary, any loan undertaken to overpower the premium amount or even the premium contribution the person is willing to pay, etc. Using a WhatsApp Chatbot, you can automate this process and have the answers sent to your agents.

It's all about actionable information: better qualified leads means that your sales reps can close deals quicker. 

Selection of Policy

Sure, purchasing insurance is a challenge, but it doesn't have to be. Above and beyond the considered factors during the purchasing process, unnecessary difficulties shouldn't be one of them. A WhatsApp Chatbot can guide customers to appropriate policies.

Using dynamic logic and deep integrations, a bot can ask your customer questions and use the responses to guide them to a policy that suits them best.

Available Quotes

The two major data points that influence a customer when buying insurance is the premium and the cover. In the example below, a customer is interested in motor vehicle insurance and the bot is guiding them through the process.

The WhatsApp Chatbot asks questions, collects the necessary information and offers them a list of insurance providers and the quotes. 

Handling Queries

It comes as no surprise that customers have questions and concerns during the purchase process. What is surprising, is how poorly these get resolved due to a lack of knowledge from a sales consultant. 

Query handling is an essential function of converting leads to customers, and the top priority would be to delight the prospect: users purchase from companies that answer their questions the quickest.

Ensure your customers are well-informed on an easy-to-use interface, especially during the sales process. Instead of having your support team flooded with low-level queries, reduce your support volumes by answering frequently asked questions (FAQs).

Document Submission

But what about document submission? After identifying their desired policy, the next step is the submission of necessary documents. Where the WhatsApp Chatbot has an advantage is in the processing of necessary documentation. 

WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption allows prospects and customers to exchange documents and other personal information with ease and security.

Automated Updates And Alerts

Often, updates and alerts that companies send on email and SMS often go unseen. Thanks to WhatsApp's high open rate, correspondence does not go unnoticed. This, in itself, can reduce support ticket volumes and improve CSAT/NPS. This can be done by keeping customers updated about the status of their insurance.

Keep your customers in the loop by informing them where they stand at any given point of time. Customers can also reply back to you, allowing companies with the ability to cross and up-sell to existing companies.

High Level Queries

It's evident that WhatsApp Chatbots are more than qualified to conduct a wide range of activities on its ever-growing platform. With that, WhatsApp is yet to acquire the ability to function and think like a human. Therefore, certain actions and queries need a human touch.

Here, the inability of the WhatsApp Chatbot to answer a query can easily be transferred on to an agent. The agent can continue the conversation in due time.

Document Submission For Claim Approval

Once the assessor has given the intimation to the company about the loss sustained, they can submit a series of documents to claim the compensation.

The series of documents which you have to submit will differ from policy to policy.

Cancelling The policy

Instead of reaching out to the agent via call or email, customers can simply opt-out of your policy by cancelling it when they wish through the WhatsApp Chatbot.

The procedure of cancellation is incredibly simple and timely.