The Data Illusion
Did you even get so pulled in by digital projects, that you didn't notice your customer data is a mess?
Turns out, this happens a lot. All of us are more customer centric than ever. Front facing apps, making sure we're reaching out on social media and responding to requests or questions on all channels.
But if all of this new information is not connected back with our customer records, then opening up new channels only makes it easier for more things to go wrong. For information to be lost, promises broken or expectations mismanaged.
This bring us back to customer data. Often the deal breaker in doing more digital transformation actions. Why?
Because there's this feeling that while our records are looking great in the core, and they allow us to deliver on the policy and collect payments, we however don't have e-mails, phone numbers, social media preferences in there.
And we're not updating interactions on all touch points. We don't have information on when a customer called, what our agent said, what was agreed upon previously in call-center conversation.
So we say OK, let's get our data in order first. Then we'll do more digital projects. Meanwhile, let's just launch a new app.
There's no shame in that strategy. But there's use either. Our data will never be in order. It's not a one time job.
Trying to get your data in order with one singular project is like trying to read all Facebook posts before opening a profile page. You can’t, there’s always new posts.
So what's a better approach?
Like the Nike ad says for years, you should just do it. Don't wait. Don't put it off. Don't invent complex reasons why you're not ready to start pulling together all customer information into one place.
The moment you decide to pull the trigger on that idea, you will take your business to a new level.
But don't go all crazy and overboard with everything you can do with a CRM system. That's just as bad or ever worse than doing nothing or too little.
Instead focus on your call center. They have to respond to every call and virtually never have contextual information an agent does while dealing with clients in the field.
Call center processes are unified, you don't need too many software licences to start.
Once you have a CRM beach head in your company, and start feeding data through that system, in time you'll see it also improve, consolidate, become holistic.
To learn more about best practices in consolidating customer data and see a live demo of our INsurance2 DIGITAL solutions, schedule a live call.