Customer journey mapping for insurance: Unlock the secrets of stunning customer experience  

Imagine being lost in a labyrinth of customer queries, policy details, and claim processes. Suddenly, you’re handed a plan that converts this intricacy into an intelligible roadmap. It is the essence of customer journey mapping in insurtech and traditional insurance. By placing clients at the heart of our strategies, this ingenious tool can convert even the most mundane interactions into something unforgettable, enhancing brand loyalty and streamlining operations. 

Customer journey mapping is a process of visualizing customer experience within your company, including customer needs, pain points, and expectations. It encompasses all the steps customers take to reach their goals and helps businesses identify gaps and difficulties in their processes. Thanks to the appropriate customer journey maps, the most critical functionalities can be defined and developed to simplify users’ digital journey. 

The customer journey in insurance is usually connected with the many steps a customer should take to choose and purchase a policy, report a claim, or get responses to their inquiries. Often, these processes are quite cumbersome, which makes customers annoyed or frustrated with the company.  

In this article, you will learn more about insurance journey mapping, its benefits, and the steps to creating the right map.  

Learn how to achieve omnichannel CX in insurance.

Why is CX important for the insurance sector?

As industries shift towards digitization and technology becomes more accessible, insurtech is poised to transform the traditional insurance landscape. However, the industry’s success will be determined by how well it can meet customers’ needs in a personalized manner while creating memorable experiences that build trust and loyalty. 

To achieve this goal, CX has become an essential aspect of strategy for any serious player within the insurtech sector. It refers to all customer touch points in insurance, from first impressions on social media platforms to filing claims after an accident. It’s all about creating an ongoing relationship that satisfies customers’ needs, often through streamlined processes or personalized products. 

Here’s why CX is so critical in the insurtech sector: 

• Tailoring products to customer needs. By leveraging technology, insurtech firms can gather and analyze vast data. This insight allows them to create personalized products and services that suit each customer’s unique circumstances, enhancing the overall experience. 
• Standing out in a crowded marketplace. The insurtech landscape is becoming increasingly competitive. Distinguishing yourself boils down to offering more than competitive pricing or a wide product range. It’s about providing a superior customer experience that leaves a lasting impression. 
• Building trust and loyalty. Trust is a significant factor in the insurance industry. Customers want to feel confident that their insurance provider will be there to support them – a focus on CX can help build that trust. In addition, by addressing concerns promptly and transparently, insurtech companies can improve customer retention and foster a sense of loyalty, turning one-time customers into repeat clients and brand advocates. 
• Optimizing operational efficiency. CX is also crucial in streamlining operations and reducing costs. By identifying pain points, insurtech firms can improve internal processes for quicker turnaround times and fewer errors or delays – ultimately translating into invaluable cost-saving measures. 

In a nutshell, CX is a powerful differentiator in the insurtech sector. Companies can exceed expectations by focusing on the customer journey, outpace their competition, and pave the way for sustained success. 

Related article:

How to automate insurance operations with technology

Why should customer experience be considered at the beginning of the project?

When starting a new project, it’s crucial to prioritize CX from the very beginning. CX is not just about improving your product or service; it encompasses every interaction a customer has with your brand, whether browsing online for potential solutions or reaching out to address an issue. 

Incorporating CX at the start of a project is all about shifting the paradigm from product-centric to customer-centric.  

Let’s dissect the rationale behind this approach: 

• Influence on design and development. With CX as a guiding principle, you’re not just building a product or service but creating a holistic user experience. This viewpoint influences every facet of design and development, ensuring that each feature or functionality is intuitive, beneficial, and adds value to the customer journey. 
• Promoting proactive problem-solving. It allows you to anticipate potential customer pain points and solve them proactively. This foresight leads to solutions that are not merely reactive but strategically planned to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience. 
• Creating consistent experiences. A customer’s journey with your brand isn’t isolated to a single interaction. Instead, it’s a cumulative effect of all their experiences, starting from their first contact. Considering CX from the beginning ensures consistency throughout the journey, which is critical to building trust and rapport with your customers. 
• Ensuring smooth onboarding. Onboarding is crucial to setting the tone for long-lasting relationships with customers. With CX at the forefront, you can create welcoming and personalized experiences from day one by addressing their unique needs, preferences, or pain points. As a result, a loyal client returns for repeat purchases and often serves as a brand ambassador, spreading positive word-of-mouth and attracting new users. 

Therefore, considering CX at the project’s inception is a thoughtful gesture and essential to drive sustainable growth and profitability. By understanding needs and preferences right from day one – you’ll be well-positioned to capitalize on opportunities while avoiding pitfalls that could impede success. 

You might be interested in our latest article:

How to gain a competitive advantage in the insurance sector through digital channels

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is a visual narrative that chronicles an experience from the initial point of contact through the engagement process, all the way to developing a long-term relationship. Think of it as a graphical representation of a customer’s odyssey with your brand. It can be customized to suit different industries, target audiences, or communication channels. However, the essence remains the same – a comprehensive outlook at each stage in your customer’s interactions with your brand. 

In the context of insurtech and traditional insurance, a map would outline a typical customer’s interaction with an insurance provider, from researching options to filing claims. It highlights each touchpoint – where and how the interactions occur – along with any potential pain points or opportunities for improvement. 

Customer journey mapping serves multiple purposes: 

1. Understanding the needs of clients. Journey maps allow you to get into the mind of your users and understand each stage in their experience with your product or service better. This understanding enables insurance providers to tailor services to meet individual expectations, increasing conversions while improving retention rates. 
2. Identifying gaps. A comprehensive journey map can help pinpoint gaps between what customers expect and what they’re experiencing. These gaps are opportunities for improvement, offering the chance to enhance CX and outpace competitors. 
3. Facilitating personalization. Companies can better tailor their communication and services to customer needs, enabling a more personalized, satisfying experience. 

However, a word of caution: the journey map is not a one-size-fits-all tool. Clients are unique, and their experiences with your brand will vary based on numerous factors, including their demographic, psychographic, and behavioral traits. Therefore, companies often need to develop multiple journey maps that reflect the diverse personas of their customer base. 

How to create a customer journey map for insurtech?

Creating a CJM is a strategic process that requires careful planning, research, and collaborative effort across various departments within your insurtech firm. From the outset, it’s crucial to identify the specific touchpoints that are most critical and relevant for your customer’s journey. Below, we will provide a step-by-step process to create a practical map for your insurtech firm. 

Step 1 – Set goals 

It all begins with setting clear, defined goals. It’s crucial to understand that this isn’t an arbitrary exercise; it’s a strategic process meant to provide actionable insights. So, before you embark on this endeavor, you must ascertain what you aim to achieve. 

Are you looking to identify gaps in your current customer service? Do you want to uncover potential opportunities for new products or services? Are you aiming to streamline specific processes to boost efficiency? Or do you want to ensure a consistent experience across all touchpoints? These questions are a starting point. Take your time and think through what you hope to gain from this exercise. 

Also, ensuring these goals are shared and understood by everyone involved is crucial. This shared understanding ensures all stakeholders are on the same page, fostering a unified, cohesive approach. 

Remember, customer journey mapping isn’t a one-time task. Your goals may shift as your insurtech company evolves. It’s a good idea to revisit them periodically and adjust your map accordingly. 

Step 2 – Conduct user interviews 

With your goals firmly established, it’s time to gather the raw material – insights directly from your clients. One of the most effective ways to do this is through user interviews that give you a first-hand account of your customers’ experiences, expectations, and pain points. 

The purpose of user interviews is to gather qualitative data. So, instead of asking your clients to rate your service on a scale of 1-10, ask open-ended questions encouraging them to share their stories. For instance, you might ask about their challenges when filing a claim or their experience with your support team. 

Be sure to interview a diverse range of clients to ensure your journey map reflects the various personas that interact with your brand. It could include long-term policyholders, new customers, those who’ve recently filed a claim, and even prospects who considered but ultimately didn’t choose your service. 

Step 3 – Create user persona 

A user persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal client based on market research and actual data about your existing customers. Creating these personas is vital as they add a human touch to the data, helping you understand your customers beyond mere demographics. 

To develop personas, you’ll need to gather quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data includes measurable, statistical information like age, income, and occupation, while qualitative data focuses on subjective factors such as motivations, fears, desires, and behaviors. 

You might identify different types of users interacting with your insurtech services in distinct ways from your user interviews. For example, you might have a “Tech-Savvy Tim” who prefers using your mobile app for all transactions or a “Traditional Trudy” who likes speaking with a support agent for her insurance needs. 

Remember, your goal is not to create an exhaustive list of personas but to capture the variety of experiences and expectations among your customer base. Therefore, aim for a manageable number of personas representing your customers’ broad spectrum. 

Step 4 – Define customer touchpoints 

These touchpoints are all the places and times clients interact with your insurtech company. It could be anything from visiting your website or speaking with a support representative to receiving an email or submitting a claim through a mobile app. 

To define the touchpoints, consider the entire customer journey, from initial awareness to final interaction. Then, consider every possible way a client could interact with your brand. Mapping these touchpoints will likely involve input from multiple departments within your company, including marketing, sales, support, and IT. 

Defining touchpoints helps you see your business from the customer’s perspective. It can reveal opportunities to improve the user experience. For example, you can simplify a complex process or provide additional support where customers feel uncertain. While listing your touchpoints, remember that not all will carry the same weight or importance. However, some will be critical moments of truth, shaping the overall perception of your brand. These key touchpoints require particular attention to ensure they deliver an exceptional experience. 

Step 5 – Map current states 

With a clear understanding of your user personas and their touchpoints, you’re now ready to map the current state. This stage is about accurately capturing your customers’ experiences as they are now. Mapping the current state involves illustrating each persona’s path through all identified touchpoints. It’s essential to include every interaction, whether a potential client visiting your website for the first time or an existing customer contacting support for assistance. 

You must use the data collected during user interviews and other research methods to create an accurate, current state map. This map should represent the customers’ feelings, motivations, pain points, and moments of delight at each touchpoint. 

Step 6 – Map future states 

The next step is to envision and map the future state. This process involves visualizing what you’d like the customer journey to look like in an ideal world. It’s about taking the insights from your current state map and your business objectives and expectations to create an aspirational vision of your customer experience. 

Here’s how you go about it: 

• Identify opportunities. Highlight the touchpoints that need improvement and brainstorm ways to enhance these experiences. Also, look for opportunities to create new, positive experiences that delight your customers and set you apart from your competitors. 
• Prioritize changes. You’ll unlikely be able to make all desired changes at once. Instead, prioritize them based on factors like their potential impact on customer satisfaction, the resources required, and alignment with your business goals. 
• Create a future state map. Now it’s time to illustrate the future state of your customer journey. It should look similar to your current state map but will feature modifications and additions that reflect your desired improvements. 
• Develop an action plan. A future state map isn’t just a dream – it should be a realistic and achievable vision of your future customer experience. Use this map to develop an action plan that outlines your business’s steps to transform this future state from an idea into reality. 

A future state map gives you a goal to strive for, a vision of what an outstanding customer experience in your insurtech company looks like. Remember, it’s a dynamic document that should evolve as your business grows and customer expectations change. 

Check what we offer for insurtech and insurance:

Insurance digital channels

The key benefits of customer journey mapping for the insurance sector 

Customer journey mapping offers many benefits for the insurance sector, contributing to its evolving landscape by adding a layer of customer-centricity.  

Here are a few key advantages that underscore its importance: 

• Increased engagement. Insurance companies get a clear visualization of how their clients interact with their services across multiple touchpoints. This enhanced understanding leads to the creation of more relevant and personalized experiences. So, users will be more likely to interact with the brand, provide feedback, and become more invested in the relationship, all of which drive loyalty and long-term customer value. 
• Ineffective touchpoints eliminated. Insurers can spot weak or redundant touchpoints in the customer experience. For example, clients may abandon online applications due to a confusing interface, or a support channel needs to be more used, and resources could be better allocated elsewhere. Identifying and eliminating these ineffective touchpoints increases operational efficiency and enhances customer experience. 
• Improved sales, cross-sales, and up-sales. A detailed map also helps identify opportunities to offer additional relevant products and services. By understanding customer needs and behaviors at different stages, insurers can more effectively target their marketing and sales efforts. They can uncover the right moments to introduce cross-sales and up-sales, boosting revenue while adding value to the client. 

These advantages allow insurtech and traditional insurance companies to leverage customer journey mapping. As a result, insurance providers can continuously improve their services, streamline processes, and tailor their products to individual needs. 

Learn more: How to improve customer engagement for insurance

DICEUS expertise

DICEUS has extensive experience working with clients from the insurance industry, providing end-to-end software development services and CX strategy. From business analysis, software architecture, and design to testing and technical support, DICEUS offers a range of services to meet the diverse needs of insurers.  

Read a related case study:

CX strategy for insurance company UNIQA 

In particular, our company can assist with customer journey mapping, a critical tool for companies looking to enhance customer experience. Our team can help you create customer journey maps, from conducting user interviews to developing actionable plans.  

Contact us today to learn how we can help you unlock the secrets of the incredible customer experience. 

FAQ