Chatbots in insurance – Podcast with Florian Nägele from Helvetia Insurance

Who is Florian Nägele and how did he get into chatbots?

Florian has been working for Helvetia Insurance for over 10 years. At some point, he came across a chatbot and initiated the chatbot project at Helvetia and got it rolling. He has been working as Head of Omnichannel & Touchpoint Management and as a project manager for some time now.

The origins of the chatbot project lay in the 1st Design Thinking project at Helvetia. They really took their time with the project and visited many customers to understand them. An external employee showed Florian how he records his time with a Slackbot (a chatbot in Slack). At first, he had mixed feelings about the Slackbot, but had it shown to him again. After he had slept on it for a night, his ideas began to bubble up. He realized that the topic could be the solution to many of the customer needs they had just developed. If they used it intelligently, “insurance” would feel very different, not so complicated and not with such weird language. Florian realized that chatbots could change the insurance industry.

How did Florian launch the first chatbot and how did he get the budget for it?

Florian built a “fake bot” with the help of websites that can be used to assemble dummy bots. At the end of the design thinking project, he was lucky enough to be able to present this prototype to his management, who recognized the opportunities of chatbots. As Florian had requested a very modest budget compared to other projects in order to continue with the chatbot project, this was approved.

How was the first chatbot implemented and what could it do?

First he had to find partners with whom he could implement the project. He found what he was looking for in an exciting workshop at a start-up. Together with the founder of the start-up, they are implementing the project.

The head of sales at Helvetia was enthusiastic and wanted to push the topic of chatbots. They wanted to try to establish a point of contact with the sales organization. Florian drove to an affiliated insurance agency and asked on the spot what they needed, what the most urgent problem was. This is how the chatbot’s use case was defined.
The first chatbot was to be a sales bot that could renew expiring contracts and communicate via SMS. With the SMS, the customer was invited to a simple chat to extend the contract via SMS. The chatbot was very successful, half of the customers contacted responded and half of them actually extended their contract along the way.

Chatbots for insurance companies: Usecase theft report

Florian was able to present the successful project to the management. After the meeting, he was tasked with developing something for the insurance claim.
Together with their colleagues from claims management, they decided on bicycle theft as the next use case.
The aim was to use a chatbot to identify the customer within 90 seconds, check the cover, calculate the amount of the claim and trigger the payment.
In order to achieve this, processes had to be streamlined and complicated communication converted into simpler ones. The innovative team finally managed to take out the complexity and implement the chatbot.
Customers take up the offer very well and the feedback is very good. A quarter of Helvetia’s bicycle thefts are now handled via the chatbot.

What has Florian learned?

It is not so important to people whether they are talking to a chatbot or a human. What is more important is that it is quick, stress-free and convenient and that customers feel that they are being helped.
And if the use case is right, a chatbot can deliver real added value.

And what’s next for chatbots about insurance?

Helvetia Insurance’s current chatbot, Clara, is the face or image of Helvetia to the outside world. It’s still early days, but Clara is set to become the central point of contact for Helvetia customers. No matter what questions a customer or prospective customer has, Clara should either guide the customer or prospective customer through the various processes from start to finish or, if necessary, forward them to the right place. Click here for more information about Clara.

It’s best to listen to the podcast episode with Sophie Hundertmark and Florian Nägele for yourself. Have fun![vc_empty_space height=”40px”]

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