Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company has accentuated its tech bandwidth by deploying digital solutions through AI/ML, Data Analytics, Portal Framework, BPM, COTS and RPA:
Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance, a 100% owned subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Bank, is one of the fastest growing insurance companies in India with 289 branches across 148 cities. It has covered more than 45 million active lives as on 31 March 2023. Subhasis Ghosh, Joint President & Head, Institutional Business, Marketing & Alliances at Kotak Mahindra Life, has worked in diverse areas such as retail assets and liabilities, corporate finance, treasury and life insurance. He was part of the founding team that set up Kotak Life in 2001.
CX Drives Redesign
Kotak Life endeavors to adopt a mindset, whereby consumers are empowered enough to decide and buy better insurance for themselves and their families. Customers seek ease and immediacy in every step of their insurance journey – from the time they receive a quote to the final reimbursement. Ghosh explains: “Our digital redesign process comes with a relentless focus on bringing about a customer-centric value-driven approach. We have adopted a strategic approach to respond to their needs and guarantee improved satisfaction by chalking out customer persona-based digital journeys. From boosting the speed of processes to seamlessness of services – our digital tools are designed to offer our policyholders the instant gratification they are looking for.”
Upgrading Tech Stack
Kotak Life has been consistently investing in upgrading the tech stack to keep pace with the dynamic changing needs of customers, distributors, and employees. It uses multiple apps for engaging distributors and customers across all stages of the lifecycle. When it comes to digital payments, around 80% of its premiums are already being collected through auto-debit mandates. For the rest of the premiums, 80% is through customer-initiated digital payments through various modes.
Ghosh elaborates: “We have accentuated our tech bandwidth by deploying digital solutions through AI/ML, Data Analytics, Portal Framework, BPM, COTS, RPA, etc. Customers can login to the ‘Online Policy Manager’ which works well on all devices. Our distributors are digitally-enabled for our customer onboarding solution. We also have dedicated apps for lead allocation, tracking, engaging with consumers and generating benefit illustrations, pitches, etc, for easier selling.”
Tech: Efficient, Productive
Business garnered through online channels is continuously growing at an impressive rate. The company has brought distributors and agents into the fold of digital strategies with its robust tech and digital capabilities based on 2 aspects – high efficiency and productivity. Kotak Life’s digital-online journeys are pretty seamless and they encompass both the end consumer and also the seller.
Ghosh updates: “Last year we saw a 50% growth from the previous year. Our digital platforms have contributed to making the process simple with convenient options – 78% digital fulfilment of services. There is seamless and scalable execution – 61% rapid issuance. Process has become efficient and productive – automated 220 million transactions across 15 departments. Our digital/online initiatives have helped to increase the business but have added considerable convenience.”
Separate Online Tools
As the entire process is digitized, on-the-go the advisors at Kotak Life are empowered to manage their own business. Its distribution app is a pre-marketing tool. Once the customers are onboarded, the company has another online tool. This tool allows them to get visibility of their business such as commission statements, upcoming renewals, RnR (Renewal & Remembrance) events, etc. The insurer also has digitized tools for log-in and filing, that allows advisors to generate new leads for business, pitch various product plans and engage with customers & prospects through marketing collaterals and product information.
Social Engagement
At the moment, the top cities for Kotak Life are New Delhi, Mumbai, Thane and Bangalore. For CRM, Kotak Life follows a multi-layered approach. Empathy with customers, awareness creation and helping its customers ‘choose the right product’ is at the core of all the social media campaigns of Kotak Mahindra Life. It has a very active presence in social media and over the last one year it has strengthened the same.
The company’s efforts are concentrated on strengthening the brand health as well as supporting the business while keeping the customers at the center of everything that it does. Kotak Life believes that a trusted and long-term loyal customer will give it many more new customers owing to its brand promise ‘Hum hain… hamesha’. Going forward, Kotak Life continues to decode and simplify life insurance for customers through its marketing communications across channels.
Ghosh narrates initiatives: “In FY’22-23, we had one of the highest engagement rates on Facebook & Instagram for the life insurance category. This year we are running a continuous engagement engine, based on topical and themed campaigns engaging around festivals, events and occasions. These campaigns emphasis the importance of having adequate insurance cover for our family and dependents. This adds significant value to our existing customers.”
Analytics, Propensity Model
At Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance, analytics and customer life cycle mapping remain the baseline for any new customer journey creation that it initiates for strengthening its customer experience framework. Its new campaign initiatives are designed only after diligently evaluating customer persona and their current buying preferences. Predictive models are already running to propose right-fit products, right time to buy a particular product and are also helping immensely in simplifying claims and payouts.
The company runs a strong propensity model on its entire customer base, mapping more than 100 parameters to evaluate which product line will help the customer at his/her current life-stage, income, dependents, etc. It further the propensity model to directly offer customized product offerings across a large cohort of under-insured customers.
Communications Framework
Kotak Life was able to achieve more than 30% of its new businesses through cross-sell. To enhance customer experience, the company is implementing a strong customer communication policy, where it limits the number of interactions with the customers, basis his or her needs and preferences. Multi-functional departments like the cross-sell team, customer service desk, persistency team, etc, follow a communication framework to enhance the customer experience, keep processes simple, few click product journeys and issuances for maximising penetration across a wider set of customers. And that has reaped benefits for Kotak Life with 3X increase in customer acquisition rates. Ghose adds: “We believe that technology is going to identify and influence buying behaviors significantly over the next decade.”
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