CX INNOVATOR SERIES
CX INNOVATOR SERIES
Bajaj Allianz
KV Dipu Senior President and Head Operations & Customer Service
Reducing Friction in the Insurance Customer Journey through Strategic Technology Deployments
Bajaj Allianz
KV Dipu Senior President and Head Operations & Customer Service
Reducing Friction in the Insurance Customer Journey through Strategic Technology Deployments
Bajaj Allianz: KV Dipu is Senior President and Head of Operations & Customer Service
Bajaj Allianz, a general insurance and life insurance company doing business in India, is a joint venture between Allianz SE, a leading global insurance company based in Munich, Germany, and Bajaj Finserv Limited, a diversified financial services company headquarters in Pune, India. KV Dipu is Senior President and Head Operations & Customer Service for Bajaj Allianz and serves as the company’s lead for CX initiatives. Dipu joined the firm more than 6 years ago, having previously been at GE Capital, where he was deeply involved in CX programs.
Most Significant CX Challenges
Dipu states that Bajaj Allianz is the leader among its insurance competitors in India, according to third-party research that benchmarks net promoter score (NPS) benchmarks for the insurance market. The company holds an NPS score of 70 versus 58 for its nearest competitor, has the lowest grievance ratio among its peers, and has gathered a collection of industry awards for its pace-setting customer programs.
Anticipating customer needs is the key to effective CX, says Dipu, and his overarching goal is to ensure a unified experience across the entire value chain under a philosophy of “customer first, technology next.” The company has drawn on experience in Lean Six Sigma to design its CX initiatives, with a five-step process at the core of the process:
Throughout the process, Dipu asserts that it is a key priority to ensure choice for customers in how they interact with the company. Balancing customer priorities has been a particular challenge in the COVID-19 era, but Dipu feels that Bajaj Allianz has done a highly effective job of using strategic technologies and business process refinements to emerge from the pandemic in a stronger position with regard to CX.
CX Success Stories
Bajaj Allianz has deployed several technology-based enhancements that have helped the company make progress on customer journey optimization over the past few years:
Internal Barriers
Dipu explains that the linchpin of its CX initiatives, from an internal perspective, has been to shift the organizational culture toward the mindset that the customer should be at the center of everything. According to Bajaj Allianz analysis, customers want a human-like experience in all their interactions with the company, even when dealing with automated bots. The company examined the top reasons customers called for service, and then designed frictionless journeys using bots, which continue to learn and optimize themselves throughout the process.
The Lean Six Sigma mindset has been essential to shifting that culture in the right direction and improving internal stakeholder engagement, says Dipu. The guiding approach has also helped when sorting through technology integration issues, such as the very disparate set of legacy systems utilized by Bajaj Allianz. As part of the company’s digital transformation and CX efforts, the organization has moved away from siloed data marts to a unified data lake with a digital handshake between systems.
Key Technologies
As described above, Bajaj Allianz has been an industry leader in the innovative use of technologies such as blockchain and smart contracts, IoT, chatbots, and mobile apps. Looking forward, Dipu and his team are already exploring several key technology enablers for continuing to enhance the company’s CX:
Predictions for CX Market Development
“Consumers are far more aware and informed than ever before,” says Dipu, adding that their attention spans are shorter than in the past and therefore it is imperative for CX initiatives to eliminate delays and latency throughout the customer journey. “It’s a much more connected world,” states Dipu.
In addition, “the one size fits all approach does not work,” says Dipu – experiences much be personalized, optimized, and tailored for various customer personas, and customers expect companies they do business with to be proactive. Firms should not compare their assets only to direct peers and competitors, but should also look at best-in-class practices across industries. Finally, admonishes Dipu, “COVID-19 is not the last black swan – there will be more.”
About the CX Innovator Series
The CX Innovator Series is an actionable and educational industry initiative that showcases the best practices that leading end-user executives are using within their organizations to shape their community’s experience. The series is a collaborative effort between Dash Network, Sleeping Giant Labs, and Team Wakabayashi. Dash Network originally published this article here. Using expertly curated executive interviews combined with quantitative research from consumer surveys, the CX Innovator Series provides tangible insights and a deeper understanding of how successful companies are utilizing CX programs resulting in positive business outcomes.
The CX Innovator Series is made possible by support from our lead sponsors: Concentrix, eGain, Tealium, and QuestionPro. If you would be interested in participating in the CX Innovator initiative, either as part of an end-user interview or as a supporting sponsor, please contact us at: sales@sleepinggiantsales.com.
Located in Denver, CO
© 2021 Sleeping Giant Solutions, LLC.
All trademarks mentioned belong to their owners, corporate & company names are registered trademarks of their respective companies and are used for purposes of explanation, without implying a violation of copyright law.