Audio Description

Speaker 1 (00:00)

When was the last time you were in a counter or a checkout queue somewhere and realized that the way you transact and the way you sort of behave as a customer or a consumer of a product has changed in the last five years? Well turns out that I've taken that stock of myself several times over. So, I'm pretty excited about this conversation on IL Cafe today. Welcome to the show. My name is Seetal. This is a podcast that is brought to you by ICICI Lombard and we're about to understand customer centricity as a crucial imperative in the ICICI Lombard world, as the effort is to improve access to these products and solutions. Now, customer centric innovations have been at the very heart of what the organization has done in terms of its product offering over the years, right from the early days, through to the period of digitization that we were all part of to the present day. To the present day. Today on IL Cafe we're going to call on the heavyweights to help us understand this a little bit better. We've got someone with over two decades of experience as a professional, and certainly nine years at ICICI Lombard, part of customer support. She is in fact the Head of Customer Support at ICICI Lombard. Vasundhara Bhosle is here to chat us up on the subject of customer centricity. Nice to have you here Vasundhara, and welcome to IL cafe. How are you?

Speaker 2 (1:16)

Thank you. Thank you, Seetal. Thank you very much, very well and very, very excited and happy to be here to share my thoughts on customer centricity and what we are doing at ICICI Lombard.

Speaker 1 (1:25)

I'm just going to ask a lighter question to start with, have you also evolved as a customer? Or do you also do what I spoke off right up front of the show?

Speaker 2 (1:33)

Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I have a tough time refusing telemarketing calls, for example, I have a tough time refusing survey feedbacks, for example, because all of those things have become an integral part. And, and I understand the importance of all of that from the customer, for the customer support teams, for the organization. So that's, that's something that I struggled with. And yes, times have changed lives has changed. When I started working, we used to everybody would take calls, and anybody would do whatever they wanted to do with the customer. And from there, too, you know where we are today, through the whole gamut of evolving systems and processes. And we when we started working, there were no CRMs. And today, you can't even imagine life without them. So, it's been a big shift.

Speaker 1 (2:19)

Yeah, absolutely a big shift. And clearly, it's become an art and a science, you know that oh, there's nothing about it anymore, innovations are born of all this kind of thinking and data and insight that we have. Now if I may ask you Vasundhara, there is a driving philosophy when we talk about ICICI Lombard and customer centricity, right? Why is it the central pillar in the organization's vision and mission?

Speaker 2 (2:43)

For any organization that wants to take care of all its shareholders, and especially their customers, customer centricity is a essential pillar of any kind of vision and mission that the organization has. And it goes without saying, and by prioritizing customer centricity, any organization can actually deliver innovative solutions for customers otherwise, you know, you can stay in your cocoon and not even realize when the world takes over. So, so to understand customers’ needs, to understand their changing behavior, to understand their changing needs to understand the landscape around the customer, how they are experiencing other industries, not only your industry, and how that is changing their expectations from you as an organization. All of that is essential part of being customer centric, as an organization and customer centricity is finally what gets you more customers, and it helps you retain your current customers and get more business from them. And yes, I mean, to add value to the customers journey with us is what actually makes all the difference.

Speaker 1 (3:45)

Yeah, absolutely. And an area like this where ICICI Lombard is a key player indeed, is something that really touches that emotional cord in in people so I can imagine, the responsibility on our shoulders to get it right. Now, we just spoke about the then and now sometime back Vasundhara, how things were back then etc. And clearly, it is a well-known fact that customer needs have changed over the years. So how does ICICI Lombard factor these changes or keep pace with the requirements? You did mention that there is a way in which you collect data and insights etc. You mentioned those calls, for example, as being an important pipeline to insight like that, but I'm sure there's things have changed a lot since that time and then how does a company then take all of this data and then make sure it you know, sort of translates those into actual products that speak to those needs of the customer?

Speaker 2 (4:32)

Great question Seetal. Thank you. So one is that yes, you look at products and you know, you increasingly send out products out in the market which are digitally available which are easy for the customer to purchase and experience. Besides that, what you also end up doing is that you know, a lot of our customers a lot of the world now, especially after the lockdowns and the COVIDs have adopted digital solutions like fish takes to water, right? People are on instant messaging platforms can't imagine life without them anymore. And customers expect that although businesses will also communicate with them the way they communicate with their families and friends. And these channels have become channels of conveniences, and you can't stay away from them as businesses as well. So, we are also hence doing the same. We're leveraging technology, we're building service capabilities. And we're introducing lots of solutions. In fact, we've introduced solution for customer journeys and improving engagement mechanisms with our customers where our customers understand the natural language of the customer, which is technically called NLP enablement. We have artificial intelligence or AI based chatbots. We have voice bots, we have solutions on the IVR, we have visual IVR is where you know, when the customer is on call with you while you help the customer through the links and through internet. So, all of those kinds of solutions we have put out there in the market, our customers are experiencing them every day, we get feedback from them, and we keep evolving them. We have an app, which is called IL Take Care, we have very innovative solutions on IL Take Care, something from normal, you know, claim launching and claim status is etc. What customers can also do is avail features like you know, you can scan your face and get your vitals and you know, you know how you're doing key health vitals, so to speak, so no blood pressure, things like that. So, it's really fantastic to see customers using all of those and then. And that's how we are putting all these kinds of solutions out there in the market for customers to experience and engage with us.

Speaker 1 (6:50)

Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned so many different technologies in fact that you know, face scan feature sounds very exciting to me. I think we spoke about it with Giri sometime back as well. I think the reference that came up was samosa for some reason I remember oh my God, imagine samosa looking at you and say “Main samosa who and agar you eat me, then you will become fat or something like that.” So fascinating what technology can do and how it can engage with people. But I'm going to come to the engagement part a little bit later. Tech that you're very excited about, you know, personally, Vasundhara is something that is going to really revolutionize you mentioned a few of those. Of course, everyone is talking about AI, generative AI, NLP was part of that whole customer experience, behaviour tracking and so on. Anything else that you're very gung ho about that is going to have a role to play in productizing needs of consumers?

Speaker 2 (7:39)

Yeah, sure, Seetal, So, like I mentioned, we have bots and voice bots, chat bots, we created something called Ria, the full form is responsive, intelligent assistant. But what we are actually is an AI powered chat bot. She has MLNLP capabilities. And she helps us streamline communication and enhance customer experience through DIY journeys, etc. Now, Ria we celebrated her first birthday on Women's Day this year. Oh, she's already one year, more than one year old. So, mature girl. And she is she's like, she's a human avatar we've designed a human avatar she changes her appearance during festivals or Independence Day, or things like that. So, we try to keep her human. And she can be accessed through our website, through WhatsApp through telegram on our call centres when this voice bot that's Ria. And our aim is to and doing all of this, why we're doing all of this is to establish a kind of emotional connect with our customers, though they know that she's a bot, but they shouldn't feel like you know, oh, it's a machine and no, I really don't feel connected. So, the state-of-the-art technology that we're putting in place for Ria is, is fairly comfortable in, in understanding natural language. In fact, the progress it is making is to get RIA to start talking in Hindi. And, you know, there's a there has been lots of intent training module, intend mining module for a better conversational experience with the customers where Ria is concerned. So all of that is really taking shape has taken shape over the last one year plus, because these are bots, they learn as they experience as, as a human being learned so in a sense, you know, when you chat with you, it's like chatting with a human being so except that you know, one of the one of the parties about it's an evolving code, but it mimics human behaviour. Ria is also intended to provide convenient, you know, easy to access all the time available kind of customer support for customers. She's able to take claims when customers have claim requests. She's able to share you know, hospitals and network garages and she's able to give you a claim statuses, she's able to give take endorsement requests and give you those copies, she's able to give you policy copies, she's, she's able to do all of these things out to understand, you know, your coverage and benefits if you want to understand renew your policy quickly, you know, within a few clicks, all of these things. So, RIA has been actually quite warmly accepted by our customers. And we're very excited by the opportunities that Ria presents with future, she talks with more than a lakh of customers every, every month. So that's very exciting. And we also take feedback from customers, we keep evolving, we keep analysing, so hopefully, she's going to keep becoming more and more mature and, and give great service to our customers. So, Ria is that exciting person out there.

Speaker 1 (10:42)

Sounds like a person that I want to immediately go and meet you meet her sounds so real to my ears, Vasundhara, and more power to you. And you also mentioned the IL Take care app. And we clearly have been, you know, fascinated by the phenomenal success that that particular intervention has, has brought for the organization. And I was just thinking new apps and trust, those things have become sort of integrated, my mother, if I just booked her tickets for something. And she the first question, she asked me, shall I download the airline's app? And I'm like, wow, why do you need to do the email? I know, I know that I app is like, you know, I'll have the app. So, I just opened it and it will be there. Right? So that's really what an app can actually do. It can translate into pure trust in somebody's head. And this is a 75-year-old woman I'm talking about. But in any case, you know, what are some of those learnings that the IL Take care app has given you? Ria has given you that you think are going to be critical in what you do in the future?Or

Speaker 2 (11:34)

So, what IL Take Care app, for example does is it's able to customize, personalize your experience with the organization, you know, otherwise, you really don't feel so connected with the company, especially our kind of business where you come to us only when you have a problem. And we all pray that you don't need to come to us. But yes, many people come to us when their vehicle breaks down, or they go to hospital and things like that. So, for an IL Take care app to be there with the customer, when they are in their time of need, it makes a lot of difference to the customer's experience. And it is designed to offer personalized solutions to the customer and cater to their unique needs. So that makes it very, very relevant for each and every individual that empowers customer with your ones, it's a one stop solution, one window where you can do everything that you want to do whether it's policy related, or claim related, what it also does, which is more proactive than then, like I was saying that you had a customer generally comes to us when they're in a situation. But what IL Take Care app does differently than a normal insurance business is to provide, cater to customers, wellness needs, you know, so all of those things are very proactive, and those are things that the customers engages with the app on wellness needs, actually may help a customer maintain their medical history, have made better lifestyle choices. And, and those are things that I think, not only does it help us engage with customer, but that helps us actually add value to a customer's life and become more relevant to the customer. So, so by providing such, you know, tailor made solutions, we not only improve customer satisfaction as everybody would like to and it helps us really drive customer retention. We've had lots of good feedback from our partners, channel partners, customers also on the app. Engaging customers through such tech-based solutions, you know, they help you be relevant and stay and be able to analyse customer behaviour and you know, behavioural patterns, because you get more information and data from customers. So that helps us enhance and streamline systems, product offerings in the future, and even solution service offerings, like what Ria does depends on what customers looking for on IL Take care in the future, it helps us prioritize the solutions that you want to put out there in the market, and help us be more relevant and target products better and, and stay more in customers life and keep ourselves relevant to customers.

Speaker 1 (14:06)

Yeah, so what I'm hearing Vasundhara is that, you know, engaging with the customer, clearly this is these are those times continuous engagement is really the key to figuring out what next to do and what how to do it better. But what is ICICI Lombard doing, for example, to reach out and educate these customers on a regular basis? You mentioned the IL Take care app, or some of the other cool, interesting inner interventions that you thought were like, wow, why didn't we think of this earlier?

Speaker 2 (14:33)

There's a very famous adage it says no “jungle mein more nacha kisne dekha?” So that's something that we keep talking about internally, also, like you can put lots of solutions out there. But if you really don't get to the customer and say, Hey, you can do this, it doesn't really help. Right. So yes, you're absolutely correct those that's a very, very relevant question on you know, how are we telling the customer hey, you know, you can do all this with us. So, we've launched a lot of I campaigns for this for this time of education of the customer. And not only of the customer, but our channel partners, our sales teams, our branch teams, etc, etc. So, we launched #ETC, which is empower the customer. So we’re we telling our own employees and how to empower the customer, which means then the customer can do things themselves, they don't, they're not dependent on any one for or come to a branch or call up somebody or no ticket, they are empowered to do a lot of things, they things are available on WhatsApp and, and IL take care and you know, at their fingertips literally. So then we also launched Empower the partner, which is ETP, you know, which is because, we've given a lot of services out there for partners as well on their boats and on their platforms that they engage with us on to be able to serve his customers, because a lot of customers in our industry approach the agent for their servicing needs. So that those also be pushed out to the partner. So, the partner can service the customer directly, instead of trying to say, okay, I've taken your request, I'll get in touch with the company and get something done even that out, you know, so it is he was empowering the customer, empower the customer. ETP was empower the partner, we also launched the DIY campaigns, which is tell the customers on how they can do things themselves. We launched a lot of videos for customers. So for example, if you if you come and say, Okay, I need to claim something and you start a claim process with us, the first thing you get is a video, where we tell you what to expect in the whole process, because a lot of people start with the claim, but they don't know what to expect next, what's going to happen? Do I have to give documents? Are they going to tell me when are they going to tell me? Is it going to be today? Tomorrow? Three days, five days, 15 days? What is it going to be? So that videos, you know, sets expectation correctly tells you, you know, what claim number to hold on to, when to get in touch with us, when can you expect your payment and things like that. So those kinds of education, things you'd like, I don't know if you've heard but we've for example, now in General insurance also has to do KYC with the customers, we've launched videos to tell the customer what the KYC process and how they can get their KYC done with us and they’re interactive videos. So, you can actually have clips available on the videos, if you wanted to be in as a customer somewhere and start some journey, you can actually do that through the video. And we've had really impressive engagement rates on the video. So almost 52% engagement rates, which are partners, who are working on the video, we're very, very pleasantly surprised by that kind of number. Because you're trying to intervene and interject the video at the right place at the right, the relevant opportunity, instead of just you know, bombarding every customer with it. Like if you don't have a claim with us, I send you claim education video, you will just keep it down the side for the future or maybe not do that as well. So, we're trying to interject and intervene at the right place, educate at the right time. So, that kind of assistance that we're giving, utilizing all these kinds of facilities and faculties is really helping in like I said, empowering our customers, that's what we actually believe in, you know, engage, and empower the customer so that, you know, there's absolutely smooth journey.

Speaker 1 (18:03)

I'm glad that you brought up that otherwise, you know, painful part of that customer experience, which is usually the claims process and the ways in which you're working around, or through the claims process to even engage with the customer through that interestingly, anything else you want to call out for some there are in terms of the claims process because I do believe there are people out there who want to know Okay, all this is very well this jungle memo “nacha Madhumati ka gaana“ you picked out for us here. But tell me a little bit more about this part. So, you know, we're all sort of breathing a bit more easy.

Speaker 2 (18:34)

Sure. The AI based claim processing and AI based and ML based claim processing that's quick, easy swift for the customer. So for example, a customer can integrate claim on RIA on WhatsApp, when they call up the call centre, for example, if you call up the call centre for launching a motor claim, you actually talk to Ria and it’s a much smaller process now we've done away with a lot of frills, kept them for later. So, it's very easy and quick to launch a claim with us. And then for us to fulfil that claim for you or to service you through the claim. So, for example, you can actually do the video of your vehicle and send it to us and then we process the claim on that on the basis of that video. AI has reduced a cashless health claim request approval time. So that kind of changes, those kinds of benefits for the customers we've been able to derive from all these initiatives, this kind of fast decision making, on cashless it, it enables the treatment to really start quickly and it reduces the customers anxiety time, the wait time that they otherwise you know, they're like panicking whether it's going to happen or not happen and so we've reduced that in emergency situations, you know, you need to be out there for the customer and do it really quickly. The visual IVR that I was talking about earlier is a platform that provides a seamless claim intimation you know, and especially for motor insurance customers, like I say, if you call up the call centre, motor insurance claim registration is super smooth, much shorter than it used to be. So, the process is also we worked on and made them much easier. The board guides you at every step, and it collects all the information real time basis, it goes to the claims team, there's no, there's no wait time or there's no you know scheduler that's running or things like that everything is happening seamlessly and real time. So, voice bot offers solution 24 by seven because it's on our 24 by seven call centre number. Voice Bot, plus, our team of call centre folks is always there to help customers. Additionally, customers can track their health claim and motor claim statuses real time. That's very helpful for them. Like I said, Ria helps on WhatsApp, they can go to website and check they can go to IL take care and check. Ria takes care of, you know, the entire claim process. So those kinds of offerings are really helping.

Speaker 1 (21:24)

But what does the future look like? If I were to sort of ask you to train your vision into the next 5–10-year window from customer behaviour here and now? And the kinds of technologies that are underway? What do you expect? What do you see the roadmap look like for ICICI Lombard?

Speaker 2 (21:39)

The way the world is evolving, and the way the technology is evolving, I don't think anybody can give you a 5–10-year window into anything at all. So, it's very exciting to see chat GPT happen, you're trying to see how to leverage Chat GPT, for example. So those kinds of things are so much, you know, just one day something gets launched, and it just changes your plan for the year. So, forget the five year and the 10-year window, like you repeated, and I share that it's very exciting times for all of us, you know, in any kind of field, I think the way technology is disrupting your plans every day is it's really exciting. But we what we want to what we have signed up for is to continuously work relentlessly on whatever is the new technology, whether it's AI, robotics, you know, video enabled things, whatever new solutions keep people kept coming up with, we sign up for experimenting, that's what we've promised ourselves. And that's what we promise our customers, we want to stay continuously focused on building robust solutions and business model that stands on you know, solid pillars of- one is prudent risk management. That's the key to our business, then very technology driven in your face solutions for customers and channel partners and the entire distribution network. We have a huge team of very, very passionate, they own their work of employees. And I think we have the trust of the customers. They are always at the forefront of trying new things that we keep launching, which makes it all the more exciting. And, and yeah, so I think future is exciting. That's all, nobody can give you a five year or ten-year window. So, roadmap is clear customer centricity. So, just stay in the middle. And we're going to keep walking and experimenting. So, till the time we keep doing that, I think we're on a roll.

Speaker 1 (23:32)

You know, one thing I'm sure off is going to happen in the next 5-10 years. Although we can't talk about anything else there are going to be a lot more cups in the background over there for you and you're in you're

Speaker 2 (23:41)

I’m so proud of them, our teams are very excited to always go out and keep showcasing what we're doing. Because, you know, the world is not such that you keep your cards close and say okay, I'm doing this, I don't share it with anybody because you have to go out there and talk about things. And then you learn three more things. Ultimately, your uniqueness stands out because your uniqueness lies in your passionate people, in in your capability, and capacity to experiment, in your risk-taking abilities, nobody can copy that at all. So never shy away from sharing and getting our accolades.

Speaker 1 (24:19)

Fantastic. And here's wishing you many more of those you and the team. And thank you so much Vasundhara for making this quite a such a delightful experience. You know, master storytellers at ICICI Lombard, I must say that because now I would never listen to that song, “jungle me mor nacha” customer centricity and Vasundhara Bhosle.

Speaker 2 (24:39)

Thanks, Seetal it’s been a pleasure talking to you. I hope that this also goes towards educating all our employees on what all they can expect to see and, and also driving customer centricity irrespective of the function they are in. So, thank you so much. Great questions. Hopefully I've been able to answer them and throw some light on them and all the best for everybody who's working on all of these initiatives Thank you