I don’t know exactly how much time I spend in research, reading, and investigating what’s going on around me in the insurance world. I think you feel the same way some days. In some ways, it’s gotten harder to track what’s going on in some parts of the industry since I left my comfortable world of the insurance company. No, I didn’t move over to an agency. I’ve moved into a full time educational and research role and I totally dig it.

I’ve seen that several companies are experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) apps. Prompted by the daily Insurance Nerds email, I got to thinking about how that technology could be adapted for me in what I do. So, I need to answer the question of what I really do (which I kind of still ask myself a lot). The way I see it, I curate and create great learning content for insurance professionals in an online setting. That includes doing a pile of things that I don’t like or am not all that good at. I could really use a good AI app to help out around here. Here are a few ways that I could use a good AI.

 

 

Basic customer service

Nothing like going after the low hanging fruit, right? Well, let’s face it. The chatbots can be created to handle a lot of simple customer service interactions. I know. It’s not all that original, but I think it’s the entry point for us. If a company can create a bot that can take your renters policy application on your phone, or take your first notice of loss, certainly I can get a bot to handle questions like “what’s my password,” “how do I view my classes,” or “I can’t attend live, will there be a recording?”

By now, most of us have dealt with a bot or two in these customer service roles. Some are great. Some stink. All of them can interpret the questions that we ask and provide answers the best way they know how (a lot like people do). They also know from their programming what questions need to be escalated to a person for handling and can even make sure that I chat, send an email, or call (whichever works best for the customer).

Lest you think that this is a way for cost-cutting, allow me to disabuse you of that idea. We have someone that does that and that just means that his role gets to change into something that he’ll enjoy better. If we can take those simple questions off his plate, he can focus on the tasks that provide him with more fulfillment. When he’s focused on things that are better for him, he’s more productive. When he’s more productive, the whole team clicks along better.

 

Basic curriculum creation

Since the customer service bot knows the answers to simple and straightforward questions, one of those questions might be, “what should I learn about?” That’s where the next bot comes on the scene. No, I don’t want the customer service bot to be able to handle this one. I want a handoff. If the team were handling these requests, it’s entirely possible that when a customer service rep gets someone who wants help with what to do next, or how to proceed on their learning path they will transfer that customer to someone else who is more experienced in that.

When it comes to creating an individual curriculum, the conversation generally goes along a simple and straightforward path. In a lot of ways, it’s a way of guiding someone into discovering where their needs and wants meet up with what they know and don’t know. It’s a conversation that walks down a predictable path. If I’m having the conversation with a customer, I already know where I’m going. It’s just a matter of bringing them along.

The bot can generate a wish list of available classes, books, or other materials that we carry. It can also make recommendations of blogs or other resources that a customer should avail themselves of. This is the time-consuming part for me. Finding out what someone needs and wants is fairly easy. It’s taking the time to comb through available resources that makes this a difficult task for an individual to carry out. The bot knows where to look and knows what keywords to look for. It would also have the capacity to go beyond our resources to find other resources that can help the customer.

 

Basic customer research

I like research. I like to find out what people are looking at and for. Here’s the problem. I will start to research an issue so that I can write a blog, or work on a class. Of course, research eventually leads to a video somewhere. That video leads back to YouTube, and then who knows how long I’ve been on YouTube, watching videos that started as legit research for the topic that I’m writing about. You know how this story ends. I’m watching movie trailers and crazy fan theory videos (ok, probably some conspiracy theory videos, too.)

A research bot doesn’t get distracted. Properly designed, it can scour the internet for what people are asking Google about. What coverage questions are insurance professionals searching the internet for? People search for the information that they don’t have, so by looking for what insurance questions are being asked of the internet, we can find out what our customers need the most and create content based on that.

Another aspect of the research bot is to find out what types of content our customers are going to interact best with. It helps to know what blog posts to write on. Now that I think of it, I really could use that bot to focus my writing, rather than staring out the window or reading two dozen insurance stories before I start writing. It would also help us to decide how to create content. At present, we limit ourselves to what we’ve been doing and what appears to be working. That’s not going to work forever and it may not be working as well as it used to work. The research bot will help me to find what’s going to work next and after that, too.

 

Better member functionality

Currently, our members have to access our site directly to get at our content. That seems reasonable, right? That’s what has worked so far. The member does have to use a web browser on their computer, tablet, or mobile phone. They have to log in and go to their courses. Then they have to keep their web browser open so that they can keep listening or watching that content. They have the option to connect with the content live or recorded, but those are the only options.

This feels like it’s a little out of left field to me and admittedly, I don’t really understand yet how it works. What if we created a skill that allowed our customers to have their voice operated device recognized by our system so that they could cue up the content that they need and want in a moment? I imagine the device having the ability to comb through a custom list of classes (yep, even using an embedded text file with time stamps) and giving that customer some sound bites of classes or content that will help them in the moment of need, solving that specific issue that they are having.

I think that the use of AI in our industry is only limited by what we decide to try. What’s the worst that could happen? Somehow, I don’t think that creating an internet search bot means that the next step is Skynet. I just think that we’re surrounded by tech companies that are looking to disrupt everything. Why not find ways to disrupt ourselves?