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(Picture credit score: Michael Kleinsasser/Pixabay.)
Named Duck Creek Applied sciences ’ (Boston) Chief Product & Expertise Officer (CPTO) in April 2022, Jess Keeney has had an fascinating profession journey which have formed her strategy to the job. As we speak, she is accountable for Duck Creek’s product and expertise imaginative and prescient with the intention of driving worth for patrons by way of leveraging your entire Duck Creek ecosystem throughout companions and system integrators. Keeney describes herself as agency believer that innovation requires collaboration, which in flip, improves the client expertise and boosts enterprise success. She additionally sees empathy as a important high quality for shaping the product and buyer expertise. We start our dialog with a glance into how Keeney’s earlier profession in regulation influenced how she thinks.
Insurance coverage Innovation Reporter: How did you go from regulation to product and expertise?
Jess Keeney, Chief Product & Expertise Officer, Duck Creek Applied sciences.
Jess Keeney, CPTO, Duck Creek Applied sciences: Whereas working as a paralegal and finding out enterprise administration in school, I used to be fascinated by the intersection of regulation and enterprise, which led me to pursue a Juris Doctorate. My background in regulation has taught me the non-public {and professional} worth of steady studying and integrating important pondering into my work and problem-solving course of. After working towards regulation for just a few years, there was a voice inside me that saved gently reminding me and nudging me to stretch for one thing new, one thing completely different. I missed the facets of expertise and creativity that I had at all times pursued as hobbies of studying. This was the start of a brand new journey: I discovered my path in SaaS product improvement and am impressed on a regular basis by insurance coverage technologists and the dynamic nature of the trade to assist defend companies and folks with new choices.
IIR: Why does such a path make sense for a product chief at this time?
JK: One factor I realized from working towards regulation is that it’s a must to put your self in your clients’ sneakers and strategy any state of affairs with them on the forefront of your thoughts. Insurance coverage and regulation share a similarity in that each industries have to assist clients when they’re feeling essentially the most weak. Translating a cost-intensive or annoying expertise into one which leaves the client empowered could be troublesome however is extraordinarily fulfilling. Buyer centricity—taking buyer suggestions and ache factors and creating merchandise, companies, processes, and methods to finest deal with their wants continues to information my skilled improvement.
IIR: Might you elaborate additional on what you see because the position of empathy in insurance coverage?
JK: Empathy in insurance coverage goes past the transactional nature of coverage and claims administration. It’s about understanding the distinctive wants of policyholders, recognizing their most popular shopping for behaviors, and displaying a real dedication to their well-being all through your entire lifecycle as a buyer.
Empathy in buyer interactions, particularly within the digital realm, results in a superior expertise. Each single interplay level with a buyer is a chance to streamline and enhance the power to reply empathetically to a buyer hardship. It’s extra than simply simplifying the method; it’s about fostering buyer confidence and making a optimistic expertise. This results in larger retention and longer policyholder relationships.
Empathy doesn’t imply guesswork. Leveraging the wealth of knowledge at our disposal, we are able to craft tailor-made insurance coverage merchandise that actually meet particular person wants. Empathy-driven programs can analyze consumer habits and preferences to suggest essentially the most becoming protection.
IIR: How can leaders leverage rising applied sciences to drive enterprise methods and enhance insurance coverage innovation, processes, and buyer personalization?
A deep understanding of buyer ache factors fuels conversations and new methodologies that result in higher product improvement. By prioritizing and listening to precisely what the client is in search of, we now have a greater understanding of the strongest use circumstances for newer expertise—and the challenges it helps clear up.
Cloud native SaaS functions permit for a quicker supply of cutting-edge expertise options infused with generative AI and NLP that allow InsurTechs to collaborate with different suppliers and make the client expertise as seamless as potential. Clients are supplied a unified digital expertise, the place services could be mixed and delivered as a part of a cohesive digital journey. Rising expertise helps carriers reimagine their choices to supply added worth throughout the insurance coverage worth chain for his or her clients.
IIR: How does a frontrunner benefit from rising expertise with out getting caught up within the hype—and, because of this, misallocating sources?
JK: Implementing expertise with clients prime of thoughts and understanding the applying, value and scale of the issue the expertise will help clear up is essential. The expertise world strikes quick. You must hold sight of the issue you could clear up for the client whereas additionally testing and confirming you might have the correct expertise, timing and resolution for it to achieve success. This challenges leaders to strike the correct steadiness between innovation, technique, and buyer success.
But it surely’s not only for the purchasers. Internally, organizations additionally want expertise to assist these which are on the entrance line coping with buyer challenges on a regular basis. Scale your workforce, equip them with options that may increase each their engagement and their productiveness, and assist the insurance coverage expertise with the correct expertise infrastructure for their very own improvement functions.
IIR: What do you see as among the most vital expertise developments, by way of the potential of the expertise for enterprise, notably because it bears on product and buyer expertise?
JK: Predictive analytics will turn into extra broadly adopted within the years to return. It permits insurers to make forecasts, establish potential dangers, and streamline the claims course of for patrons.
Automation and real-time information simplify the insurance coverage course of by supporting claims settlement, fraud detection, coverage processing, and customer support. Automation has the potential to spice up productiveness by liberating up worthwhile sources and permitting insurers to deal with advanced and high-touch requests from clients. Automation and real-time information additionally enhance the client expertise by facilitating quicker response occasions and producing personalised suggestions or protection.
We will’t overlook AI’s potential affect on insurance coverage. The expertise has the power to remodel the trade but it surely’s vital for insurers to strategy the expertise with eyes extensive open. With the suggestions and clever responses that AI generates, insurers want to assist the expertise higher perceive the complexity of insurance coverage to verify the outcomes are cheap, unbiased, and compliant within the markets wherein they serve clients.
IIR: How would you describe the evolution of the consumer interface (UI)? Are we prone to see some fascinating innovation within the close to future?
JK: UI has advanced from practical and missing aesthetics to web-based interfaces with a give attention to accessibility, usability; and it’s optimized for cell gadgets and on-the-go insurance coverage coverage administration. These developments will proceed to evolve, and it is going to be obligatory to supply personalised dashboards, notifications, and suggestions based mostly on consumer preferences to attraction to the client. With a rise in information accessibility and real-time wants, enhanced information visualization will likely be required to assist customers perceive data extra successfully. Simplifying workflows and being able to reinforce the UI with voice, pure language interfaces, automation and clever algorithms will turn into the norm—it’ll scale back handbook inputs to supply a extra pleasing and environment friendly consumer expertise.
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