Customer Care in Health Insurance Industry - Customer Satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is of utmost importance for any product or service provider oriented industry. With the advent of Information Technology, the entire world has been transformed into a "Global Village", thus bringing the masses in close-contact with each other. As a resultant, any vital information or news is transmitted across the globe in a few seconds, thus generating awareness with dispersion of knowledge across the borders.

In today's age, consumers have become more demanding and are well-aware about various facts as compared to before. Consumers want both quality and quantity oriented products and services. The same concept applies to Insurance industry, too.

Customer Satisfaction is a critical component of profitability for any business product or service-oriented industry. Many organizations are increasingly trying to target customer satisfaction to stay on in the business and more importantly attain a competitive edge over the competitors. For this purpose, exceptional customer services results not only in customer retention but also attracts other prospective customers.

Customer loyalty is a major factor for contributing towards sustainable growth in the profits. The critical dynamics of top customer service involve an integration of diversified components in the service-profit chain link i.e. employee satisfaction, value creation, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and profit with growth. Always remember the proverb "Customer is the King". The customer may not always be right, but the customer does need to be satisfied.

There are many companies or organizations even today forego the core concept that made them successful in the current scenario i.e. customer-centric business model. As a result, the focus on the valuable customer is lost. Eventually the focus shifts from the customer to the bottom line and quarterly results. Methods are devised to cut the costs and increase the revenues, which is often done at the expense of the valued customer.

Steps involved in Customer Satisfaction in Insurance industry

The steps involved in Customer Satisfaction are as follows:-

• Encouragement of One-to-One Meetings
• Responding promptly to messages and keeping the clients updated
• Adopt a Friendly and Approachable Attitude
• Adopting a well-defined Customer Service Policy
• Little Niceties and possessing an eye for details
• Researching your clientele's requirements and the methods of addressing them.
• Honoring the commitments made by the product or service provider.

If these steps are adopted by the insurance sector customer satisfaction can be enhanced considerably.

Importance of Customer Satisfaction in Insurance industry

• For survival of businesses in a competitive environment
• For meeting the ever-increasing demands made by the customers.
• Contributes in robust growth of the businesses which in turn contributes to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the economy
• Improvement in core capabilities
• It increases competitiveness in businesses by generation of new products and services specifically targeted to meet and exceed the valuable customer's satisfaction.
• It improves quality and the quantity of the products and services being offered by the Insurance companies.

References:

1. Customer Satisfaction in 7 Steps - (http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/satisfaction-7-steps)
2. Have an insurance complaint? Read this - (http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/mar/22perfin.htm)