Tech-minded companies face a perennial problem – how can one be more efficient?
While some look to pour in resources and work harder, BizCover sought the answer by leveraging the latest technologies since its inception in 2008.
The result for the Australian insurtech has been thousands of hours of manual work saved annually, and exceptional results from a rapidly growing customer base.
“Automation and AI have helped us service 200,000 small business customers across three countries with just 16 full-time customer service employees,” says Brad Hoyle, Operational Excellence Manager at BizCover.
This has contributed to an average NPS score of more than 74 for the company over the past six months, with some months scoring well over 80.
“We can now let humans be humans and robots be robots, which means prioritising the high empathy work to people and using AI and automation to do everything behind the scenes.”
Why IPA is the way
Automation technology has come a long way in a short time.
The global IT robotic automation market, which was valued at US$183.1 million in 2013, grew from a speculative idea to being the cornerstone of operational efficiency across multiple sectors. So much so that it is now forecasted to reach US$12.8 billion by 2023.
The traditionally conservative insurance sector has also broken through the inertia, with insurance CIOs citing automation as one of their top investment priorities after the pandemic.
But Hoyle says the real gains on operational efficiency are seen when automation in paired AI technology.
“This is called Intelligent Process Automation (IPA),” says Hoyle. “AI augments the rule-based nature of automation by coupling it with decision-making capabilities. So not only can it do the tasks of humans, but it learns to make the process quicker and more efficient over time.”
BizCover’s switch to Salesforce’s AI-based Tableau CRM software years ago is the perfect example of how AI and automation can continue to realise benefits over time.
“We have been able to iteratively research, implement, and optimise various Salesforce product features to dramatically improve our operations,” says Hoyle.
“For example, when new support cases come in, they’re classified by AI and automatically directed to the right queue or automatically processed,” he says. “Work items are also automatically escalated to ensure service level agreements (SLAs) are met.”
Automating the handling of failed payments has been another example of how Salesforce automation software has enabled operational gains.
Hoyle says that some businesses have entire teams dedicated to following up on failed payments. Meanwhile, BizCover’s customers receive an automated email and SMS to which they can reply and ask the business to reschedule their payment or try processing it again right away.
Integrating Salesforce with BizCover’s payment gateway has helped streamline this workflow, and, in most cases, issues are resolved without any manual intervention.
“We experience more than 1,000 failed payments per month, and more than 90% are handled automatically through Salesforce,” says Hoyle.
BizCover looks to continue on the path towards boosting operational efficiency through utilising automation and AI in other areas of the company.
“There’s no reason why the insurance sector can’t be a leader in both AI and automation. BizCover has always led from the from as an insurtech pioneer and we want to continue that trend into the AI-driven future.”
