Will Chatbots Soon Replace Customer Care Executives?

ICICI Lombard General Insurance has received positive consumer response to its virtual assistance tools. The company had launched MyRA, a chatbot platform to address customer queries with regard to insurance policy proposals. This tool offers direct interaction for customers/ insurance agents with a virtual assistance chatbots to seek faster quotes for policy issuance. It has enabled the company to address customer queries in real time. Harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence, it has allowed the company to automate the query management process without the need for human intervention.

MyRA currently addresses products such as two wheeler insurance as well as fire and burglary insurance for SMEs. The two wheeler insurance purchase/ renewal chatbot was launched in December 2016, while the SME focused chatbot was introduced in April 2017. The chatbots provide quotations to customers/ agents with regard to policy purchase in real time and can also complete a transaction including payment receipt thus enabling policy issuance without human intervention. They also address customer queries by using machine learning and artificial intelligence. The platform thereby encompass all stages of policy purchase/ renewal - starting from product selection, premium calculation and product fitment to online sales closure.

Since launch, over 60,000 customers have utilized the two wheeler specific chatbot, with 10% quotations being generated through the virtual assistance tool. Further, more than 750 policies have been sold through the chatbot without any human intervention. The SME focused chatbot has been utilized in 4,000 cases.

MyRA also enables comparison between products. It is modeled on NLP (Natural Language Processing) which makes it conversational and easy to understand. If a situation arises where the Chatbot is unable to resolve a customer query, it automatically transfers the chat to a customer care executive for a live chat. Another unique feature of the chatbot is that it predicts the next possible query from the customer and displays the same in a predictive box. This feature helps customers with easy access to frequently asked questions.

Commenting on the initial response to the virtual assistance platform, Sanjeev Mantri, Executive Director, ICICI Lombard General Insurance said, “At ICICI Lombard, we have always been at the forefront in harnessing the potential of technology for the benefit of our customers. The customer response to our MyRA chatbot platform has been truly encouraging. This unique virtual assistance platform with transactional capabilities is part of our customer-centric philosophy to ensure that our customers have a seamless and enriching experience with us.”

With regard to its internal customers, the company launched YAAR (Yammer Automated Answering Robot) a platform similar to MyRA, for the benefit of its employees. This chatbot replies to queries posted by employees regarding travel allowance, group medical insurance, salary and remuneration, income tax, payroll etc.

MyRA features:

• Information/Query Answering: MyRA is able to give related answers to customer query in real time. It allows customers to purchase a policy without any human intervention.
• Comparing two products: MyRA enables comparison of two products of the same category
• Conversational: MyRA is modeled on NLP (Natural Language Processing) and is hence conversational. It understands Short-forms/acronyms, greetings and answer in an interactive tone
• Integration with core policy admin system/payment: MyRA can fetch customer details from the integrated systemic database and facilitate sharing of quotation.
• Predictive Box: MyRA can predict the next possible query from the customer and displays the same in the predictive box along with a chat window.

Benefits:

• Available 24x7
• Faster turn-around time for customers
• Ability to interact on the go (through interface via web or a mobile)
• Policy purchase in real time without human intervention