AXA
The largest insurance provider in Switzerland enhances customer engagement by communicating across digital channels.
The previous customer service software we were using didn't provide an overview, so agents had no insight into previous interactions with the customer or even if an agent was somehow already engaged with that customer.
Sarina Blatter
Head of Back Office Customer Care for AXA Switzerland
AXA is the largest insurance provider in Switzerland with 1.9 million customers, including 40% of all companies in Switzerland. Around the world, the company has over 107 million customers in 61 countries. With its large size and incredible growth, AXA needed to continue to make it easy for customers to communicate with the company.
AXA realized that modern customers prefer using digital channels—such as Facebook Messenger, Apple Messages, WhatsApp, and mobile apps—to engage with the company’s services. In response, it decided to increase the number of digital touch points it supports to deliver frictionless service and support and truly put the customer needs first.
Previous digital customer service solutions fell short
To make it as simple as possible for customers to interact with AXA, it’s important for the company to be approachable and available on digital channels of customers’ choice to answer questions and handle simple activities like changes of address or password.
Our agents had to search each channel to see if a customer had written a message or a comment on a Facebook post, for example. It was painful and difficult to track the interactions.
Christoph Schröder
Head of Front Office Customer Care for AXA Switzerland
Finding the right fit in the cloud
Realizing the huge potential to simplify customer engagements with conversational user interfaces and messaging services, AXA initially launched a proof of concept of RingCentral Engage Digital. The RingCentral digital customer engagement platform automatically recognizes over 70 languages across all channels.
AI-based smart routing engine so agents can efficiently manage customer interactions across all digital channels via a single interface. Plus, it automatically merges customer identities across channels so agents see a complete view of the customer and can easily understand the historical context.
INDUSTRY
Financial Services
HQ
Paris, France
YEAR FOUNDED
1859
EMPLOYEES
165 000
Proving the value of digital customer service
Whatever channel or software AXA wants to support, it simply adds a connector to the dashboard, and agents can access all customer interactions from a single dashboard. This eliminates the need for agents to switch applications or screens and makes it easier for them to find and provide answers to previously asked questions.
There’s a huge potential for change in the coming years. That’s why it’s important to have a central platform connecting all those channels in use today. There might be different popular channels one year from now, but it won’t matter. RingCentral Engage Digital allows us to connect other messaging services in one month or less.
Harald Felgner
Digital Experience Designer, UX Innovation for AXA Switzerland
Handling more customer inquiries faster
AXA is using RingCentral to innovate its voice IVR so that the customer can optionally receive a message to their mobile phone rather than wait on the phone for an available agent. The customer can then re-engage with AXA when the agent is available through a digital channel. Because messages are asynchronous, customers can post their questions on their social media messaging platform of choice and return for the answer at a time that’s convenient for them. And agents can more easily prioritize how to respond to incoming inquiries.
When AXA started using RingCentral Engage Digital in 2018, its customer service team handled about 100 messages per month. Twelve months later, AXA’s customer service handles about 4,000 messages a month—and that is increasing rapidly. This has also significantly improved agent productivity while providing better customer service.
When AXA started using RingCentral Engage Digital in 2018, its customer service team handled about 100 messages per month. Twelve months later, AXA’s customer service handles about 4,000 messages a month—and that is increasing rapidly. This has also significantly improved agent productivity while providing better customer service.
Improving the customer and agent experience
Today, AXA’s agents appreciate the ability to handle all digital channels through a single dashboard. As Schröder says, AXA makes its agents happy by giving them an easy-to-use solution that enables them to better and more quickly help customers.
From Felgner’s perspective, messaging platforms and conversational user interfaces are the perfect blend of digital self-serve and personal interactions. “RingCentral Engage Digital helps us to make digital interactions more human.”
In addition to being simple for our customers to contact us via messages, RingCentral Engage Digital is easy for our agents because customer messages pop up in their dashboard. Agents can immediately answer questions but have time to provide answers if multiple messages come in at once. This is far different than handling customer service on the phone, where agents must immediately provide an answer.
Christoph Schröder
Head of Front Office Customer Care for AXA Switzerland
The future of customer engagement is digital
It’s clear that customer service is evolving to become more digital, especially for the younger generation. “Many customers will still continue to use the phone, but increasingly customer engagement in the future will be on digital channels,” says Schröder.
Social media messaging services represent the next paradigm of interactions with customers. These types of interactions are a game changer. Without a tool like RingCentral Engage Digital, it wouldn't have been possible for our company to enable one-to-one interactions with customers on so many touch points.
Harald Felgner
Digital Experience Designer, UX Innovation for AXA Switzerland