Maintaining the proper balance between self-service and live agent support is essential today. Especially in those industries where complex and vital information is being discussed. For BGL Group, an insurance provider and household financial services company, this need was becoming greater recently. With work from home orders due to the pandemic, it knew it was time for a new solution to handle its contact center operations better.
The company selected cloud communications platform Twilio (News - Alert) to provide its virtual contact center offering - Flex. With Flex, agents can work from home and comply with social distancing mandates while still working efficiently to provide the company’s 3 million customers with top-notch customer care.
BGL Group has a portfolio of insurance brands, including Budget Insurance and Beagle Street, and owns the popular price comparison site comparethemarket.com.
“When lockdown restrictions came in, our priority was keeping colleagues safe and customers supported, and our investment in Flex meant that this was achievable in a short space of time and without dropping a day of service. We were able to keep all channels of communication open and achieve or improve our customer satisfaction scores. Our teams adopted the new system with enthusiasm,” said Jayne Lansdell, associate director of process and technology, BGL Group.
The digital transformation began back in January of 2019 as BGL Group began transitioning to better automation capabilities for its customers. Once the pandemic hit and remote, virtual-based communications became necessary, the previous roadmap was quickly transitioned into a rapid project to get agents remote without any disruptions to its contact centers.
“In the insurance industry, the level of automation is already extensive and growing, and the pandemic has accelerated that, having reinforced the need for businesses to simplify processes and enable more effective digital access. Thanks to the work we’ve done on our platforms and now with Twilio, we know that we are ready, no matter what COVID throws at us, and will have a more flexible model for the future as the shape of our workforce evolves to reflect the needs of the new normal,” said Lansdell.
Future improvements to further excel in customer support delivery include using AI for routing and greater automation for its voice channels.
”This isn’t simply about Covid. It’s about the future of customer engagement and moving quickly to re-architect and meaningfully improve every interaction every business has with every customer, said David Parry-Jones, vice president, EMEA, Twilio.
“At Twilio, we’ve witnessed first-hand how the great digital acceleration has borne fruit in terms of customer engagement, with BGL being a great example of an organization that has put customer experience and employee health at the heart of its strategy, with great effect.”