Europ Assistance invests in technology and focuses on customer experience

In 2021, Europ Assistance Brasil’s (EABR) mission was to lead a movement to democratize assistance for the population that still does not have access to this type of service. With this goal in mind, the company devised, together with its partners, the best ways to provide assistance. It also started work on the development and offer of specialized services, in line with the main demands of the segment. By way of this strategy, the company decided to expand the business opportunity for brokers, engaging these professionals by offering attractive products to consumers and contributing to a new business ecosystem focused on the insurance sector.
‘For 2022, the challenge is to be more and more in tune with consumers. We have entered a new phase, offering products that are present, to brokers and clients in different segments of society, assistance as a solution to real problems – assistance types with a good price-performance ratio for the Brazilian population. ‘Growing demand for products that make life easier for customers is an ideal opportunity to put innovative ideas into practice and transform the reality of the insurance sector’, says Newton Queiroz, CEO of EABR and CEABS Serviços.
In his view, Brazil still has a lot of potential for growth in terms of insurance uptake. Auto insurance, which is the most widespread insurance type in the country, has approximately 26% of uptake with regard to the fleet, and still shows a lot of potential. The same goes for home, life, funeral and even travel insurance.
‘Based on this, we believe that the potential for the assistance and service sectors is even larger. We can offer attractive, concrete products that are easy to understand and use, which, combined with technology, enable the democratization of the sector. Therefore, we are working to develop diversified solutions, with different price-performance ratios, so that part of these services are more accessible to a larger portion of the Brazilian population’, adds Newton.
To promote this democratization, EABR plans to create solutions that do not yet exist in the market or to simplify those that already exist, in order to make them more accessible.
‘Let me use health plans as an example. In general, they are expensive products, but if we introduce telehealth and a discount on medicines and exams, I believe that more people would have access to them’, he explains. ‘In the assistance segment, we need to be clear about what is most urgent in customers’ daily life, and what is not seen as an emergency, such as access to locksmith services, for example. If we offer what the customers want and satisfy their expectations with access and service quality, I have no doubt that we will continue to grow’, adds Newton.

End user experience

In light of this scenario, the company started to employ a customer-centric methodology, which converged all strategic planning towards to end user experience, including Speech, Text Analytics and NPS Consulting in its service processes. Through the storage, transcription and analysis of interactions between customers and company, it is possible to cross-reference data and identify the level of satisfaction of each beneficiary, as well as the corporation’s operational bottlenecks.
‘The quality of the end user experience with our products and services is a fundamental factor to guide our efforts and business strategies. In our company, the customers’ opinions are at the center of our decisions, so we invest in attentive and assertive listening that may show us beyond what they are actually talking about and identify, through every detail of their exchange with our service, opportunities to go beyond, to offer more agile and coherent solutions for each situation’, highlights Ricardo Alexandre, Chief Operating Officer at Europ Assistance and CEABS Serviços.
All this investment in technology focused on the customer experience helped in the development of new products, such as remote health services, protection against cyber-attacks and theft, and the virtual redesign and decoration of home environments.
For Rogério Guandalini, Director of Sales and Marketing at Europ Assistance, the transformation and impact of the use of digital tools in the daily life of companies are key points to understanding how to achieve business efficiency and customer satisfaction and loyalty. ‘It is necessary to keep in mind, firstly, a new consumer profile who has been changing rapidly in recent years and that, since 2020, customers have a better understanding of their role at the forefront of these relationships: they value their money more and therefore seek better purchasing options, easier payment methods, fast deliveries and an efficient customer service’.
According to the executive, this trend has already been perceived by most companies, which are therefore increasingly relying on technology to deliver better services. A good example of this is the fact that people today can choose how they want to be assisted – whether via WhatsApp, humanized artificial intelligence, apps or call center. ‘Therefore, any company that wants to have excellence in service must be prepared to help its consumers and work so that service provision becomes more and more satisfactory through whatever means of access’, says Guandalini.
Despite the promptness provided in online support, consumers in general still demand a more humanized and less robotic treatment. This is why, for instance, Europ Assistance raised the quality of its service provided to the home segment by eight percentage points in the last year. ‘This is undoubtedly the result of our dedication to understanding the consumers’ profiles, what is important to them, and translating all this into steady improvement. In this case, with intelligence and business performance, it was possible to develop an autonomous, intelligent and multiplatform operation that helped to reduce service times by 30%. In other words: customers are satisfied and support is more practical and objective’, adds Guandalini.

Brokers’ Website

In line with this technology-based strategy, focused on customer experience, Europ Assistance will soon launch its Broker and Consultant Website. ‘As our goal is to democratize assistance, the idea of ??this Website is to expand distribution, allowing these professionals to also offer different coverage options. Further down, we will offer combos, so that customers can assemble their own assistance packages’, explains Newton Queiroz, CEO of Europ Assistance.
They propose that assistance be synonymous with convenience, to be used when customers want, and not just for emergency services. ‘Assistance is not insurance, they do not compete with each other, but rather, it is a complementary protection product that can be offered to any public. Brokers can add assistance to policies, and thus offer a better service to clients and still be compensated for this’.
The range of possibilities is wide. Europ Assistance works with assistance for auto, home, telehealth, to which discounts in medications and funeral aid can be added, cyber risk coverage, virtual architects, among others. ‘Our plan for 2022 is to follow our trail so that in January 2023 it will be possible to assemble an assistance package through our website and start a subscription, where the end customer will have access to our entire product offer. Whenever they need it, they will be able to order on demand and get a discount because of their subscription. Our dream is to reach the Rappi model, with Uber and Mercado Livre, which focus on B2B, B2B2C and B2C”, he concludes.