The Hartford digital capabilities, customer experience

The Hartford Q&A: Digital customer experience

March 17, 2022 6:44 AM

The Hartford campus at sunset in Hartford, Connecticut.

Digital Insurance spoke with Claire Burns, chief marketing and communications officer at The Hartford about customer experience, plans for the future and how digital is involved. Burns took over the position, which was previously held by Kathleen Bromage, in September last year.

The following responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Can you tell me about your role at The Hartford and how digital is involved?

I had been working internationally for a long time and really loved the international experience before the pandemic but spending time at home, living with my family, made me look at things in a different way. I discovered I liked being in Connecticut and so I started looking for opportunities here and this role emerged at The Hartford and seemed like the perfect fit based on my background and what my aspirations are for the future.

The role itself has a broad scope including brand, enterprise marketing, digital customer experience, media relations, communications and community relations.

I consider myself to be responsible for all things related to the customer and digital underpins everything we do. It is key in my view to making the company future-ready and meeting changing demands in the marketplace well into the future. The industry exists to help customers navigate risk and uncertainty, and drive better outcomes. As the world is becoming increasingly uncertain, access to data analytics technology and harnessing that ability is critical.

What are your plans for the future in this position?

There are three primary areas I’m focused on when I think about the future.

1. Optimizing digital delivery for customers and agents. We have had a roadmap for this area but we are ramping it up. This is a part of my philosophy and it’s important for a market leader to deliver performance and value. We look at this delivery in every phase of the journey. A key component is enabling self-service for transactions. Delivering information faster and better in real-time and personalizing the experience. A lot of companies talk about doing these things but for example, we’re working to create faster quoting by simplifying the questions we are asking.

We are also working on pain points in the self-service experience to make it better including automating the first notice of loss. We are all around optimizing digital delivery–it makes our customers happier and we want to grow our customer relationships and lower costs so we can pass on those savings.

2. Harnessing data analytics: We’re investing in data to inform better decisions for our employees and to understand the risk customers face. Insurance is meant to protect customers from risk but also help prevent and mitigate risk. We want to help customers face risks that are on the horizon and do it in a way that may prevent claims. We have an Internet of Things lab and a lot of the devices can help customers have better behaviors including telematics, water sensors and wearables.

3. Developing a digital workforce: It is critically important to develop a talent strategy in the face of such challenges as the 'Great Resignation.' We want to make sure we can track talent for today and tomorrow by thinking about emerging technology and business models that create an attractive environment for building a career.

Like a lot of companies today, coming out of the pandemic, we are looking at ways to help our employees create more flexibility and optimize their time in the office. We have three work options including fully remote, a hybrid model and full-time in the office. I believe the flexibility we are affording people will attract employees.

How have your previous experiences prepared you?

I grew up in a house where my father was having us take coding classes in the 1980s. We had personal computers at home and I mention that because having technology access from such a young age has really prepared me for always thinking about technology and digital solutions as an enabler for internal and external processes and experiences.

My career started at Aetna where the focus was shifting to medical outcomes as a way to manage health and it was fun to be there at a groundbreaking moment. Analytics has always been important and now we have access to more and it's evolving with technology.

Also, previous to my position at The Hartford I worked at AIG, Metlife and most recently at Prudential International, where I was responsible for digital transformation.

I’m constantly using digital as a part of my roles.