Sophie Chesters, vice-president marketing, EMEA, at Medallia talks with Insurance Times about the firms recent win at the Insurance Times Technology & Innovation Awards and what is to come in the future

sophie-chesters-headshot

What do you think made your entry stand out in the Technology Innovation category?

First, the impact: it can help control costs and impact retention, far more than an incremental improvement. Next, the simplicity and how easily this can be adopted by different types of insurance company – direct, indirect and across product types like health and motor. It’s built on years of best practices, which we distilled to make it easy to get started. Finally, the proof: great adoption by leading global brands and the small business units within them. 

Who is most to thank for this award?

Our customers. We’ve learnt from a long history of serving some of the biggest insurance brands in the world. From chief claims officers to claims handlers, they tell us how we can help them with their jobs. We get that feedback directly as we work closely with them and act on that product feedback.

Where does innovation rank among the list of priorities at Medallia?

Very high! We need to match the speed of consumer behaviour if we’re to enable comprehensive voice of customer (VOC) data. Last week in London our chief product officer shared a couple of ways we are doing this. Medallia Conversations provides new ways to engage customers in the moment on the communication channels that they use daily, such as messaging platforms. 

What future innovations is Medallia planning?

We’re making big investments in AI and machine learning. Our goal is to guide customer experience teams on their next best action. We have the capabilities to sift through all the signals to find the most important things to focus on to move the business. 

How do you rate the current market as a whole for tech and innovation?

We see a lot of activity in insurtech and expect the start-ups will push traditional insurers to adopt new models to serve. Our own research tells us that customer expectations are rising and that many are not meeting the bar. Insurance is behind the curve on customer experience compared with hospitality, digital, and retail, who’ve been using technology and insights from  our customer at centre platform for years.