Using Artificial Intelligence to Enhance the Customer Experience

Rhonda Longo | Adam Bondi | Gillian Julius

• Fortune 500 company operating in 12 states and the District of Columbia

• Based in Erie, Pennsylvania

• 15th largest property/casualty insurer in the U.S.

• More than 5 million policies in force

• Provides coverage for home, auto, and life

• 5,000 employees and 12,000 independent agents

• A.M. Best Company rated A+ Superior

Discovering Customer Perspectives

Conversation as the interface

• Design thinking workshop at IBM Bluemix Garage

• Focused on the conversation tone and flow first, to develop the

experience

• Tested early and often for feedback on the feel of the conversation

How did we evaluate the process?• Tested the usability of the process with employees• Tested the experience with actual customers, two rounds with each participant• Dialog was evaluated against branding strategy principles

What did our customers think?• 100% of the customers were surprised to find out the conversation was automated• Described the tone of the “representative” they worked with to be friendly and caring• Described the process as easy and said they could see themselves using this service again

"Texting in was really nice. It felt like it was a real person. I really like the

personal touch… It was easier than I expected! It was quick, precise,

and handled in minutes.”

- Kelly K., Erie Insurance Customer

Discovering Technology Capability

Twilio

User

Watson Conversation

Service “WCS”

Cloudant NoSQL Database

System Orchestration Engine“SOE”

IBM DataPower Gateway

IBM Bluemix

Internal ERIE Systems

Internet

Customer Contact Information Service

Claims APIs

SMS

HTTP HTTP HTTP

HTTP

HTTP

System Orchestration Engine “SOE” - Verify & Save a Vehicle

Watson SOE Claims APIs

Vehicle Year and Make Text

SET_YEAR_MAKE

VERIFY_VEHICLE

SAVE_VEHICLE

Vehicle Information

Success / Fail ResponseSuccess / Fail ResponseSuccess / Fail Message

Verify Vehicle

Set Year and Make

• Did Watson return one year?• Did Watson return one make?• Set the Year and Make to

variables

• Does the Year and Make set match to a vehicle year and make on the policy?

• Does it match only one vehicle?

Tasks performed by SOE

• Policy authorization

• Start a claim

• Save cause of loss information

• Set accident location

• Save accident location

• Set vehicle information

• Verify vehicle

• Save vehicle

• Set driver information

• Save driver information

• Lookup local repair facilities

• Save contact information

• Get claim information

Discovery and the Organization

Resourcing (Innovation Support)Organizational ownershipBusiness sponsor

IntegrationIteration

Supporting ecosystem structure

Growth

OPTIMIZEGROWEXPERIMENT

TESTING HYPOTHESES...

EXECUTING ON VALUESEARCHING FOR VALUE

✓ Feasible✓ Desirable✓ Viable

Technology trends

User research

External partners

Business opportunity

Stakeholder support Clear

business case

RECEIVING VALUE

Strengthen pipeline to operations with repeated collaboration

Long-term relationships with business units augment innovation portfolio

Methodology rigor+ Lightweight controls

Resource + investment placeholders to support emergent implementations

MEASUREMENT PERIODKILL, CONTINUE, SCALE DECISION

GROWEXPERIMENT . . . . . . . . .

TESTING HYPOTHESES...

EXECUTING ON VALUESEARCHING FOR VALUE

✓ Feasible✓ Desirable

✓ Viable

IntegrationIteration

Supporting ecosystem structure

Growth

Clear business case

Methodology rigor+ Lightweight controls

MEASUREMENTKILL, CONTINUE, SCALE DECISIONS

Resourcing Organizational ownershipBusiness sponsor

Increasing controls with growth, Agile pipeline

Technology trends

User research

External partners

Business opportunity

Stakeholder support

MAKING IT SAFE

✓ LIMITED TEST POPULATION

✓ ON/OFF SWITCH

✓ THROTTLE ON NETWORK TRAFFIC

✓ HUMAN OVERSIGHT / AUDIT

✓ ERROR ESCALATION POINTS

Rhonda.Longo@erieinsurance.com | Adam.Bondi@erieinsurance.com | Gillian.Julius@erieinsurance.com