DENIM SUMMIT 2018 TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM - Strategic insights on artificial intelligence, APIs, customer experience, and more.
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TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM
DENIM SUMMIT 2018
Strategic insights on artificial intelligence,
APIs, customer experience, and more.
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 1
Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018
Strategic insights on artificial intelligence, APIs, customer experience, and more.
More than 100 insurance, financial services, innovation, and technology
leaders recently made their way to downtown Des Moines to attend
Denim Summit. The event, organized by Denim, provider of the most
intelligent mobile marketing platform for financial services, featured
leading perspectives on artificial intelligence (AI), APIs, consumer
engagement, customer experience, and more.
In this ebook, we take you to Denim Summit and explore top
takeaways from several of the event’s keynote presentations and
fireside chats. If you like what you learn, be sure to make plans to
attend Denim Summit 2019 this fall. Keep an eye on denimlabs.com
for the date and location announcement.
01
Three Artificial Intelligence Takeaways
02
Three API Takeaways
03
Three Customer Engagement Takeaways
04
Three Customer Experience Takeaways
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 2
Three
Artificial
Intelligence
Takeaways
01
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 3
One of the Denim Summit
keynote speakers — Tim Hoskins,
president of Quester — tackled
the topic of AI head-on.
Hoskins, whose company has
built the industry’s only software
moderator driven by AI, shared
fascinating findings from a
study conducted with the
Consumer Technology
Association:
of consumers are very/
60% somewhat open to
AI making financial
investment decisions.
01 | Three Artificial Intelligence Takeaways
of consumers believe
“ This is a clear indicator
that consumers are going
to demand change, they’re
56% AI will play the role of
accountants/financial
advisors by analyzing
going to expect change, spending behavior.
and they’re going to drive
change for each of our
”
businesses. — Tim Hoskins of those consumers
76% are very/somewhat
open to using the
function.
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 4
Below are a few of insights on AI that Hoskins and other
Denim Summit speakers shared with attendees.
Focus on the consumer Improve — don’t replace — AI is nothing without data
experience human-to-human interaction
A year ago, at Denim Summit
Many companies, especially from AI has the power to recognize, 2017, Denim’s CEO and Founder
a B2B perspective, are using AI to optimize, and deliver a very Gregory Bailey announced the
create efficiencies. While there’s specific message to the right Denim platform had collected
certainly a use case for efficiency, consumer at just the right time. more than 1 billion data points
on a consumer-facing front, AI about consumer engagement
needs to be about making lives And, according to Hoskins, 76% with mobile advertising for
easier and better. of consumers would prefer to start financial services and insurance
a conversation about finances via companies. This year, Bailey
“That’s what consumers expect digital communication channels. announced another big step
from businesses: Not to use AI on Denim’s journey to make
to enhance your business, but However, Hoskins adds, “I am a marketing personal at scale: Smart
to use AI to better their lives big believer in combining that Campaigns, the first-ever solution
01 | Three Artificial Intelligence Takeaways
and their experiences with data with human expertise so for automatically optimizing
your brands,” Hoskins when that consumer is ready to mobile advertising across local
said. have a conversation, you know markets. There’s a reason Denim
more about them, you’re better started with data: Without it,
prepared, and you can deliver to there’s nothing for AI to activate.
where they’re at, on their terms.”
“ Data and activating that
data for our customers’
and users’ benefit is really
important to us.
— Gregory Bailey
”
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 5
Three
API
Takeaways
02
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 6
We all know APIs are all the rage
in today’s tech-driven world. But
not as many of us have a simple
definition of what they are or a
solid understanding of how they’re
transforming the financial services
industry. Until now.
One of the Denim Summit fireside
chats provided both — from three
different perspectives: insurance
carrier, independent agent
channel, and insurtech startup.
The chat, moderated by Denim’s
CTO, Charlie Turri, featured the
following three industry experts:
Jason Andrew
Co-Founder & CEO,
Limelight Health
Bernie Gerwel
SVP & Corporate
Digital Officer,
02 | Three API Takeaways
American National
Insurance Company
Derek Hyde
CTO & SVP Business
Development,
Ascendia Ventures /
TrustedChoice.com
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 7
Below are three key takeaways from the panel regarding
how APIs are being used to connect software in the financial
services industry.
Think API-first. You don’t know where that I think we’re going to see
data or that service could be fundamental product changes,”
All panelists agreed every organi- plugged into. Especially in the he said. “You’ve got to have an
zation — from small insurtechs to independent agent community, architecture that’s API-based or
large carriers — need a solid API the various tools and agency you’re not going to be able to
model to compete in the future. management systems and raters compete effectively.”
they use, if we can plug that into
“When we’re looking at insur- a new insurtech through an API,
techs, we see better valuations we see much better, broader use
in companies that are API first,” of that.” To kick things off,
Hyde said. “There’s a lot more Turri offered a simple
you can do with it. That’s precisely why the Limelight definition of APIs by
Health team built their application relating them to social
The future of an insurtech API-first. “We’ve taken the media:
is an omnichannel approach to build from the
approach. beginning an API framework,” “Software wants friends,
Andrew said. “We wanted to and it wants to connect,”
connect and find the pain points Turri said. “APIs are
of the industry and make those really the social network
connection points meaningful.” for software. It’s how
02 | Three API Takeaways
they connect, how they
Gerwel shared a similar viewpoint share things about
from a carrier perspective.“You themselves.”
have to have a solid API model
in order to exist because
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 8
Use APIs to improve Start simple.
experiences.
If you’re just getting started with
Whether it’s for your customers APIs, don’t try to boil the ocean.
or your staff, there are a number
of ways APIs are being used to “APIs and the data set behind
create better experiences. it don’t always have to be
complicated,” Hyde said, pointing
“Consumers want simplicity and to Google’s address validation
they want, where it makes sense, service and Twilio’s phone number
consolidation,” Gerwel said. validation service as examples.
“And APIs give you the ability to
do that. That’s where you have “They’re very simple APIs to put
to think about APIs strategically in place but hugely impact the
as an insurance carrier. Where quality of the data coming out of
does it make sense for you to the forms you’re collecting. Little
inject yourself into that consumer things like that can really improve
experience?” that user experience and your
employee experience.”
TrustedChoice.com has been
using APIs both internally and
externally since day one. “A
lot of it is around efficiency of
what we do — data collection,
producing reports for internal
02 | Three API Takeaways
or external usage,” Hyde said.
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 9
Three
Customer
Engagement
Takeaways
03
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 10A Denim Summit fireside chat
explored strategies for engaging
customers at the digital edge.
What’s the digital edge?
“It’s that place where consumers
live and breathe, and where
we all work and operate every
day,” said Bailey, the panel’s
moderator.
Bailey was joined on stage by
an esteemed group of industry
experts:
Lori Bochner
VP of marketing at
03 | Three Customer Engagement Takeaways
Sammons Financial
Group
Miguel Edwards
CIO, Life & Health
Division at Kemper
Dustin Yoder
CEO of Sureify
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 11Below are some key customer engagement takeaways the panelists shared
during the fireside chat.
Expand your definition of Bochner agreed: “Our distribu- “We’re trying to engage people
customers. tors are our customers and also at the right point in their journey
our end policyholders are our in life and doing it in ways that
A successful digital engagement customers. In order for us to are not intrusive but they’re just-
strategy takes into account both be a vital, successful company in-time. That’s where the differen-
agents/advisors and end-consum- today, we have to be able to tiation is going to be,” Edwards
ers. “It’s about providing mobile provide tools for both of those said. “It’s not necessarily going
capability for our agents to serve audiences.” to be in our product. It’s going to
just-in-time information to have be at that point of engagement.
a more productive conversation That’s where we’re focused.”
with that customer,” Edwards
said. “On the customer side, Differentiate by engagement. All panelist agreed that it’s going
how am I going to educate?” to be increasingly important to
Insurance and financial services provide an omni-channel experi-
03 | Three Customer Engagement Takeaways
is a highly commoditized industry. ence that allows customers to en-
So how are you going to differen- gage when, where, and how they
tiate your products and services want to engage. “We need to lis-
from your competitors in the ten to our customers, understand
future? our customers, meet them where
they are, and put them in con-
trol,” Bochner said. Yoder added,
“I want to be careful to suggest
anyone knows what the future
holds. That’s why an omni-channel
architecture is very important.”
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 12Use a variety of data sources to
look for directional trends.
Insurance and financial services messages hyper-geographic
companies tend to focus on data located and right where they
in legacy systems that they’re 100 are in their life,” Bochner said.
percent confident is high-quality “There is an enormous amount
and accurate. In the digital era, it’s of data on the outside. But how
going to be increasingly difficult do we build an infrastructure
to compete using that data alone. that we can take that outside
Yoder discussed two additional data, take our inside data, and
kinds of data Sureify looks at that create meaningful messaging?”
can stack on top of legacy data Edwards says it’s about looking
to provide a clearer picture: real- for directional trends.
time data (including IoT, geo-
location, and real-time social) and
projective data.
“
03 | Three Customer Engagement Takeaways
By being willing to think
One way Sammons Financial about things directionally,
Group is exploring using outside and using imperfect data
data is through a partnership and imperfect analysis, it
with Denim. “We’re interested might show you things you
as we experiment with Denim to hadn’t seen before.
discover how we can deliver — Miguel Edwards
”
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 13Three
Customer
Experience
Takeaways
04
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 14It’s going to be increasingly
difficult for insurance and
financial service companies to
differentiate themselves based
on products. That was a message
shared throughout Denim Summit
2018 — and a key focus of the
final keynote delivered by Scott
Campbell, SVP and chief client
officer at American National
Insurance Company.
“ At the end of the day, our
products are basically the
same,” Campbell said.
“You can differentiate on
price, but that’s tough.
Unless you have massive
scale, you cannot get
04 | Three Customer Experience Takeaways
into that price war. Can
you really differentiate
on product in insurance?
Not so much. It’s not an
iPhone, no matter how
much we want it to be.
That leaves us, really,
with the experience.
The relationship is the
main opportunity to
differentiate ourselves.
”
— Scott Campbell
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 15Below are three takeaways from Campbell’s presentation
on creating a differentiating customer experience.
Customers expect real-time
interaction, consistency, and
understanding.
Customer expectations are heavily to engage with you. “They don’t
influenced by the experiences want to have to keep retelling
they receive from leading digital their story to you depending
brands like Apple and Amazon. on what channel they’re in.”
“Consumers are used to what Campbell said.
they’re used to, and they expect
that when they come to us,”
“
Campbell said. “They don’t care And they want us to
that we’re insurance companies.” understand their unique
needs. What do they really
04 | Three Customer Experience Takeaways
Customers don’t want to wait care about? How are you
three days for an insurance ID using data to find that?
card — they want it now. They — Scott Campbell
expect a seamless experience no
matter what channel they use ”
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 16There are wrong ways to think
about the customer experience.
01
Do more of the same. “There’s a big segment of the industry that’s
Campbell pointed out three like, ‘We’ll just double down on advertising. We’ll make more noise.
mistakes it’s easy to make in the We’ll just try to convince people that this is fine,’” Campbell said.
journey to improve the customer “But it’s just noise, and it becomes very hard to set yourself apart
experience: in that.”
02
Get too caught up in innovation. “You’re seeing companies do a
lot of building these standalone innovation centers,” Campbell said.
“While I think that’s good and that’s necessary, you can go too far
with that. We’re trying to disrupt and innovate around something
that people have a basic need for, and maybe getting it all sexy
and exciting isn’t the total answer.”
03
04 | Three Customer Experience Takeaways
Disintermediate ourselves. “While I think there’s a huge opportu-
nity with insurtech, with partnering with startups, I personally don’t
think the companies that go down the path of replacing all their
old-school agents and brokers with new-school agents and brokers,
I don’t think that’s the way to go,” Campbell said. “That’s why we
like tools like Denim. That’s a good example of a partnership to us
where we’re helping our distributors reach our current and future
clients better though content, through social. We like those kind
of partnerships because that’s bringing us together with the
client and helping us support those distributors.”
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 17There is a right way to think
about the customer experience.
01
Clarify and better support your distribution relationships.
Campbell closed his keynote by
outlining five imperatives to a 02
successful client experience: Align around the customer’s journey and moments of truth.
03
Establish a collaborative customer experience discipline throughout
the company.
04
Measure and tie client experience work into the business result.
05
04 | Three Customer Experience Takeaways
Embed customer experience into the company culture and help all
employees understand their part in delivering on the promise made
to customers.
Denim® | Top Takeaways from Denim Summit 2018 18To learn how Denim can help you better leverage AI and APIs to
support your distributors, engage consumers, and improve the
experience you’re delivering to customers, schedule a demo today.
And don’t forget to watch for announcements about Denim Summit
2019 at denimlabs.com.
About Denim®
Denim is making marketing personal, at scale. Designed with today’s
mobile and social consumers in mind, Denim’s patent-pending,
data-driven platform saves time and money by enabling marketing
teams to create and manage micro-targeted mobile and social media
ad campaigns on behalf of local representatives. With a focus on
delivering a simple and intuitive experience, Denim not only delivers
results, it’s enjoyable to use. To learn more, visit denimlabs.com.
CONTACT US SCHEDULE A DEMO
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