Guest Column: Sonia Notani, CMO, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company, shares that insight on integrating  the 3 Vs – Voice, Video, and Vernacular “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realise it themselves.”  - Steve Jobs With the rapidly evolving marketing space coupled with a continual proliferation of online and offline channels, this insight is the golden rule for all marketers. Widespread digital adoption, deep regional penetration of telecom, access to the internet; are all factors that have led to new mediums of outreach and connect. Customers are at varying degrees of access and adoption across channels that are based on physical and digital enablement.

We need to emphasize on ‘smart content’ that is simple and hyper-personalized. Today, with the advent of phy-gital access and digital enablement, it is possible to contextualize the offering even at physical touch points. We can leverage the latest in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) enabling relevant and personalised content to our target audience. At IndiaFirst Life, we have launched a multilingual website, enabled a multitude of self-service options, and enabled it with customized customer outreach across mediums leading to information, awareness, education and even purchase and support. Hence, there exists an opportunity for creating smart, multi-lingual content and building responsiveness into the communication, making it more interactive and effective. Connect Sans Boundaries We are no more bound by physical borders, geographical distance or even barriers of literacy. Today, the three Vs – Voice, Video, and Vernacular – are allowing customers and brands to connect with minimum restriction. According to Deloitte, the number of smartphone users in India will increase to 829 million users by 2022, Of them, over 680 million people in India use the internet. Organizations are now residing in the pockets of consumers through their mobile phones. We only need to ensure we are relevant in what we are saying and serving. It is important here to ensure different legs of the customer journey are enabled through these platforms. At IndiaFirst Life, we recently launched ‘financially speaking’ a podcast series to connect with a diverse audience on personal finance. We have also enabled video collaboration in Hindi, such as our integration on Netflix through the movie ‘Pagglait’, to bring out the essential role of Insurance in the journey of life. Integrating the 3 Vs in the digital space is sure to maximize reach to relevant audiences and enable a well-rounded strategy. The Lasting Wave of Hyper-Personalization  When the content and context is right, personalisation becomes easy. Such hyper-personalization is ready for its close-up shot. According to the author Paul Gillin “Personalization is pointless without knowing the individual. Understand the dreams, hopes, and fears that motivate your customers, then hit them where it counts.” Customizing product designs, tailoring recommendations, managing tactical communications, and building personalized strategies enables organizations to garb a futureproof vest while maintaining customer centricity. Hyper personalization causes an amalgamation of emotional engagement, customer understanding, and convenience. This has proven to drive loyalties from customers and even increased returns. In fact, many financial services have already started leveraging the vast data and capitalizing on advanced analytics to offer products and services that customers need, when they need it and from where they prefer to access it. Reimagining the Customer Lifecycle in Its Entirety In the light of a world crisis, it is critical for organizations to focus on winning the battle AND the war. If the past recessions have taught us anything, it is that organizations that maintained consistent communication with their customers through their lifecycle were the ones who eventually emerged as market leaders. It is important to maintain an “always-on approach”. Optimize your messaging and align various touchpoints and communication channels along the journey. Every customer journey has a story to tell throughout different customer stages - right from awareness, information proposition to providing quality services and ultimately service and support. Here it becomes important for brands to focus on what emotions or experiences motivate their customers. The goal is to take an active posture, maintain a healthy dialogue with prospective and current customers, and intervene intently through various phases of their cycle. With the pandemic hitting across the country, IndiaFirst Life not only ran Ghar Baithe Insurance as a campaign, enabling education and purchase but we also introduced Claims requests over WhatsApp and introduced 24 Hour claim settlement. When you see your customer’s perspective, you automatically have answers on how to tap into those motivations. The Bottom Line Customer success is only a proactive orchestration of the customer’s journey. To embrace customer-centricity to the fullest, customer satisfaction must become a part of the enterprise muscle. Hence, perfect integration of multichannel platforms and capabilities should result in an organization delivering consistent, customized, relevant offerings and experience across touch points to every customer, directly or through its distribution partners. Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of pitchonnet.com