When a new leadership team took over at Southern Cross Travel Insurance in 2017, it became apparent that despite having a market-leading digital sales approach, the overall customer engagement experience through the website needed improvement.
“Southern Cross Travel Insurance had been one of the first in New Zealand to offer e-commerce capability in insurance. But over time, the website hadn’t been updated and we were being overtaken by more customer-centric offerings,” explained Jo McCauley, interim chief executive officer.
A key issue was the website couldn’t be updated quickly and easily enough to allow Southern Cross Travel Insurance to offer new products and services in a timely fashion. As a leader in travel insurance in New Zealand and Australia, this was critical for the business’ future growth plans.
But first, the travel insurance website had to be fit for purpose.
"Datacom helped us evaluate what we needed and were able to support us with our preferred in-house project. Together, we then quickly prioritised how to manage the project in the most effective way."
More than a third of all of our customer transactions are completed on a mobile or tablet device. It’s often because people are at the airport and realise they don’t have insurance. The website needed to be fast and effective — and now it is.
The project involved working with Datacom’s partner company, Sitecore, to build a content management system (CMS) which would enable Southern Cross Travel Insurance to self-manage content and updates in the future. The CMS would also importantly allow new products to be brought to market quickly and effectively, and work well for customers on both desktop and mobile platforms.
“More than a third of all of our customer transactions are completed on a mobile or tablet device. It’s often because people are at the airport and realise they don’t have insurance. The website needed to be fast and effective — and now it is.”
Southern Cross Travel Insurance and Datacom collaborated to bring the website to life, building on a Sitecore platform for the Australian and New Zealand markets.
Hosted on Microsoft Azure, the programme of work included infrastructure design and support.
The website gives customers a much superior experience; getting quotes and making and tracking claims online can be done with ease. Meanwhile, Southern Cross Travel Insurance’s marketing and communications teams now enjoy the content personalisation and advanced digital marketing features that Sitecore brings.
Datacom brought in a breadth of industry expertise when needed and ensured we hit our launch dates. They delivered exactly what they said they would.
The website launched during the COVID-19 pandemic and that meant Southern Cross Travel Insurance needed to build and launch a new product — the first test of the new website.
“The strategic intent of the new website was to be able to add new products to it easily, which is what we’ve just seamlessly done with our new domestic travel insurance.”
For the first time, Southern Cross Travel Insurance can showcase all its products on the home page rather than having them buried deep in the website. The updated site has also helped to reduce the number of calls to the contact centre.
“We have been taking 62,000 calls on average each year – many of which are customers calling to ask, 'Where's my claim?'. With the new website, we’ve significantly enhanced our functionality. While the old website was very much about buying a policy, the updated one now allows customers to upload their claims documents and check the status of their claim online. This update has reduced the need for customers to scan and email their documents, and even call us. Literally two hours after launch, we could see documents being uploaded to the site and landing in our system with no drama.”
The operational savings are a real positive for Southern Cross Travel Insurance.
“We thought we’d still get some claims emailed in, but they just stopped. It’s all handled through the website now.”
Customers can track their own claims online and Jo says this is exactly the kind of capability the team envisioned at the start of the project.
“The Datacom team were a joy to have in the office. We gave them a very tight time frame and budget and they exceeded our expectations. They brought in a breadth of industry expertise when needed and ensured we hit our launch dates. They delivered exactly what they said they would."
