Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance's CX Strategy: The Key to Success is "Personalization 2.0"

Despite the challenges of conducting "face-to-face sales" during the pandemic, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance (hereinafter Mitsui Sumitomo) significantly increased its add-on coverage rate through the success of its CX (Customer Experience) strategy.

The key to this success lay in the evolution of "personalization"—delivering messages and content optimized for each individual customer.

This time, we explore the CX strategy of Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, supported by Sunday Sky Japan (hereinafter Sunday Sky) and Dentsu Innovation Initiative (hereinafter DII), through the lens of the keyword "Personalization 2.0."

Let's see how Sunday Sky's "Personalized Video" solved the challenges of conventional "Personalization 1.0" and achieved CX improvement.

*Personalization 2.0
A marketing approach proposed by Ashley Friedlein, CEO of Econsultancy. Its core concepts are: "How to deliver simple, intuitive, and comfortable experiences" and "How to achieve contextually relevant CX based on data customers voluntarily provide and control."
 

※This article is a recompilation of the session "The Future of Face-to-Face Sales in the New Normal Era - CX Strategy at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance" from Advertising Week Asia 2021.

<Table of Contents>
▼The Strength of "Personalized Video": Low Production Burden × Overwhelming Customer Experience

▼AI Analysis Derives Optimal Plans for Each Customer, Clearly Presented via "Video"

▼ "MS1 Brain" Enhances Service Quality, Ensures Consistency, and Streamlines Sales Activities

▼ The desire to provide greater value to customers drives "Personalization 2.0"
▼＜Afterword＞ Dentsu Inc. Cross-Organizational Team Realizes " Personalized CX "

The strength of "Personalized Video" lies in its "low production burden" × "overwhelming customer experience"

Aoki: Today we'll discuss Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance's CX strategy. First, could you please introduce yourselves?

Motoyama: I'm Motoyama, responsible for driving digitalization at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance. We are experimenting with how to transform our business model using digital and data capabilities to advance our insurance operations. My role involves acquiring the necessary technology and making the required investments.

Shimamura: I'm Shimamura from Sunday Sky Japan. We've been working with Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance since 2018, and I'm thrilled we finally get to co-host this session today. Sunday Sky plays a key role in Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance's CX strategy, so I'll be discussing that today.

Aoki: Thank you. Finally, I'm Aoki, a Business Development Manager at Dentsu Innovation Initiative, which handles business development within the Dentsu Group.

Today, I'd like to introduce an example of Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance's CX initiatives, which could be described as putting "Personalization 2.0" into practice.

If we consider traditional personalization—like "addressing customers by name in email subject lines to suggest cross-sells or upsells"—which often required significant effort with limited impact, as "Personalization 1.0," then "Personalization 2.0" represents the latest approach. It combines cutting-edge technology, content, and corporate effort to achieve CX that truly embodies "hospitality."

First, Mr. Shimamura, please introduce the "Video Experience Platform" from Sunday Sky that Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance has implemented.

Shimamura: Sunday Sky has long been dedicated to "personalizing CX." Our greatest strength lies in "personalized video" – generating videos optimized for each individual customer.

Video possesses overwhelming information-conveying power compared to text. Our starting point was wanting to leverage such video more effectively in business-customer communication.

"Video has the power to directly engage our brains," stated Shimamura. He explained how video-based approaches significantly enhance CX compared to traditional text-based communication.

Shimamura: When conveying the same information via video versus text, video is processed 60,000 times faster in the brain. Information that only 10% of people grasp from text can be understood by about 90% through video. Furthermore, a one-minute video can convey information equivalent to roughly 1.8 million words.

However, at present, most companies overwhelm customers with excessive amounts of "text." While companies do use data to segment emails by customer and finely tune websites, this alone makes it difficult to maintain that "connection" with customers—meaning engagement. Losing that connection leads to various detrimental effects.

54% of customers believe companies need to "fundamentally improve their customer service." When customers lose that "connection" with a company, it leads to problems like: "being less likely to consider offers from the brand," "not understanding the value or benefits compared to competitors," "not wanting to use digital tools even if available," and "lacking motivation to support the brand."

Shimamura: When we decide to nurture and value that "connection" with customers, video is an incredibly compelling tool for delivering exceptional CX. However, especially among Japanese companies, "video marketing initiatives" struggle to gain traction. This is because video production is often perceived as requiring significant "cost" and "time."

Moreover, typically, once a video is made, that's the end of it. Yet, information quickly becomes outdated. If you then consider revising it regularly, that also requires more "cost" and "time." When you think about taking this already costly and time-consuming "video" and further tailoring its content for each individual customer, every company concludes it's impossible.

To solve these challenges, we developed the "Video Experience Platform." This service leverages a company's customer data to generate personalized videos for each individual customer in real time.

This platform allows videos to be created simply by combining pre-prepared frameworks with a company's own customer data, significantly reducing both "cost" and "time" compared to building from scratch. By combining "scene templates," elements like colors and fonts can be arranged, enabling companies to easily generate customized videos tailored to their own product's tone.

&nbsp;

AI analysis determines the optimal plan for each customer, then clearly proposes it via "video"

Aoki: What led Mitsui Sumitomo Marine to adopt Sunday Sky's "Video Experience Platform" this time?

Motoyama: Traditionally, insurance companies like ours typically explained insurance products using "paper materials." In our case, we have approximately 38,000 agencies across Japan, with over 300,000 staff engaged in insurance sales. A long-standing challenge was whether all these staff members could consistently find the optimal proposal for each customer and effectively explain insurance products using paper materials with high quality.

Therefore, to solve this problem, in February 2020, we released "MS1 Brain," an AI-powered agency sales support system—the first of its kind in the non-life insurance industry.

The key feature of MS1 Brain is its "Needs Prediction Analysis" function. By analyzing customer information held by agencies, various data we possess such as contracts and claims, and external data like publicly available corporate information, the AI can now derive the optimal proposal tailored to each individual customer.

However, even knowing the optimal proposal is meaningless unless all 300,000 sales staff can deliver it effectively to customers. Based on AI-analyzed data, it is essential to "clearly communicate" the "optimal proposal that the customer truly needs right now."

Amidst this, then-President Noriyuki Hara (now Chairman) proposed internally: "Overseas insurance companies create personalized videos for each policyholder and use them to guide customers. Shouldn't we adopt this approach?"

Consequently, our representative stationed in Silicon Valley researched and compared companies possessing personalized video technology. As a result, we were convinced that Sunday Sky's "Video Experience Platform" offered high-quality videos capable of ensuring customers thoroughly understood the product details before concluding a contract, leading to our decision to adopt it.

Shimamura: Thank you. We were truly delighted that you visited our New York office and gave such serious consideration to our proposal.

Motoyama: And the tool we began operating with the support of Sunday Sky and Dentsu Inc. is our personalized video solution, "Brain Video."

Leveraging the personalized video "Brain Video." It clearly proposes the optimal plan tailored to each individual insurance policyholder, derived through the AI analysis of "MS1 Brain," via video. Its greatest feature is minimizing the "time" and "cost" required for personalization.

Achieving improved and consistent service quality, along with streamlined sales activities, through "MS1 Brain"

Aoki: How have the results been since introducing "MS1 Brain" and "Brain Video," which provide an optimized CX for each individual customer?

Motoyama: First, implementing "MS1 Brain" for needs prediction analysis increased the policy conversion rate for riders by 2 to 3 times compared to customers without analysis results. Furthermore, leveraging "Brain Video" boosted this rate to approximately 1.8 times.

I believe this outcome reflects that each customer fully understands and is satisfied with the insurance product details before subscribing to the coverage they genuinely need.

Aoki: Did you also see effects in terms of improving service quality for customers at each agency and for each sales staff member?

Motoyama: Yes. Previously, the standard sales approach was to meet face-to-face, pull out paper materials, and explain the products for the first time during that meeting. However, by sending "Brain Video" beforehand, customers gained a solid understanding of the products. This allowed us to focus our in-person meetings on "questions" and "key points," leading to more efficient sales activities.

This was especially effective during the COVID-19 pandemic when face-to-face sales activities became difficult, as it allowed customers to deepen their understanding of insurance products without requiring in-person meetings.

And of course, it also plays a role in enabling all sales staff to consistently deliver high-level proposals.

Aoki: And you're continuing to update your personalized sales activities even now, right?

Motoyama: Yes. In February 2021, we added a service called "MS1 Brain Remote," which enables agents and customers to communicate using smartphones.

"MS1 Brain Remote" enables communication with customers via smartphone. It features three functions: messaging, web meetings, and auto insurance contract procedures. It represents a new form of face-to-face sales that makes customers unaware of the distinction between online and offline.

Motoyama: Using "MS1 Brain Remote" not only allows us to provide each customer with a personalized experience, but also enables them to meet with agents and complete auto insurance enrollment procedures anytime, anywhere via smartphone. We are confident that this fusion of real and digital will dramatically improve CX.

Furthermore, while we have approximately 4 million auto insurance policyholders, previously, renewals and procedures required large amounts of paper—such as policy expiration notices, endorsement flyers, and renewal application forms. Digitizing this process also contributes to carbon neutrality.

The desire to provide customers with greater value is what drives "Personalization 2.0."

Aoki: We propose personalization solutions and technologies to many clients, but we feel that for "Personalization 2.0" to truly improve CX, it's not just about technological evolution—the "commitment" of the companies implementing and utilizing it is also extremely important.

Motoyama: Yes, ultimately, what matters most is how deeply committed you are to "creating something truly personalized" and "proposing the right, better solutions to customers."

Building personalized logic for each individual customer, as demonstrated in the initiatives we shared today, was a significant undertaking. It was precisely because Sunday Sky, Dentsu Inc., and our company formed a trinity united by the desire to "deliver something good" and worked together that we achieved such positive results.

Aoki: We are also very pleased to see the strong commitment to CX improvement at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance bearing fruit. Thank you very much for today.

<AFTERWORD> Dentsu Inc.'s Cross-Organizational Team Realizes "Personalized CX"

Increasingly, companies are seeking business transformation starting with DX. This roundtable discussion, centered on the Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance case study, introduced "Personalization 2.0" as a stepping stone into the DX domain for companies across diverse industries and business models.

Even companies that previously measured KPIs by metrics like "awareness rate," "CPA," or "ROAS" will increasingly adopt KPIs that quantify the overall business impact, such as "churn rate." We at Dentsu Inc. view this shift as a significant opportunity.

Dentsu Inc. can assemble teams capable of end-to-end implementation—from strategy formulation and scenario planning aligned with the customer journey, to data integration for implementing personalized scenarios, all the way through to creative execution.

In the CX domain, where creativity is particularly crucial, Dentsu Inc.'s creativity becomes a major strength. This is because we can deliver both the "quantity" and "quality" of creative work that consulting firms and SIers cannot produce.

Moving forward, at Dentsu Inc., we will continue to provide optimal hospitality = CX for each customer, based on "Personalization 2.0."

(Keigo Aoki, Dentsu Inc. Innovation Initiative)