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Definity: Modernizing call center experiences with AI

Google Cloud Results
  • Saves upwards of 3.5 minutes per call, or 33% of average handle time per interaction

  • Automates caller authentication to accelerate customer service, which reduces wait times and allows agents to address more calls

  • Uses gen AI to reduce call wrap time and manual note-taking to improve employee engagement and customer service

  • Proves AI business value and opens doors to expand process automation

Definity works with Deloitte to deploy Google call center technology and gen AI in the call center for improved customer experience and greater efficiency.

Definity is the parent company of some of Canada’s most long-standing multi-channel, property and casualty insurance companies and distributors, including Economical Insurance and Sonnet Insurance. The company is committed to becoming one of Canada’s leading and most innovative P&C insurers. Part of delivering on that commitment is enabling its brands to live up to the high standards customers have come to expect, especially when ensuring responsive, convenient services.

In the insurance industry, there are a variety of use cases where gen AI can be applied in a responsible and risk measured way. The use of gen AI has the potential to generate significant business impact in profitability and growth, customer experience, expense management, and productivity. Definity has adopted an enterprise approach to gen AI, with a focus on business and technology working together to transform the internal stakeholder, broker, and customer experience.

“Over the years, we invested strategically in our digital platforms,” says Paul MacDonald, EVP of Personal Insurance and Digital Channels at Definity. “We want to give our customers and network of brokers powerful tools to get real-time quotes and complete transactions digitally. It’s all about delivering exceptional, responsive services.”

Efficiently scaling to support growth across its brands was, and is, a key area of focus for Definity. To effectively address this business-need Definity chose to partner with Google Cloud and Deloitte.

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Embracing a digital future

Definity and Deloitte have a long-standing relationship and determined that rolling out a direct-to-consumer offering was critical. “We know that better self-service is essential now and will be in the future,” says MacDonald. “We went into our direct-to-consumer projects with a focus on futureproofing. Google Cloud is instrumental in supporting our goals.”

Definity first leveraged Google Cloud to build a more scalable, dynamic data platform. The strategic move to cloud computing increased agility, speed to service delivery, and laid a foundation for innovation across the business.

Moving our call center technology to Google Cloud is foundational for greater scale and it opened doors to innovating with AI.

Ron Mills

Vice President, Data and Cloud, Definity

Though there are numerous areas of application for gen AI, the call center was identified as a high business impact, but low risk area of focus.

“We wanted to optimize our contact center operations,” says Ron Mills, VP of Data and Cloud at Definity. "Moving our call center technology to Google Cloud is foundational for greater scale and it opened doors to innovating with AI.”

Enhancing call center performance with AI

Automating call summaries was an area that we identified as a quick win. Within about a month, we cut the time agents spend on each call by three and a half minutes. Since we field more than 500 calls every day, that time adds up fast.

Jeff Desbiens

Vice President, Broker and Customer Support, Definity

Definity had already been using AI and machine learning to improve the customer experience and make their business run more smoothly in a safe and ethical way for almost 10 years. The team knew that AI could also be used to improve its call center operations.

Definity first worked with Deloitte to leverage gen AI to summarize calls and determine topics discussed. Typically, call center staff were spending an average of three to five minutes writing call summary notes.

“Automating call summaries was an area that we identified as a quick win,” says Jeff Desbiens, Vice President, Broker and Customer Support, “Within about a month, we cut the time agents spend on each call by three and a half minutes. Since we field more than 500 calls every day, that time adds up fast.”

Deloitte helped to develop the AI-based call summary and speech analytics solution. The data ingestion of the system runs on Dataflow. At the same time, an open-source transcription model also runs on Dataflow with GPUs. This setup moves transcriptions over to Google Cloud DLP, then to large language models on Vertex AI for data extraction and summary creation, and finally back to Salesforce to where summaries are stored.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do this without Deloitte’s knowledge,” says Desbiens. “They offered the right capabilities, best practices, and hands-on execution to get the project off the ground. They continue to provide invaluable guidance as we automate other call center activities.” As a next step, Definity focused on virtual agent authentication, which is a requirement for every customer support call coming into the organization. This process typically took a couple of minutes per contact. Deloitte partnered with Definity to stand up a new solution using Dialogflow CX to streamline authentication and customer service.

“You have to be agile and creative when incorporating generative AI to drive specific business outcomes,” says Anand Nimkar, Generative AI Practice Leader at Deloitte. “Definity trusted us and collaborated with us every step of the way. In the end, we had a solution that was different from what we first outlined, and it was better.”

Tatjana Lalkovic, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer added, “Deloitte brought important expertise in this space to our collaboration. They helped us not only with delivery, but also to develop important skills on our technology teams that will enable ongoing innovation with AI.”

Definity has seen marked call center improvements, as well as happier contact center employees who feel more empowered to make decisions. The company is building on the positive experiences and cost savings by training call center employees to support other business areas, including underwriting. By first building and testing one specific use case in the contact center, Definity has developed the ability to scale gen AI across the company with future applications. They are continuously taking a thoughtful approach to other enterprise applications of the technology.

Aligning behind the power of AI

We’re really pleased by what we’ve accomplished so far and are excited to see the business benefits we can achieve to further boost customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and employee engagement in the future.

Paul MacDonald

Executive Vice President, Personal Insurance & Digital Channels, Definity

Deloitte brought important expertise in this space to our collaboration. They helped us not only with delivery, but also to develop important skills on our technology teams that will enable ongoing innovation with AI.

Tatjana Lalkovic

Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Definity

Looking ahead, Definity plans to continue working with Deloitte and Google Cloud to use AI for future contact center capabilities as well as other business areas.

“We’re really pleased by what we’ve accomplished so far and are excited to see the business benefits we can achieve in the future to further boost customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and employee engagement,” says MacDonald.

Adds Mills, “Our collaboration with Deloitte and Google Cloud is strong. We act as a unified team to achieve our goals. Even if challenges come up, we work together to quickly resolve them. It is a testament to the strength of our collaboration.”

Definity Financial Corporation is the parent company to some of Canada’s most long-standing and innovative multi-channel, property and casualty insurance companies and distributors, including Economical Insurance, Sonnet Insurance, Family Insurance Solutions, and Petline Insurance. Definity is a three-time Guidewire Innovation Award winner and the first P&C insurer in Canada to form a strategic partnership with Google Cloud.

Industry: Financial Services

Location: Canada

Products: Google Cloud, BigQuery, Dialogflow CX, Dataflow, Contact Center AI (CCAI), Vertex AI


About Google Cloud Partner- Deloitte

Deloitte, a three-time Google Cloud Global Services Partner of the Year, specializes in assisting organizations through their AI and digital transformations.

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