Iris Global: Making insurance more customer-centric by automating tasks with Google Cloud
About Iris Global by SANTALUCIA
Iris Global specializes in insurance solutions and services for companies, brokers, and individuals, and is part of market-leading insurance group SANTALUCIA.
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About Emergya
Emergya is a team of cloud-first pioneers who create digital solutions that aim to improve the everyday lives of people around the world.
Iris Global automates up to 80% of its document classification with Vertex AI and Vision AI, resulting in better customer service and faster response times.
Google Cloud results
- Speeds up customer response times by 60%, automating up to 80% of document classification with Vertex AI and Vision AI
- Frees up employees to focus on more valuable tasks by removing monotonous work from their day-to-day roles
- Facilitates the creation and improvement of ML models with pre-built models and no-code approach on Vertex AI
Automates up to 80% of document classification
When we’re dealing with insurance, it’s often in times of stress, be it a canceled trip, medical assistance or an unexpected lawsuit. But what if the assistance experience could reduce the unwanted stress of these moments, rather than add to it? That’s the mission of Iris Global, meet people’s needs through assistance, giving them peace of mind and enhancing their lives.
Quick response times are a cornerstone of good customer service, but customer queries are just one of many things insurance employees have to deal with. One of the most time-intensive tasks is document management, as nearly every insurance process involves a lot of paperwork. By teaming up with Google Cloud, Iris Global saw an opportunity to better serve its customers by automating these low-level document management processes.
"The less time our employees spend on non-value adding tasks, such as document management, the more they can focus on our customers," says Claudia Del Grosso Ogara, Media Director, Iris Global. "Google Cloud offers some of the most advanced AI and automation tools in the industry, which is why we selected it to build our document automation solution."
Looking for development and implementation support, the Iris Global team met up with a few potential technology partners. One of them stood out from the rest: "Emergya won us over with their experience," says Del Grosso Ogara. "Many consultants claim to be experts in these new cloud and automation technologies, but Emergya had the results and the customer success to back it up. That gave us the confidence to work with them, and we’re glad that we did."
"The less time our employees spend on non-value adding tasks, such as document management, the more they can focus on our customers. Google Cloud offers some of the most advanced AI and automation tools in the industry, which is why we selected it to build our document automation solution."
—Claudia Del Grosso Ogara, Media Director, Iris GlobalAutomating up to 80% of document classification
In just 16 weeks, Iris Global and Emergya built an automatic document classification tool on Google Cloud. Based on Vertex AI and Vision AI, the solution classifies each claims-related document Iris Global receives automatically. Thanks to the Vision AI implementation, documents can be uploaded in many file formats, from JPEGs to TIFFs.
"With its no-code approach and pre-built machine learning models, Vertex AI enabled us to create the base solution really fast," explains Del Grosso Ogara. "From this starting point, we trained the models to better understand Iris Global’s insurance documents, and assign them to one of the 23 pre-defined categories."
The ML models are still in training, but the time savings are already significant. "In the past, our employees had to manually check and classify 30.000 documents per month. Today, our new ML tool can assign half of these documents to the correct category automatically, doing work that would otherwise require three full time employees – and we’re confident we can get the success rate up to 90%."
"By automating low-level, high-volume work, we have more time to take care of our customers' needs even during busy times. Since implementing the solution, we’re able to respond three times faster to customer queries."
—Claudia Del Grosso Ogara, Media Director, Iris GlobalDelighting insurance customers with faster service
With less time spent on document classification, the Iris Global team can focus on more valuable tasks and adapt to increasing workloads. These added resources are crucial in the insurance world, where claims don’t come in at a steady pace.
"Because people file claims based on external factors, such as weather events or holidays, our workload is highly dependent on things beyond our control," explains Del Grosso Ogara. "By automating low-level, high-volume work, we have more time to take care of our customers' needs even during busy times. Since implementing the solution, we’re able to respond three times faster to customer queries." Meanwhile, Iris Global was also able to reduce the amount of mistakes that invariably happen when humans carry out manual tasks.
"The quality of our services can have a big impact on our customers' daily lives, which is why customer excellence is our biggest priority. AI technology from Google Cloud has opened up a new world of possibilities for us when it comes to improving the customer experience. We’re excited to keep innovating together."
—Claudia Del Grosso Ogara, Media Director, Iris GlobalEnabling employees to focus on more important tasks
Automation is a game-changer, but like any disruptive technology, it can take some time for employees to adjust. However, Del Grosso Ogara says that Iris Global’s employees soon embraced the document classification tool as a real time-saver that frees them up from monotonous routines: "The Google Cloud-enabled automation tool has made the day-to-day lives of our employees more interesting. And during busier periods, they no longer have to increase their workload to adapt. Overall, the employee feedback has been great."
Having shown that both customers and employees benefit from automation, Del Grosso Ogara and her team are already hard at work on their next project. With solutions from Google Cloud and support from Emergya, they’re planning to build a virtual agent that can provide even faster assistance to customers with specific queries.
"The quality of our services can have a big impact on our customers' daily lives, which is why customer excellence is our biggest priority," explains Del Grosso Ogara. "AI technology from Google Cloud has opened up a new world of possibilities for us when it comes to improving the customer experience. Our industry is transforming, and we are leading the change towards a more personal insurance experience."
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Iris Global by SANTALUCIA
Iris Global specializes in insurance solutions and services for companies, brokers, and individuals, and is part of market-leading insurance group SANTALUCIA.
About Emergya
Emergya is a team of cloud-first pioneers who create digital solutions that aim to improve the everyday lives of people around the world.