Most of us are familiar with the term "customer journey," whichtells the story of how customers interact with companies from theirperspective. By identifying and understanding our customers'journeys, we can better gauge and guide their experiences with usas a company–fostering positive, long-term relationships thatbenefit both the customer and the organization. But the process ofunderstanding that journey across communication and distributionchannels–while creating a consistent customer experience–haslargely eluded the insurance industry.

One of the primary challenges is most insurers' technology anddata infrastructures don't support a customer-centric perspective.Policy-level legacy systems and applications built literallydecades ago still hum in modern data centers. Over the past fewyears, insurers have made strides in modernizing theirinfrastructure, but primarily under the guise of cost andoperational-efficiency.

Even with the re-architecture and implementation of new policyadministration systems and new claim systems, carriers have failedto capitalize (and invest in) capabilities that drive long-term,profitable relationships. The argument being that a new policyadministration system may create efficiencies and drive downlong-term operational costs but won't necessarily drive newcustomers to the door.