Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) transforms customer service and communications with Dynamics 365

Zurich Insurance Group is a leading multi-line insurer serving people and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) has served the Hong Kong community with a full range of flexible investment, life insurance, and general insurance solutions for consumers and businesses since 1961. The company turned to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights (Journeys), and agents created in Microsoft Copilot Studio to simplify customer support for both customers and support staff, reducing email and call volumes, offering deeper insights into customers, and streamlining marketing campaigns and activities.

Meeting unmet needs with Dynamics 365 Contact Center

For years, Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) customers called or emailed the company’s customer care center to inquire about insurance products and policy and claim services. Increasingly, however, Hong Kong consumers rely on WhatsApp for communication—in fact, a 2023 survey by Statista revealed that more than 70% of respondents in Hong Kong use WhatsApp daily. Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) also wanted to integrate its call, chat, and SMS channels to provide better service and get a deeper view of customers.

"Prior to utilizing CRM, managing customer activities involved multiple steps and it was difficult to consolidate customer profiles and track timelines," says Sivasankar Ramadoss, Architect, Digital Platforms at Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong).

It was clear that a new CRM was needed. Zurich Insurance Group had been using Microsoft Dynamics 365 companywide since 2015, making the choice easier. Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) implemented Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Sales in 2019 to streamline case management and get a 360-degree customer view. It added Dynamics 365 Customer Insights three years later to help marketing staff automate their email campaigns and track sales leads. In 2024, Dynamics 365 Contact Center rounded out the new CRM system, extending the Customer Service app to help the company instantly connect and engage with its customers through the WhatsApp live chat channel, and call through a custom integration with the company’s phone system. “Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, we can serve our customers through their preferred communication platform, including WhatsApp, for their convenience,” says Raymond Wong, Head of IT at Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong).

Supporting customers where they are

By integrating the Twilio customer engagement platform with Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) added WhatsApp to its menu of customer communication channels. “Prior to Dynamics 365 Contact Center, the only way our customers could connect to a live support representative was to call or email,” explains Pheona Tam, Head of Customer Services Management at Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong). “Now, they can quickly contact support via WhatsApp, or they can chat with a bot [an agent created in Microsoft Copilot Studio] through WhatsApp that might be able to answer simple questions. For further assistance, customers can conduct live chats with our staff who use CRM.” As a result, customers no longer have to wait in a long queue on the phone for help.

Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) uses Dynamics 365 and an agent, also created in Copilot Studio, to automate part of the motor vehicle insurance claim process. Certain claims are sent to external surveyors for assessment. The surveyors can use WhatsApp to provide updates directly to the Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) CRM, which are automatically sent to the customer through SMS or email. “That whole process was longer before, because customers had to call our customer care center for updates,” Ramadoss says. Dynamics 365 updates customers promptly by streamlining and automating the process.

Reducing call volume and improving efficiency

Integrating WhatsApp and Copilot Studio agents into the support process reduced the volume of calls and emails while helping customer care center employees respond to inquiries faster.

“With Dynamics 365, live chat comprises 10 to 20% of total incoming call volume,” says Tam. “Our support employees are more efficient now, so they can easily manage up to two chats at the same time.”

An agent triages customer issues and captures preliminary information such as policy numbers before escalating a chat to the live support team. “Because the agent handles the initial triage, support staff already know what the customer needs help with and can respond faster as a result,” says Ramadoss.

Delivering better service with a holistic view 

With integrated WhatsApp, call, SMS, and email communications in Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) support staff have a holistic view of all customer policy information in one location, regardless of the communication channel. “We’ve consolidated core data in Dynamics 365, so our front-end colleagues have the full picture and transaction history of a customer when they communicate with them,” Ramadoss says. Support teams can easily view the full conversation history, marketing communications from promotions, and even whether the customer has called multiple times, helping them better understand and resolve customer inquiries. “This gives us deeper insight into our customers, so we can understand how they like to communicate with us as well as how to optimize our products and services based on their specific needs,” adds Ramadoss. 

Streamlining marketing campaigns

The 360-degree view of its customers that Dynamics 365 Contact Center offers allowed the company to streamline the delivery of marketing campaigns and communications. Marketing teams can use SMS, WhatsApp, or email for their marketing campaigns and importing marketing lists is no longer necessary because Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is integrated with Customer Service. With Dynamics 365 Contact Center, marketing can provide more customized offers to customers by segmentation that could lead to business opportunities. 

What’s next

Zurich Insurance (Hong Kong) is piloting Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service to help support staff quickly search the knowledge base during a live chat to resolve problems faster. “We’re planning to enhance our multi-language support and bring this solution to more employees in the future,” says Ramadoss. “We are excited to use Dynamics 365 to continue to better serve our customers.”