VITALITY
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“ If you just concentrate on trying to deliver value for your customers and creating an exceptional experience , more often than not , you ’ re going to do the right thing ”
— Dave Priestley , Chief Digital Officer , Vitality
of ‘ Vitality at home ’. This involved negotiating commercial arrangements to provide members with discounts linked to physical activity and integrating with these partners so that a fully digital end to end experience was up and running within three weeks of lockdown starting .
“ That was a big success for us ; we were still able to provide comprehensive wellness benefits to our members by capitalising on our cultural assets .” In many ways the achievement encapsulated the thoroughness of Vitality ’ s strategy and demonstrated its adept digital skills . It also demonstrates Priestley ’ s insistence that any tech innovation introduced has a functional purpose in delivering quality service to users . “ Philosophically , Vitality focuses on the outcome we ’ re looking for and then works out what technology solution would be best .” Not allowing the technology itself to guide his approach , Priestley says that the current applications of blockchain would not benefit the company ’ s customers at this time , although explorations of AI ( artificial intelligence ) and ML ( machine learning ) had revealed their potential for ‘ proactive servicing ’. “ You can then reach out to customers and ask , ‘ How can we help ?’ We ’ re also using ML models to power personalisation in the experience , as well as RPA ( robotic process automation ) to speed up admin and allow our staff to focus on value-adding work instead .”
Although 2020 has been a catalyst year for change across so many aspects of life globally , Vitality retains the same level of commitment to making people healthier that it always has . There can be no mistake : the insurance industry is changing , with or without COVID-19 , but the desire for digital transformation which the pandemic ’ s restrictions have introduced is here to stay . “ Things
OCTOBER 2020