Janashakthi Insurance partners with zMessenger to answer customer queries

By Rashika Fazali

For the first time in Sri Lanka, Janashakthi Insurance has launched a two-way communication link between its employees and the customer.

Yesterday, Janakshathi Insurance announced the partnership with zMessenger, a mobile solutions provider that will provide a platform to all Janashakthi customers to interact with the company via a mobile application.

At a press briefing, Janashakthi Insurance Assistant General Manager Marketing Ravi Balraj said: “As a brand, now is the time to strengthen our market position. We want to go from mind-share to heart-share.”

 He added that this move will further strengthen the brand, its current consumers and prospective consumers as well.

He also revealed that although the company is very happy with its progress, they still feel the need to constantly improve nevertheless.

By downloading the Janashakthi Mobile application on the Android market, consumers can utilise it to get in touch with Janashakthi and get their insurance-related queries answered. This is a feature that has not been available to insurance policy holders before.

However, zMessenger CEO Jayomi Lokuliyana explained that consumers would not necessarily need to possess a smart phone to interact with Janashakthi. She explained that the system has the technology to identify a consumer’s phone model and adapt accordingly. Depending on the device used, consumers can either have access via the mobile application or the mobile web.

Furthermore, Lokuliyana noted that technology has changed consumer behaviour drastically and therefore it is important to move with the times in order to gain market share. She added: “It has been said that brands are not created by the company anymore, but co-created by consumers.”

The mobile industry in Sri Lanka is an ever-growing industry that is continuously challenged. She asserted, “Mobile has become very powerful in Sri Lanka. There are around 20 million subscribers.”

She explained that 40% of the country’s mobile phone market consists of smart phone users and these figures are expected to grow exponentially by a massive 400% in this year alone.

Regarding this new partnership, Janashakthi Insurance Sales and Marketing General Manager Shehara De Silva stated: “Communication is always two ways. Everyone’s buying and selling. It’s totally a different world and they (zMessenger) have created a gateway for us.”

This system was used internally before but the one issue Janashakthi encountered was the inability for consumers to get real-time answers to their questions and in today’s technologically advanced world, receiving consumer feedback has become vital for company growth.

At present, the mobile application can only be used for queries with regards to insurance. However, in addition, Janashakthi has more plans to enable its customers to make payments through their mobiles as well. This is an ongoing process and would be ready in one to two years time stated Lokuliyana.

Recently, Janashakthi won a platinum award for excellence in communications at the League of American Communication Professionals (LACP)’s Global Communications Competition; the 2012/2013 Spotlight Awards. The company won the award for its 2012 Annual Report titled ‘A transformative spirit’, defeating many corporate giants like Intel Corporation, Cisco Systems, Colgate-Palmolive to name a few.

Last year they also won an international technology award for the “Best Insurer Technology Award” at the Asia Insurance Technology Awards 2012.