Highlighting digitalisation the Great Eastern way

The company took home the Life Insurance category win at the SBR National Business Awards 2024.

The advancement of technology has greatly impacted the way interactions take place, how information is gathered, and the service expectations customers have of the brands they invest in.

As one of the leading insurers in Singapore, Great Eastern’s commitment to customer centricity and developing a seamless experience to customers has always been of utmost importance. Going digital is a continuous journey to help move in tandem with the ever-evolving engagement with all customers and financial representatives.

Its key to digitalisation is always to improve and deepen the engagement with current policyholders, financial representatives, as well as potential customers. Over the years of development, two major apps have emerged from Great Eastern – the Great Eastern App for policyholders, and the GreatPlanner for financial representatives. 

The Great Eastern App introduces a groundbreaking approach to insurance management, bringing together a comprehensive suite of features to revolutionise the user experience. It leverages technology to provide policyholders with unparalleled convenience and control over their insurance portfolio and financial well-being.

From paperless eDocument management to seamless service requests and a Financial StoryBoard report for a comprehensive financial check, the app introduces a new era of user-centric insurance solutions.

The app has developed easier to use features to enhance the seamless engagement from buying General Insurance, Fund Switching, Fund Apportionment and more. It has also made the simple tasks needed by policyholders easier, faster and more convenient to fulfil.

The Great Eastern App has elevated the company's position as an innovator in the insurance industry, enhancing its customer service capabilities, streamlining internal processes and even making mundane administrative procedures simpler and easier in the process. Externally, the app has set a new standard for user-friendly insurance solutions, influencing the industry's approach to customer engagement and service delivery.

Meanwhile, the GreatPlanner, which was initially launched in 2019, works hand-in-hand with other digital platforms created by Great Eastern for its agency force.

As the ways of working changed over the last few years and affected the daily sales journey for financial representatives, a study has been undertaken to reimagine how this can be leveraged on digital tools to scale up agent’s productivity. The findings of this study led to the launch of the upgraded GreatPlanner in September 2023. 

The new GreatPlanner combines the functionalities of its predecessor along with edGE, an app that representatives have heavily relied on for their productivity over the last few years. This has brought about an intuitive platform that can handle customer policy queries and relationship building, monitoring and pacing financial representative’s performances, and maximising their sales opportunities.

It enables planning and prioritisation of daily activities through a comprehensive dashboard, regular pacing of agency performance and monitoring of goals, and in-depth understanding of customers, amongst others.

In less than six weeks, the new GreatPlanner achieved 80% usage with active representatives. This record surpassed all previous platform adoption rates. At this point, the platform has reached more than 90% of active representatives. The app is constantly upgrading in functionality with more customer-centric updates being worked on to help representatives know their customers better and create greater sales engagement opportunities. 

The success of its solutions has earned Great Eastern the recognition from the SBR National Business Awards 2024, receiving the win in the Life Insurance category. “Great Eastern continues to enhance, improve, and add more digital features. The relationship between financial representatives and customers is ever-evolving and we continue to be on top with our great digitalisation,” the company said.

The coveted awards programme honours local and homegrown companies in Singapore for their exceptional projects, driving innovation and contributing significantly to the nation's robust economy.

The SBR National Business Awards is presented by Singapore Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2025 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's exceptional contributions to the local business landscape in Singapore, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].