As every insurer today knows, the rise of digitalization and the always-on consumer has created a highly educated pool of fickle customers.
To win loyalty in this competitive industry, insurance companies must find ways to:
1. Communicate directly with customers as opposed to through agents
2. Establish a superior customer experience across all touchpoints
3. Simplify operational processes such as request to send missing documents, claim management or renewal of a policy
4. Personalize their customer communication to fit the millennial age
Unfortunately, most insurance companies struggle from a technology perspective to deliver in today’s digital world.
In truth, very few insurance companies excel at both acquisition and retention. Here we will look at how digital and personalization technologies can increase engagement with potential buyer and existing customers in many different ways.
Less Sales – More Content
Traditionally, insurance agents bore the brunt of the sales processes themselves, bringing the latest programs and services to potential buyers in a direct, one-to-one engagement method. In the digital age, consumers have the world at their fingertips – they can do all the research necessary to make an educated decision themselves. They don’t need insurance agents – they need consumable information!
To attract digital consumers in the acquisition stage, insurers must create truly engaging online portals. If you don’t already, give potential customers the ability to easily get online quotes and compare prices. Make it visual and engaging – consider using pop ups to quickly collect the baseline data needed to create a quote. By making the process seem easy, people are more likely to continue on the path to purchase.
Be sure to use the data collected to personalize follow-up and nurturing communications.
Remake your Onboarding Process
Just because the insurance business is steeped in regulatory procedures, it doesn’t mean that customers need to be subjected to a tedious sign up process. Use interactive, digital media to deliver messages in a more snackable form – provide top level information and allow new customers to drill into details as they like. Through personalized videos, you can make the process faster and more engaging from the start – a benefit customers off all type can appreciate.
Leverage Customer Service to Drive Loyalty
Working with customers that have a claim is a company’s chance to shine and gain loyalty. At this stage, your customer interacts with you – make sure you delight your customers across this experience. Even if your company is hampered by legacy systems, you need to find ways to move those services online. Not only does this help you reduce costs, it’s the way many people prefer to work – especially the millennials who prefer to engage online rather to speak to a customer service representative no matter how lovely she is.
But it’s not enough to create a web application and think that you’re all set. Claims management is complicated and people need guidance to complete the process. If customers get stuck in the middle, they’ll be frustrated and your call center will soon be overwhelmed with requests for assistance. At this stage you’ve lost NPS points by your digital consumer. Preempt these issues with videos that explain the process. Make them personalized for the user and his/her claim type ,coverage plan and stage – you can even design them to connect one step to the next to keep the entire process on track. Include details for local assistance (authorized claim centers, agent information, etc.) to help customers when they run into trouble.
By taking the hassle out of the claims process and making it digital, companies will earn points with loyal customers and lower the operational costs in the process.
Make your Offers Stand Apart from the Clutter
Customer-centric insurance companies with a digital presence are 26% more profitable than companies with traditional approaches. Engaging with the educated consumer requires insurance companies to cut through the clutter of complicated regulations and sales processes to delight customers to give you continued business.
Implementing a personalized video and communications strategy is the perfect way to differentiate and simplify the insurance sales and service processes. By leveraging visual storytelling, personalized communications strategies can significantly improve customer satisfaction and NPS scores.
Consumers may not love insurance, but they need it and someone has to provide it. By engaging with potential customers personally before, during, and after the buying process, insurance companies can gain a competitive advantage that wasn’t possible before the age of the educated consumer.
To find out more about Idomoo’s easy-to-use Personalized Video as a Service Platform (PVaaS™) and how we can help you reach your customers and drive action, contact us below.
