How insurers can keep customers happy when moving online
Digital product launches are a moment-in-time opportunity to prove to customers that you can weather transition.
For some time now, the movement of property & casualty insurance from an in-person, manual transaction to an online purchase has allowed carriers to expand their scopes nationwide, serving a wide variety of communities and customers.
This digital shift also means insurance carriers need to provide a more robust, intuitive online presence. Half of all American adults say they shopped for or researched life insurance online in 2017. This behavior is also reflected in data that show 62% of consumers confirming the belief that sharing personal data is part of the modern economy.
But customers expect something in return for turning over that personal data.
Nearly 60% of millennial consumers say the more information they share with a company, the higher their expectations become for a better experience. Achieving that level of service means carriers need to better understand which features matter most to consumers. For some executives, that also means engaging the tough reality of building a digital value proposition that regains consumer confidence after early missteps from previous digital launches.
Unlocking opportunities by moving online
Large digital changes can be a cause for concern among carriers — and understandably so. Digital product launches are a moment-in-time opportunity to prove to customers that you can weather transition — and well. If an insurance carrier can handle “must-deliver” moments like a digital launch, customers will extend trust to them during high-stakes moments in their own lives. That’s especially critical for property & casualty insurers.
Customers want their insurers’ websites to look, feel and function the way they’ve come to expect from the rest of their targeted personal technology. They want to easily access coverage information, have their questions answered and make payments.
Consider the following:
- In a recent survey conducted by Insureon, a small business insurance marketplace, 19% of small business owners cited ease of access to information and documents as their primary concern when shopping for coverage.
- One-quarter (24%) of small business owners worry that by purchasing insurance online, they won’t be able to speak with an agent. This fear can dissuade them entirely from purchasing business insurance online.
Insurers who have invested in a robust online experience will be able to offer tools that enhance a customer’s experience rather than replacing one form of communication with another. Carriers in this digital era need to implement a multi-channel strategy to build a bridge for customers between their digital and physical experiences.
The challenge then becomes, how do carriers decide which functionalities are most essential to get right the first time?
Build with a product-focused mindset
Legacy systems in most insurance company settings were never intended to consider the deep needs and desires of the member as an end-user. Today’s consumer complaints around the insurance industry are (predictably) an indictment of a longstanding project-based approach to enterprise technology. As more companies seek to rewrite this history by improving their business’ value proposition through a product mindset, consumer experience sits front and center:
- In 2016, 72% of businesses said improving customer experience was their top priority, but only 63% of marketers prioritized technology investments to help achieve this goal.
- Eighty-four percent of consumers say it is important to be able to ask questions when buying something for the first time.
- Managing time expectations is a key driver of satisfaction. While the time it took to settle a claim is the single lowest-rated attribute in a recent study, even groups that have the longest time-to-settlement rate their experience better when time frames are properly managed. Time-to-settle satisfaction ratings are 1.9 points lower on a 10 point scale when insurers miss customer timing expectations, no matter the time frame.
Digital partners that offer platform modernization services will help you zero in on essential pain points for the modern customer, and have an eye on how the industry — and shoppers’ needs — will evolve. For example, in our work with one consumer insurance company, Nerdery identified the need to make its applications accessible to people with disabilities and impairments, a key benefit for an aging baby boomer population.
Bringing the right group to the table
To effectively move into the digital space, insurance providers can’t just outsource the work to an IT group and wait for the finished product to arrive. Objectives, key results and KPIs need to be designed by a cross-functional, internal team of stakeholders. If an organization employs a chief digital or information officer, that person should play a leading role in a group that includes sales, communications, marketing, R&D and, of course, IT.
Along with the core goals mentioned above, the leader should ensure that the team views your move to digital as a unified, evolving unit, rather than a series of projects and boxes that need to be checked. This will keep individuals from focusing on their own departments and ignoring the goals of the company as a whole.
What to do if you get it wrong
The reality of digital competition among carriers is that customers will move between solutions offered by different companies. This isn’t a reason to panic — but it is a critical opportunity to gain insight into what exactly has caused their movement. Your member off-boarding, which ideally has a digitized component, is the best source of insights for planning your digital road map. Consider the following:
- Hyper-segment your customers to improve. If you’ve lost customers due to digital failures, customers need to be shown that you’ve put work into understanding what different segments of people need, and have rolled out features and improvements to meet those core needs. People want to not only feel heard, but to see the meaningful results of actually being heard. Your insurance offerings, website functionality and customer service shouldn’t feel like a one-size-fits-all experience.
- Educate your brokers on exactly what you’ve done. The front lines of insurance are often battled out on the phone lines and office tables of brokers in the field. As you improve digitally, whether the roll-out is small or large, keep your channels in the field deeply and intricately connected to what you have done — and ensure they understand why.
Above all, insurance providers need to let customers know they care — before, during and after any digital transformation. The right kind of communication from your company and its associates will make the difference in their choice of insurance provider.
Taqee Khaled (taqee.khaled@nerdery.com) is director of Strategy at Nerdery. These opinions are the author’s own.
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