Customer loyalty, retention are top measures of success

Most insurers measure customer communications success in terms of customer loyalty, retention and satisfaction, according to a new survey.

Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass., discloses this finding in a new report commissioned by GMC Software Technology, entitled, “Insurance Companies are Falling Behind in Delivering Modern Communications.” The study polled 90 business and IT decision-makers at insurers to ascertain their top communications priorities, “pain points,” objectives and implementation challenges.

More than six in ten (63 percent) insurers polled say they measure customer communications success in terms of customer loyalty, retention and satisfaction. Significant percentages of respondents also identified increased revenue due to better customer experience (54 percent); lowered cost of servicing and acquiring customers (46 percent); error reduction (33 percent); and acceleration of customer action through intuitive user experiences (29 percent).

When asked the top business goal underpinning customer communications, nearly three in ten of the respondents (28 percent) identify improving customer service with more rapid and targeted communications. Also flagged as a top business are the following:

Lowering costs through increased automation (20 percent);

Improving the quality of and accessibility of customer data for cross-channel and department-initiated processes (8 percent);

Improving content/brand consistency and reuse of content for cross-channel communications (9 percent);