Agencies not quite grasping what customers want in an insurance experience

“I think one of the interesting and sobering things of the report is the realization from firms that they don’t always have the resources to do everything that they know they need to do,” Hackney says. “As they continue to learn about the possibilities, they are looking to make investments in the technology and in the overall staffing to drive customer experience. From our perspective, while tech can seem daunting, the investment to drive customer experience can seem large. The use of multiple channels, and the recognition of mobility will drive productivity over time.”

Accessing and interacting with agencies are the essential activities that customers engage in throughout their insurance journeys. Within the next four years, respondents say that e-mail (about 90 percent) and face-to-face (about 80 percent) interactions will be the most helpful, which indicates that agencies may be out of touch with what customers want.

“We are doubtful that F2F will be important for personal lines of P&C insurance in four years, whether for purchase, administrative service or claim notification. We also are doubtful that customers who have purchased commercial P&C insurance will be satisfied with F2F for administrative transactions or even investing their time in e-mail threads to get service interaction resolved,” the report says, and suggests click-to-chat and click-to-call as the most important interaction options within the next four years.

“Insurance agents are not thinking futuristically enough about where they need to be in the next couple of years,” Hackney says.

And interaction isn’t the only segment in which agencies fall short on realizing what customers actually want. Although agencies recognize the mobile value of e-signatures and PDF files, Applied asks agencies to take that a step further as clients will expect to start and complete the entire policy acquisition process on their smart devices, request consumer services using video connections and smart devices, and complete these tasks through apps.

Social media

Social media can level the playing field between small and large firms, the report says, and can be done with three best practices:

1. Manage the agency’s brand and reputation.

2. Monitor comments about the agency and correct errors­ — but never get into an argument. Use client comments to strengthen any perceived weaknesses.

3. Provide information about the agency, its services and producers. Be prepared to answer questions.

Social media also can be used the wrong way:

1. Using a social media site as a cold-call list.

2. Engaging in a hard sell.

3. Joining a site primarily to sell products.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook and LinkedIn are the top two social media sites. Within the next four years, YouTube will become an increasingly important social media site, as society moves from text to pictures to video over time.

What the insurance industry needs to do is keep doing what we have done, and that’s building our businesses through relationships,” Hackney says. “But take advantage of tech advancements that we have seen over the last 20 years. It’s a great way to grow the insurance industry and drive that level of engagement.”

See also:

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