Insurance 2021:
The State of Customer and Agent Engagement
As consumers continue to migrate to the digital world for everything from supermarket purchases to mortgage refinancing, it’s critical that insurance companies and their sales and marketing teams have the right tools at their disposal to succeed.
The last year has shown that consumers are moving faster than brands can keep up. The digital means of communication that might have once been considered secondary for insurance marketing and communication are now the established means through which consumers want to engage.
Digital communication and conversational marketing tools are increasingly critical for customer acquisition, customer loyalty, retention, and churn reduction.
And even as the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out, it’s becoming clear that customers will be reluctant to lower their expectations when it comes to digital communication and transactions.
Goodbye lengthy phone calls and in-person meetings
The pace at which we are embracing digital channels for our interactions with companies, and getting our work done show no sign of slowing. Email, SMS, Video Chat that used to come a distant second to in-person discussions or phone conversations are now our primary (and arguably preferred) means of engagement.
With digital communication no longer the domain of early-adopters, we need a new type of customer experience that satisfies mainstream consumers.
The most successful brands are reinvigorating their current tactics as well as creating new approaches to foster customer loyalty and acquisition.
Customers need digital communication that is easy to use and feels personal.
In regards to the insurance industry, maintaining customer loyalty, acquiring new customers, and deepening the relationship between the brand and agents are major communications challenges in need of innovation and transformation.
Personalized, conversational, digital
Insurance is a business model built on human interaction. The acquisition of new customers is so often driven by positive customer experience which generates new business via referrals. Loyalty is dependent upon a feeling of customers having a relationship with their agent.
Forward looking, industry leaders are engaging their customers and enabling agents with seamless communications tools so conversations and transactions can transition between web, email, SMS, voice, and more.
In this guide for insurers, we look at the power of multi-channel communications and conversational marketing to connect with consumers — powered by Whispir’s communications tools. Whispir’s goal is to help insurance sales and marketing teams transform their relationship with customers and succeed in an increasingly competitive and digitized industry.
The Communication Challenges for
Insurance Providers
The Communication Challenges for
Insurance Providers
Building a comprehensive single source of truth for customer communication is critical for ensuring effective and accurate engagement and sending relevant notifications and messages.
If communication is siloed and can’t be easily reported on and analysed, it will not be possible to pre-empt customer queries, market new product offers, and offer additional value to policyholders.
Reduce churn by improving customer engagement
A great brand positioning and a big media budget coupled with product or service differentiation can drive customer acquisition.
But, converting leads, growing the value of customers, and reducing churn will be achieved by building digital, personalised and relevant messages—all leading to higher engagement.
Centralised communication creates operational efficiencies
Siloed and “semi-integrated” communications software requires maintenance and manual workarounds— sucking up marketing employees’ time.
Instead of helping, the technology becomes a distraction, or leaves teams dependent on ‘heroes’ to keep everything working.
The insurance companies which thrive over the next ten years will be those that use software to enable their team to do more.
A successful multi-channel communications plan requires dynamic channels (including SMS, email, voice, video chat, and web) that can facilitate engaging and two-way communication. For marketers, transforming their companies’ digital capabilities, it’s important that it’s as easy as possible to put all these channels together in a continuous, seamless customer journey.
What are we doing about it?
A customer may engage with your brand via a social post on their LinkedIn feed which prompts them to click through to your website or even trigger an SMS marketing/sales campaign.
Some clients will not engage with an email but will respond to text messages, while others will prefer one channel for reaching out to customer support, another for making purchases, and another for inbound promotions. Each customer has a
different preference, and as best as possible, insurers need to offer a range of options that can accommodate all.
With automated multi-channel communications, a high quality, high-touch customer experience can be delivered.
Consumers decide the right place and right time to have a conversation
Customers no longer purchase their insurance between the hours of nine-to-five. For insurers who are only available to finalise a purchase or make a premium change during these hours, it’s time to take a hard look. Why is that still the case?
When agents go offline, customers might be persuaded to buy from the competition. This doesn’t mean agents should be replaced by websites or call centers. It means agents need digital tools and a multi-channel strategy
and touchpoints that keeps customers from churning or choosing a competitor’s offer.
Insurance organisations that possess an integrated multi-channel toolset will continuously stand out, gain qualified leads, and maximize conversion throughout the customer lifecycle.
In order to support clients’ nonlinear journeys, while transacting with them at the right time and place, insurers will need to adopt a multi-channel approach supported by these three pillars:
1. One size doesn’t fit all
While the majority of insurers have built a digital presence, a legacy of static and basic rudimentary digital communication practices still exists.
A digital marketing campaign promoting a sales or new product offering, blasted through a mass SMS will no longer cut through.
98% of people might open your SMS but every individual contact within a campaign has dozens of communications channels in the palm of their hand today. And therefore,
are now much more particular about what they respond to depending on the platform and timing through which the message is sent.
For many, an SMS with a basic response prompt won’t be enough to fulfil their need for more information.
By leveraging a contact’s channel preferences, insurers can send a message via SMS, email, social, or even WhatsApp. This can include a direct link to a customised rich message landing page, personalised to the recipient, which includes more information and facilitates interactions such as booking a consultation, filling a web form, providing feedback, and so on.
2. Creating a single view of the customer
A single customer view (SCV) provides organisations with the ability to track audience activity and their communications across every channel.
When the SCV and communications are managed via one platform, powerful reporting
and analytics provides detailed insights into how interactions and behaviours will drive future engagement.
By developing a better picture of each customer and their communications journey, insurers will have the intel for future interactions which are more engaging and meaningful, helping to increase the lifetime value of each customer. Siloed communications are executed as
a series of individual efforts connected only by similar branding. In contrast, an SCV approach connects the marketing efforts.
3. Giving your customers ‘choice’ in their communications journey: Integration of channels
Insurance companies with a digital transformation roadmap must adopt multi-channel communication to ensure they can connect with customers digitally at each step in the buyer journey and customer lifecycle.
The problem many face however, is an ever-growing collection of siloed and divided channel platforms.
Whispir gives organisations unprecedented flexibility in multi-channel communications. Allowing your organisation to have real conversations with your audience on the platform that suits them by effortlessly pivoting across multiple channels.
A multi-channel communications plan and smart automations to facilitate customers switching from one channel to the next provides the foundation for a great customer experience. And in a world where we are bombarded by digital communications, personal, authentic and relative messaging is advantageous to any company or broker.
When done right, digital, conversational marketing delivers a customer experience that leads to increased repeat business from clients, a higher rate of referrals, and a desire for customers to bring over other insurance policies that are still with competitors.
What do customers expect from their insurance providers?
Personalised
Clients want to be treated as unique individuals and expect personalised policies that
reflect their lifestyle, habits, and digital/technology footprint, as well as how they interact.
73% of customers/clients expect businesses/companies to understand their needs and expectations at an individual level while 62% want agents to adapt based on their actions and behaviour².
Proactive
Clients expect their insurers to proactively anticipate their needs and add value to the interaction ahead of time.
85% of customers will share relevant information about themselves in exchange for proactive customer service¹.
Predictive
Clients want seamless experiences irrespective of interaction channel and department.
78% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments².
Productive
Clients expect each interaction to produce the desired outcome and quickly.
More than one-third of customers believe that the convenience of “getting things done the first time” is more important than contact options¹.
Convenient
Clients seek easier access to their insurers, whether to enquire about regulation policy, get a quote, sign up, onboard, request your services or be informed on its status, on their preferred interaction platform.
71% of customers used some form of digital research before buying insurance (e.g., price comparison or social media); 26% bought their policies online (e.g., web or mobile device)³.
Secure
Clients treat robust security protocols as a standard requirement for doing business with their providers.
84% of customers are more loyal to companies that have strong security controls. This includes securely stored communications that house confidential personal and proprietary information¹.
This is where leveraging a communication intelligence platform will empower your organisation to rapidly enhance the quality of engagement with your clients and potential prospects.
1. Reimagining Insurance: The New World of Digital Customer Engagement
2. State of connected customer research, Salesforce Research, 2019
3. Insurance 2020: The digital prize – Taking customer connection to a new level
The Whispir platform connects devices, systems, and people to create conversations, engage audiences, and streamline key communications processes, enabling insurers to:
Instantly send compelling and relevant interactions to your audience by SMS, chat apps, email, personalised web app, personalised video and video chat.
Use simple drag-and-drop tools to create studio-quality content in minutes without the need for designers or developers; create engaging personalised content for acquisition marketing, retention/renewal, cross-sell, surveys, agency communications and more.
Simplify complex interactions into scenario-based triggers that make end-to-end solution workflows. Accelerate customer journeys, provide proactive and more seamless experiences, and manage business communications.
Understand the target audience and make data-driven decisions that lift call-to-action rates and levels of engagement with intuitive reporting features.
Whispir x Insurance: Powering the Customer Journey
In Whispir, the number of journeys and touchpoints you can create for your clients or your agents is endless. Below is a template of what a journey could look like for your client with a description of each point of contact.
The Whispir platform delivers frictionless and secure end-to-end experiences throughout the purchasing lifecycle enabling insurers to understand policyholders’ needs and engage with them accordingly.
With a complete communication solution, you can transform your vision into meaningful dialogue for your customers and create a unique customer experience that is personalised and builds loyalty.
The Whispir platform delivers frictionless and secure end-to-end experiences throughout the purchasing lifecycle enabling insurers to understand policyholders’ needs and engage with them accordingly.
With a complete communication solution, you can transform your vision into meaningful dialogue for your customers and create a unique customer experience that is personalised and builds loyalty.
SMS
Create and send rich SMS messages securely through Whispir’s online SMS platform.
Send rich, interactive emails in bulk from anywhere in the world.
RSS
Generate RSS feeds and publish online with a variety of channels simultaneously for maximum reach.
Social
Send updates to multiple social media accounts using a single message, including Twitter, Facebook and Yammer.
Voice
Mobile Apps
Richer/better ROI and engagement with both agents and end-users
Optimise engagement features with communications journeys that include meeting request and scheduling, in-hand teleconferencing, virtual customer service and claims processing.
Field Sales: Personalised engagement with field sales teams
Manage your team with a range of pre-templated communications templates which allow two-way conversations in real-time.
Compliance: Highly regulated industry by financial authorities requires delivery of paperwork regularly
Keep stakeholders and customers updated on policy changes and general news and updates with rich media messages that engage and inform with impact.
Surveys: Constant battle to keep up and act on NPS scores in the market
Gain genuine feedback in real-time with rich messaging that connects with customers directly using their devices such as mobile, tablet or computer.
Operations: Establish a safe return to work communications strategy for stakeholders, suppliers and customers
Navigate and manage business disruptions using Whispir’s pre-templated return to work communications suite including templates for contactless delivery, advisory communications, workplace capacity planning, health declarations and more.
The Whispir platform is a multi-channel automated communication workflow solution, designed to be robust, scalable and customisable enough to meet the most stringent messaging security requirements.
Whispir’s low-code/no-code platform allows organisations to create workflows without design or development resources. Our drag-and-drop templates enable businesses to automate personalised two-way interactions for individual recipients at scale using smart logic and dynamic content.
The platform also facilitates customised actions based on certain real-time events or ‘triggers’ to determine responses across multiple communications channels.
The Whispir platform integrates with pre-existing IT systems, enabling organisations to modernise legacy systems including systems of record (databases), systems of intelligence (AI platforms) and systems
of engagement (communications channels such as SMS, voice and IoT).
Reporting and dashboard functionality improves situational awareness, speeds up decision making and increases critical responsiveness.
Our customers use the platform for critical communications such as crisis response, emergency management, community notifications and IT incident management as well as customer engagement and general operational communications.
With the best processes and tools to enable your journey to Digital Enablement. Our Adaptive Portfolio Management system will ensure you get the value you expect from change projects. Our best-in-class Australasian built software will help you locate, understand and leverage the data that drives your business.
With the best processes and tools to enable your journey to Digital Enablement. Our Adaptive Portfolio Management system will ensure you get the value you expect from change projects. Our best-in-class Australasian built software will help you locate, understand and leverage the data that drives your business.
We don’t sell, we partner with our clients to identify opportunities to accelerate their Digital Enablement journey. Often that results in one of our world-class solutions adding value, other times it provides our clients with better content to source solutions elsewhere. We’re happy either way.
Please check your junk email folder if your email does not arrive immediately.