The experience that you offer your customers is what can make or break your success in the insurance industry, and given the current state, there is room for improvement.
According to a 2021 survey by IBM, 42% of consumers do not trust their insurers. In the same breath, 60% of insurers admit that they lack customer experience strategies within their organizations.
Outside of insurance, one of my favorite examples of a confusing and difficult buying experience – that’s widely agreed upon through the internet – is the clothing store, Zara’s, website. In fact, educational institutions, blogs and social media users have contributed to over 24 million pieces of content in Google about the inefficiency of Zara’s website. Overall, I’ve found the buying experience to be pretty lackluster and clunky. It turns me off as a consumer.
What can we take from Zara and apply to insurance?
The Current State
Let’s call a spade a spade: the industry typically doesn’t provoke warm and fuzzy feelings from consumers. That said, companies in the industry are (slowly, but surely!) doing their part to improve the experience throughout the entire breadth of their business. In fact, according to IMB, the insurance industry has begun shifting to a consumer-centric model focusing on CX. 85% of insurers use CX initiatives throughout the customer journey, and 90% have a C-suite position dedicated to the consumer experience, such as a Chief CX or Chief Customer Officer.
For example, there has been a large push and need for virtual claims processes. These initiatives stem from consumers stating that companies don’t live up to consumer expectations, with 54% of consumers in a recent Salesforce study stating that companies need to change how they engage.
Digitizing Insurance to Improve CX
According to Salesforce’s most recent State of the Comnnec Customer Report Outlines Changing Standards for Customer Engagement, 75% of consumers last year said that they expect companies that they work with to utilize new and emerging technologies to improve the CX. And, not surprisingly, the loudest populations asking for digital innovation are Gen Z and Millenials.
With the older generations getting older and the insured population growing with these two digital-forward generations, insurance is making steps to digitize, however, they are only in the beginning phases.
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3 Steps to Improve Your Insurance Customers’ Experience
Any step forward is progress in insurance. Here are three things that any size insurance entity can implement to improve their customer experience:
1. Offer opportunities and resources to educate your customers on not only their policy, but the industry in general.
According to the EY 2021 Global Insurance Outlook, over 60% of insureds do not understand the breadth of their insurance coverage and half are not confident that if something was to happen, they would be compensated appropriately. This goes back to the earlier point that 43% of insureds do not trust their insurer, but offering opportunities to get to know and educate a customer is something that smaller agencies and agents have the best opportunity of improvement. In fact, in smaller communities, agents and agencies are often preferred over the largest insurers.
2. Utilize pre-fills, when available, for new business processing.
Plugging in pre-fill resources into your processes elevates the consumer standpoint on a couple of different levels. For example, with SambaSafety’s License Number Search and Activity Detail, we are effectively able to eliminate questions, online or in a call center, from intake regarding driver’s license number and previous violation history. Instead, the insurer will have that information “pre-filled” on the backend, providing the customer with a more seamless intake process.
3. Take time to offer personalized product and services to your customers.
A recent Accenture survey found that 80% of insurance consumers are seeking personalized offers, messaging, pricing and recommendations from their insurance provider. In addition to promoting a more charismatic brand through your personalization, the opportunity to upsell AND retain loyal customers emerges from these relationships. With trust comes retention, and with retention comes the ability to drive more effective sales.
And better yet, 8 in 10 consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.
Want to learn additional ways you can satisfy customers and stay ahead of the curve? Watch our exclusive webinar, The Secret’s in the Numbers: How Top Insurers are Leveraging Data to Gain a Competitive Advantage.
