Digitizing Insurance Customer Engagement

Customer Engagement in Insurance: 5 Strategies to Improve Digital Interactions

Whether they’re comparing rates or asking questions, more and more consumers are turning to digital channels to interact with insurance companies. To keep up with the trend toward online communications, it’s important for insurers to focus on refining their digital engagement tactics. In a recent poll of insurance industry leaders, 47% of respondents said that their organization’s digital engagement strategy needed improvement to become more mature.

What can insurance companies do to improve their digital engagement efforts? Read on to learn more about what customer engagement means for the industry and your agency.

What is Customer Engagement in Insurance?

According to TechTarget, customer engagement refers to “the way a company creates relationships with its customer base to foster brand loyalty and awareness.” While this definition is true for the insurance industry, it isn’t all-encompassing. Customer engagement in insurance expands on this concept and also includes goals such as enhancing satisfaction, reducing the risk of churn, and increasing a customer’s lifetime value.

Customer Engagement Goes Digital

Modern consumers are more digitally savvy than ever before, with the number of online shoppers increasing each year. In the United States alone, the number of people who do the majority of their shopping via the internet is predicted to reach 230.6 million by 2026. That trend doesn’t stop at insurance purchases. A recent study from OliverWyman found that more potential policyholders are using the internet to browse for plans.

While this preference for digital interaction amongst consumers creates business opportunities for insurance companies (namely the benefits gained from data collection), it also means that agencies need to adjust their approach to customer experience. Policyholders’ expectations are at an all-time high, and as a result are more likely to switch insurers if they’re dissatisfied with their experiences.

Digital Engagement: 5 Strategies for Success

Looking for ways to improve digital engagement with your customers? These five strategies are a good starting point:

Provide content that supports the customer journey.

Today’s customers are independent shoppers who prefer to track down the information they need to make informed decisions on their own. In fact, 74% of consumers turn to the internet when researching insurance options. This is why it’s crucial for insurers to provide the information needed to set potential policyholders up for success.

Give yourself an advantage with personalization.

It’s one thing to collect data, but knowing how to use it makes all the difference. There’s a lot that insurance companies can learn about their customers by using the data they already collect. Through analysis, insurance companies can discover valuable insights about consumer behaviors and preferences, and then use these learnings to deliver personalized recommendations and offer products that are tailored to current and future customers.

When it comes to data analysis for insurers, the benefits justify the effort. Those who offer personalized offerings can see revenue increases of up to 60% per customer and improve engagement by 89%. Furthermore, it presents an opportunity to stand out in the market. While 77% of customers are willing to exchange their personal data for more tailored products, 21% report that their providers don’t offer any personalization at all.

Design end-to-end digital customer experiences.

In today’s digital-first climate, consumers interact with brands through more channels than ever before — and that includes their insurance providers. That’s why it’s important for insurance companies to create customer experiences that align with the way their policyholders access information. Having cohesive digital engagement frameworks in place that make it easy for customers to seamlessly transition from one channel to the next without compromising quality or customization is key.

Leverage automation to streamline customer-facing operations.

With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, many processes that were once time consuming for agencies can now be automated — simultaneously increasing efficiency for insurance businesses and decreasing customer effort. Whether that means putting chatbots in place to help answer customer questions or relying on algorithms to assist with claims processing, taking advantage of innovative tech solutions enables agencies to streamline operations while passing the convenience benefits on to customers.

Deliver proactive, digitized customer service.

On average, new customer acquisition costs five times more than retaining existing ones. Additionally, consumers aren’t afraid of ending relationships with companies as a result of subpar customer service. In insurance, underwriting delays, unresponsive claims departments and untimely claim payments could all lead to a policyholder exodus. Keeping this information in mind, it’s crucial for insurers to proactively provide customers with the solutions they need.

One way to do this is by implementing artificially intelligent virtual agents to supplement CX teams. These helpful assistants provide around-the-clock service, enabling customers to access the information they need, when they need it while freeing up time for live agents to focus on resolving issues that require human interaction.

A Reliable Approach to Customer Engagement

To meet the demands of today’s digitally inclined customers, it’s important for insurers to develop engagement strategies that align with their consumers’ preferences. From low-code automation platforms to comprehensive business apps, our lineup of software solutions offer insurance providers a path toward enhancing customer interactions.

Need help focusing your organizational change management initiatives? Learn how to ensure successful outcomes that provide the most business value with our Advisory Services Workshop.