Improving Engagement with Insurance Customers

Posted on

October 15th, 2018

by

The insurance industry has a harder time interacting with its customer base than many other fields. The only time an insured thinks of their provider is when they receive a bill, need to renew their policy, or have to file a claim. Otherwise, the insured is unlikely to give their insurance company much thought.

Insurance companies often have impersonal relationships with their clients, and this creates significant retention problems. Most insurance companies hover at around an 80% retention rate. This means after one year, 20% of their customers find a new insurer. Traditional communications between an insurance company and their customers don’t allow for interpersonal relationships. Most customers don’t feel a strong loyalty to their insurer like they do for retail-based businesses.

This means insurance companies need to find new and effective ways to cultivate customer loyalty. Some methods to increase customer engagement include:

  1. Data corroboration. Insurance companies gather a lot of data about their customers. They know their addresses, their phone numbers, their assets, their financial statuses, and more. However, most insurers aren’t doing anything with that information. The data exists in oversized, unusable spreadsheets or some other antiquated data aggregation system. What insurers need is software to cleanse the data to validate its authenticity, remove duplicates, etc.
  2. Utilize analytics. Organizing data in a way that makes sense is just the start. Insurance providers need to invest in software that helps them gain insights into the information. Analytics can help identify trends to help prevent turnover. For example, analytics may reveal common signs that a customer is considering changing providers. The insurer can then reach out to that customer through a newsletter, poll, or some other method of communication to determine what they can do to improve their satisfaction.
  3. Targeted communication. Insurers don’t need to limit their customer communications to renewals, bills, claims, and attempts to retain their business. Personalized communication is often an effective tool to keep customers engaged rather than out looking for a new provider. For example, insurance companies can send newsletters about budgeting to customers going through difficult financial periods. The key is to send data that is useful to the customers’ life situation.

Developing deeper, more meaningful relationships with customers improves their loyalty and increases revenue. To put it another way, it’s difficult to send a believable heartfelt message alongside a bill statement. To learn more about improving customer satisfaction and client retention, contact the experts at Actec.