Multiple Engagement

Not long ago, customers considered brokers to be trusted advisors if they were simply knowledgeable about products and available during regular business hours. Today, this is not enough to meet customer expectations as the demand for digital service evolves.

Many insurance brokers are rethinking what it means to be a trusted advisor. With changing consumer expectations for on-demand service, brokers need to think about communicating with customers consistently and knowledgeably across multiple channels – and at all times.

At a recent Applied Systems user conference, an Insurance Brokers of Ontario presentation stressed the importance of proactive and versatile engagement with customers. The presentation included results from the Ontario Broker Performance Study, as well as offered methods for brokers to take advantage of their traditional strengths by providing a personal connection to customers through a variety of channels. Most important, the research suggests that in order for brokers to communicate consistently and knowledgeably with customers across all potential channels, they must create a clearly defined multi-channel customer engagement strategy.

STRATEGIES FOR INSURANCE BROKERAGES

Multi-channel engagement includes meeting the insured customer’s demand for flexible and easy access to brokerage staff and information about his or her insurance information, as well as self-service transactional capabilities. Brokerages must interact with customers using multiple communication methods, including phone, mobile devices, highly functional websites and in person.

For prospective customers, multi-channel engagement requires brokerages to make the consumer’s buying experience consistent, convenient and personalized at every stage of the process, and to offer continued service.

With increasing frequency, consumers start with the Internet to evaluate and purchase products, expecting to receive customer service online as Deloitte and Business Development Bank of Canada learned in an October 2013 survey on consumer behaviour trends online. The survey found 84% of respondents connect to the Internet or own an Internet-capable device. Forty-seven percent of those polled conduct broad online searches prior to purchase, and 42% consult customer review sites and search online to find the best place to buy.

One important implication of the survey is that a strong online presence is essential for brokerages to attract new customers and strengthen their role as trusted advisors.

IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATION

A multi-channel customer engagement approach works best if it is integrated into the overall business strategy. For brokers interested in making multi-channel customer engagement part of their strategies, here are some approaches to consider:

• Decide on an overall information strategy. Start by determining what information to make available to customers and the best ways it can be accessed.

• Decide how to manage the information. The next step is to develop a strategy for creating a central database that can capture and store information about customers and products. Managing all customer data centrally will ensure that there is a single digital file for each customer. A centrally managed database creates the foundation for communicating with customers with more comprehensive and accurate information. It also provides greater visibility into customer needs and opportunities to provide new insurance products and service.

• Decide how to share the information. Once a plan for managing customer information in a central database is set, determine how staff and customers will access this data. Creating easy-to-use processes for accessing and sharing data both internally and with customers across all mobile, online and traditional channels will position a brokerage to capitalize on the improved database of customer and product information.

• Communicate consistently and conveniently. After a brokerage determines the best communication channels for its customers, operational details are needed to create a plan for the ongoing push and pull of customer data between the central database and every channel of access. For many brokerages, the company website will become a primary service channel. As such, the website should be easy to use, interactive and rich with insurance product information. It should also include customers’ access to their account information to create more opportunities for engagement. To effectively appeal to the new generation of younger insurance customers, brokerages will need to update websites, allowing mobile device users the same or a comparable experience to the traditional online experience.

• Monitor and measure customer engagement. Multi-channel customer engagement is like any other strategic business initiative; it requires continuous monitoring of the results. By measuring the effectiveness of a customer engagement strategy and continuously adapting it to the changing market, a brokerage can meet and exceed the wants and needs of customers and insurers alike. Developing and implementing a successful multi-channel customer engagement strategy is fundamental to advancing a broker’s role as trusted advisor to customers. Both are critical for long-term success as the insurance marketplace evolves.

BROKERAGES SEEING SUCCESS

As the Canadian insurance brokerage industry moves toward greater adoption of multi-channel customer engagement strategies, two companies, Manitoba Insurance Group, Ltd. (MIG Insurance) and McClelland Insurance Brokers, Ltd. each launched online customer portals earlier this year, both viewing the portal as the next logical step to meet their customers’ expectations. Each company also saw the move as a way to establish marketing advantages over competitors, including direct insurance companies.

McClelland Insurance Brokers and MIG Insurance offer an online portal – a new communication channel added to their existing customer communication methods using Applied CSR24 as the software application – as a way to be more responsive to customers and their increasing preference to access insurance information at any time using a wide range of communications channels. The MIG Insurance portal, the first of its kind in Manitoba, is initially being used for auto customers, while the McClelland Insurance Brokers portal serves its residential and commercial lines of business.

A few months after launching the portals, both MIG Insurance and McClelland Insurance Brokers began to receive positive client feedback and expect the service will help with attracting new customers and increasing retention rates.

In keeping with best practices for multi-channel customer engagement, MIG and McClelland have deployed an online portal alongside other digital marketing channels, including social media services such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as traditional service methods.

Both brokerages focus on their millennial generation customers, an important part of their multi-channel engagement strategy, and they are actively looking at new digital marketing capabilities to communicate with younger customers and prospects.

McClelland, in particular, reports seeing rapid growth in the use of mobile devices by its customers for business transactions. To meet this demand, a new company website has been designed to be a responsive to mobile devices for optimal viewing and interaction through tablets and smartphones.

Online portals are one tactic in an overall multi-channel customer engagement strategy, and as the aforementioned experiences indicate, can serve as a powerful way for insurance brokerages to strengthen relationships with customers and maintain their position as trusted advisors, as the industry becomes even more technology-driven.