Why do Millennials often overlook the insurance industry in their job searches even though it offers many of the attributes upcoming graduates and young professionals seek in a career? This question is taking on more importance as greater numbers of seasoned employees retire and companies struggle to attract younger workers to replace them. So what can you do to enhance your ability to hire and develop the industry’s future leaders?
Great customer experiences lead to higher retention rates, increased brand loyalty and greater customer lifetime value. Improving your customers’ experiences doesn’t sound that complicated, but unless you base new tactics and strategies on data you gather directly from them, you might be putting your efforts and resources in the wrong places.
Because it’s not only about offering great service. It’s also about distinguishing your brand in today’s marketplace. In the insurance industry, where profits are highly concentrated and competition is intensifying, it means that if you want to differentiate yourself and rise to the top, you need to deliver cohesive, digitally-enabled experiences based on such factors as looking at your business from your customers’ perspective and using analytics to inform decisions.
At the same time, you also have to keep in mind that while digital services can generate efficiencies that are important to customers, there are still some aspects of many industries – insurance among them – that require human interaction.
Based on a customer-first focus, here are a few suggestions to promote lasting intimacy and trust:
Look at your business from your customers’ perspective.
What is it like for them to do business with your company? Poor customer service is one of the top reasons users make a switch. When it comes to insurance companies, customers can get a quote for a product through online channels, but it’s not always possible to close the purchase. And with most insurers still reaching customers through the broker channel and relying on legacy systems and technology, experiencing the various parts of the customer journey can help you determine pain points and differentiate your company from the competition by eliminating them.
Use analytics to inform decisions.
Data is critical to the insurance industry in order to predict future direction and how you can influence it. Insights can improve your customer strategy in many areas, including customer experience design, marketing, sales and service optimization. Using these insights helps you to rely less on simple rating factors such as age or marital status and concentrate more on customization and an individual’s unique characteristics. Analytics also extend beyond traditional customer data points to include behavioral economics, as well as digital intelligence. This gives you a more complete view of your customers so you can offer the right products at the right time and even provide additional insurance solutions.
Automate responsibly.
You don’t want to automate at the expense of human connections. Technology is undeniably a part of the answer but not all of it. Using automation and artificial intelligence is necessary to reduce costs, and you can be quickly left behind if you don’t capitalize on these tools. But, as you develop robotic process automation, be aware of the importance of carefully mapping processes, from distribution though claims settlement, to identify precisely where robotics and artificial intelligence can improve the customer experience. You always want to integrate these technologies where they have the most impact.
Engage customers through engaged employees.
People, rather than systems, drive innovation and are crucial to realizing its full commercial potential. It isn’t just digital skills that are in demand but also the creativity and emotional intelligence needed to connect with customers. Hiring the best people and continuously improving the skill level of your workforce will not only create more engaged employees but will enable better service. This in turn, will lead to the improvement of your automated solutions, resulting in intelligent automation and a seamless customer experience.
Data-driven strategies and campaigns can help you to improve every customer touchpoint, helping you to truly know your customers and create better experiences for them.