Love them or hate them, you have to credit the “Big Tech” companies, such as Amazon, Google, Meta, and Apple, for consistently engaging their customers. Their strategic use of omnichannel customer engagement, personalization, self-service, and leveraging customer data help them stay in constant contact with their customers, building deeper relationships that deliver big ROI. They are successfully attracting younger customers with this strategy, ensuring the longevity of their companies. After all, younger consumers are the future of any industry.
What can mid-sized insurance carriers learn from the Big Tech customer engagement models, particularly when courting Millennials and Gen Z? Here are five key takeaways from the tech giants that carriers can apply to their customer engagement strategy.
- Create a digital experience that aligns with customer preferences. Forcing customers to interact with you on your terms instead of theirs is a surefire way to experience customer churn. This extends to your mix of risk products and services, how customers find you, how you price your products, and how customers send and receive information. It’s always a good idea to invest in some market research to truly understand the unique needs of your target market, and Millennials and Gen Z are no exception. They are not the same as their parents or grandparents, which will inform the customer experience you provide for them. Find out what motivates them to evaluate or buy a risk product in the first place. Are they just entering the workforce? Did they just get engaged or married? Are they expecting their first child? Remember that this generation is very sensitive to a “one size fits all” engagement strategy. Younger insurance customers may want to purchase personal insurance, such as auto, homeowners, or rental insurance policies. Yet, many young people own their own businesses and are looking to purchase commercial insurance. It’s up to you to know your target customer and respond accordingly.
- Provide customers with choice. It’s not enough to have multiple engagement channels or to start a TikTok channel just for the sake of having one. The bigger question is, Are your channels the right ones for your target audience? Consumers want specific channels that suit their unique needs. For example, the customer contact center was once the gold standard for customer service in insurance. However, today’s younger consumers don’t want to spend time on hold while waiting for an available agent to answer questions. In fact, they don’t want to talk on the phone at all. Research confirms that 26% of Millennials and Gen Z consumers say they “actively ignore” phone calls, and another 20% find it “weird” to receive calls. It’s more important than ever for carriers to offer a wide choice of channels, including text messaging, self-service customer portals, and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. These real-time, synchronized channels go a long way with younger customers who want to quickly get the information they need without speaking to a live agent. Our own research shows that by adding SMS text messaging to the mix, carriers can reduce policy cancellations by 52%.
- Leverage technology to personalize engagement. Younger consumers respond well to offerings and messages that look and feel personalized. For evidence of that, look no further than Spotify, the popular music and content streaming service. Consumers love Spotify’s personalized playlists and new artist recommendations powered by machine learning (ML). Personalization in insurance is critical to winning younger consumers. They want to see evidence that they are more than just a policy number. It’s your job to find the right ways to engage with them and demonstrate that you’re thinking of them and constantly trying to bring more value to the relationship. Policyholders experience more value from their insurers through proactive communication that helps them solve problems, especially ones they didn’t know they had. For example, a simple text message reminding an insured that their policy is up for renewal can help you retain that customer. Insurers can open a direct line of communication with policyholders by sending links to chat with CSRs and offer helpful information about contacting the insurer, filing a claim, printing ID cards, and tips for risk mitigation. Technology like ML and AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting with this by analyzing your customers’ data and making your agents and CSRs more efficient. AI-driven insights can make it easier for carriers to tailor experiences, offering younger customers bespoke policies that match their unique needs. From personalized coverage options to real-time policy adjustments, personalization strengthens customer loyalty and satisfaction.
- Make it easy and intuitive to do business with you. Regarding Gen Z, it’s important to remember that this generation of consumers are digital natives. They are used to being able to do everything online, from opening a bank account to getting financing for a large purchase. Younger customers are used to “one-click” experiences when shopping on Amazon. Your first priority as a carrier is to make it as simple and fast as possible for younger consumers to interact with you throughout the buying process. That means providing fast, transparent policy quotes for them to compare, payment options that align with how they make purchases online, and the ability to enroll and renew a policy in just a few clicks. Consider adding tools to make payments easier and reduce your customer’s effort level. Flexible options like autopay, the ability to schedule a payment in the future, and allowing customers to pick their payment date can increase customer satisfaction. Convenient payment solutions that align with preferred customer payment types, like credit cards, EFT, PayPal, Stripe, and other popular systems, are essential to include in your omnichannel system. Avoid making customers re-key information into forms or making them rehash a service question to an agent. Nothing will frustrate them more than an inefficient digital experience. That’s when a carrier is at the greatest risk of churn.
- Never stop being innovative. If there’s one thing about the “Big Tech” companies that we can learn from, it’s that they are constantly re-engineering and tinkering with their user experience to improve it. Not every upgrade is a winner, but overall, they make these changes with the customer in mind. It’s no coincidence that Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft constantly land on annual lists of the “100 most innovative companies.” Big Tech companies must also change and update their user experiences as consumer preferences change. The insurance industry must rise to meet this challenge, too.
Like Big Tech, carriers can leverage their customer and operational data to achieve all five of these. Carriers are sitting on a gold mine of data that can provide insights into how customers interact with omnichannel systems over time. The most common barrier is accessing this data in real-time. A proper omnichannel customer engagement strategy removes these barriers and ensures that data is interconnected. When your omnichannel strategy is unified, you will have the power to access customer insights and cross-sell products that younger customers really want and need. Big Tech has already figured out that data is the lifeblood of their company. Carriers must take cues from them and understand what works well and what doesn’t in their system.
Sponsored by: ITL Partner: insured.io
