Think about the last gadget you bought or a restaurant you recently tried for the first time. Chances are, you probably read online reviews and considered a few different options before making your decision.
We all tend to do greater due diligence in order to make smart purchasing decisions—not only because we can, but because we feel like we should. In the post-recession economy, we’re especially conscious that every time we spend money, we’re taking a risk on a product or service. We’re more protective of our resources and skeptical of the claims we see in ads.
People shopping for insurance are no different. That’s why online reviews have a powerful impact on how we select insurance providers. Four out of ten insurance customers read online reviews and base their insurance buying decisions on them, according to Accenture.
If you work in insurance—and you most likely do if you’re reading the Oracle Insurance Blog—you probably don’t have time to comb through insurance review sites. So I decided to explore them for you. I poked around multiple websites with insurance industry reviews like Consumer Affairs, J.D. Power and Associates, and Reviews.com, some of which feature reviews written by experts and customers. Not surprisingly, customers often use these sites to vent about their insurers unwilling to repair damages, raising premiums, or taking too long to respond.
The expert reviews are especially helpful because they’re organized by various criteria. Each website has its unique set of factors for assessing and ranking insurers, including policy details, ability to pay claims, customer service, etc. Yet the overarching need for excellent customer experience through accessibility, clarity, and online self-service options remain constant in all reviews.
More specifically, digital customer communications are taking a front seat in insurance company evaluations.
“The omnichannel experience is very important,” said Valerie Monet, director of the insurance practice at J.D. Power, a global market research company. She stressed the need for insurers to provide high quality service interactions through whatever channel the customer chooses to use.
Omnichannel communication, Monet said, “drives customer retention. It drives new business acquisition.”
J.D. Power studies customer satisfaction in the annual U.S. Auto Insurance Study. This year, the five factors it used to inform their rankings were interaction, price, policy offerings, billing and payment, and claims. “Assisted online” is one metric under the interaction category, which includes customer usage of mobile apps, online chat, and e-mail. (J.D. Power has been using the assisted online metric since 2011, and added mobile app usage to the metric in 2014.)
Here’s a quick look at three areas of digital communications, where expert reviewers are paying close attention:
Online Tools to Conduct Transactions and Find Information
Well developed online tools allow customers to get information or conduct a transaction without the hassle of calling customer service. Insurance reviewers give high marks to the insurers that offer user-friendly online tools to generate quotes, pay bills, and purchase and manage policies.
Liberty Mutual, for example, received a five-star rating from Reviews.com partly for their online tools. The review noted the “simple descriptions and illustrations” that made the tools easy to understand. At any point in the quote process, the website visitor can use the live chat, which Reviews.com praised as “a great feature not available from all providers.”
Travelers also ranked high for auto insurance on Reviews.com. The review pointed out that Travelers’ online tools allow customers to add drivers, add vehicles, and check billing status through an online dashboard.
FAQ pages, calculators, and learning centers available on insurance websites are all considered to be helpful online tools. Consumers are often just looking for general information on how various insurance policies work, and these online resources offer much-needed explanations.
Customer Service Accessibility through Digital Channels
Any time a policyholder needs support from their insurer, you can bet they’re going through a crisis or facing a major disruption. That’s why constant and immediate access to customer service plays such an important role in insurance customer satisfaction.
Constant access has always been important, but the difference today is that customers want multiple methods to contact their insurers immediately: by phone, e-mail, social media, or live chat.
For people shopping for travel insurance, Consumer Affairs stresses the importance of online assistance. Depending on where you are in the world, phone service may not always be available—which is why international travelers need to be able to reach their insurers online.
Mobile Apps to Manage Policies on the Go
The most recent development among insurers, mobile apps tend to carry less weight in reviews compared to the other criteria. Nevertheless, reviewers mention mobile apps as a nice perk for people on the go.
Consider the luxury of being able to file a claim, pay your premium, or change policy details while riding the train, standing in line, or eating out. It’s not considered a must-have for most people, but it sure makes life easier.
If an insurer does offer a mobile app, expert reviewers tend to hold the insurance company in higher esteem. Reviews.com, for example, calls insurers with mobile apps “forward-thinking companies.”
State Farm ranked high on Reviews.com partly for its strong mobile app designed for its auto insurance policy. Pocket Agent offers the usual functionalities of making payments and finding a local agent, but it also goes far beyond that. Users can log in with fingerprint Touch ID. If you’ve just been in a car accident, you can use Pocket Agent to gather info from the other drivers, file photos of vehicle damage, and document the circumstances by drawing a scene directly from the app.
In the digital age, no business can avoid online reviews. Savvy shoppers will continue to educate themselves and seek expert opinions before choosing their insurance providers. And as more customers expect to interact with their insurers through digital channels, insurers will have to keep up with the times and offer fast, easy, digital experiences.
Interested in understanding the major market drivers to customer-centric communications?
Check out our latest white paper, “Why Digital Transformation Should Be Every Insurer’s Top Priority.”
Looking for quick tips on how to pick a solution for document digitization?
Check out our latest article in Insurance Network News by Randy Skinner, Vice President, Oracle Documaker Development and Consulting.
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