A Personal Connection

It’s always been about connecting with customers.

Picture a broker, and one imagines handshakes across kitchen tables, neighbourly shoulders sharing times of loss, and even the warm shelter of encircling magenta blankets. All are visualizations of the fundamental assurance consumers derive from knowing the individuals charged with their protection.

Savvy insurers, too, have traditionally relied upon that connection. They trust the brokers’ first-hand client knowledge, which helps them to fine-tune underwriting and cement client loyalty.

Of course, the idea of ‘connecting’ suggests other imagery as well — including the use of wires and switches to link random, distant points invisibly and instantly. Today customers often wish to “connect” instantly and effortlessly, without the need for physical presence or even a spoken exchange. Consumers still want to engage with their professional advisors. But looking forward, some of the expectations for that interaction may be completed transformed.

Shift in Business Practice

For brokers, connecting electronically with customers does require a shift away from traditional business practice. Historically, though, so did the introductions of the telephone and the fax machine. The simple fact of change does not automatically spell disaster for businesses that have previously communicated using traditional means. Far from it, the Internet and the online world have actually created opportunities for brokers to reinforce the levels of service and customer connection that other competitors cannot match. Realizing that full potential, however, will demand far more than a superficial tweaking of well-worn approaches.

The Internet challenges all of our assumptions about how insurance business should occur. Since it is simply another medium through which people can interact, online communication is not tied to any particular distribution mode. It offers almost unbounded flexibility. Virtual delivery is not confined to the digital perpetuation of current processes, nor are brokers limited merely to mimicking direct writers’ commodity offerings. With sufficient investment, ‘online’ can mean ‘full-serve’ instead of ‘self-serve,’ with knowledge, options and advice delivered in new ways.

Similarly, electronic communication has evolved far beyond generic auto-messaging. It is now individualized and interactive. The success of social networks, characterized by equal-opportunity self-expression, means that customers expect active participation. Furthermore, the online customer experience is now largely introspective: websites consistently elicit information from their visitors, and ultimately leverage viewers’ own preferences for the purpose of advertising. Information flows and overflows. Paired with context-aware capabilities, viewers’ personal data and accrued preferences are more powerful than ever as the means to filter content and tailor site presentations. Within the insurance universe, this concept of a multiplicity of options filtered through the prism of a client’s own needs is in fact most closely analogous to the full range of coverage and carrier options, as filtered through the suggestions and advice that brokers offer to their clients.

Traditional insurance interactions are mostly linear. They are rooted in information gathering and the subsequent transference of paper from one stage to the next. Are these tired, old processes mandatory or comprehensive?

Virtual environments are not so narrowly defined. Their architecture creates and mirrors the random patterns of viewers’ navigation in, out and around sites or apps. Consumers’ interests drive their web activity. Brokers and partners wanting to leverage online opportunities should therefore concentrate on the interests that command their consumers’ attention. They must pinpoint what customers desire when they connect with their advisor online. And by employing continuously evolving technological capabilities, they must transform their interactions to accommodate their clients’ desires.

Consumer Expectations

The consumers’ potential wish list is limitless. Certainly the web can be used for housekeeping tasks such as making payments. And quoting, although it is not always comparative, is now commonplace. But to provide the full range of broker value, brokers must deliver more substantial and meaningful information in interactive forums. This includes offering features online such as advice on coverage, valuations and risk management, relative merits of policies or insurers and/or explanations regarding rates or conditions.

Customers will expect interaction specific to themselves. They may wish to ask a question and chat with a representative. They might want to access their own account and policy information, request a change of coverage or make a claim. Some environmentally conscious clients may wish for brokers to avoid the use of paper altogether, requesting brokers to store and provide access to records electronically. What about mobile applications for roadside proof of insurance, home inventory or appraisal tools — complete with video — or on-the-fly verification of coverage for contractors or mortgagees? The possibilities mount daily.

For a broker to reach customers online successfully (independently of any particular insurer), he or she must weigh business exigencies against practical realities. Some of these fantastic deliverables are costly. They require expensive and sophisticated analytics, research, IT and staffing resources. Personal customization often requires an even greater investment. For many individual brokers, the price is out of reach. However, cooperative efforts, alongside staged development, may bring solutions.

Reconciling customer desires for clarity and simplicity with the intricacy of the subject matter is another important issue. Insurance is fundamentally complex, and even somewhat commoditized products can puzzle civilians. Over-simplification is harmful and can result from a lack of available options, explanations and understanding online. By choosing to interact electronically, consumers have not relinquished their rights to choice, or to access advice and advocacy.

In addition, the desire for simplicity cannot be allowed to compromise any professional diligence or the legal safeguards concerning information collection. It is critical to maintain the same principles and guidelines that have oriented the business in the past and have protected the consumer online as elsewhere. The move to a more informal mode of communication does not dilute any of the responsibility embedded within the client connection. The onus is on brokers to find creative, clear ways to deliver on their full, unique value within the new environment.

Technical requirements must also be considered, apart from the costs involved. Customers must be able to view accessible and accurate information. Some broker management system (BMS) vendors in Canada are developing pre-packaged modules for their software — such as TBW’s I-client or TAM’s CSR-24 — so that brokers will be able to provide integration between the Internet and their systems. Others, including Keal, Power Broker and CIM-Data, stand ready and anxious to offer custom development. Some insurer rating engines today can be exposed and made available to clients through BMS links. Similarly, other insurer-hosted data can be exported to broker sites or systems. Wherever the information resides, it must be consistently reliable to be useful. Also, it must be exposed to the customer in comprehensible forms. Brokers and insurers, together with CSIO, still have work to do to in order to improve the richness and quality of the information they share.

Brokers need to roll up their collective sleeves and initiate a necessary dialogue with both ven dors and insurers to determine shared objectives, priorities and development needs. As online activity continues to expand, all competitors, eternally watchful of market share, are alert to new ways to reach new audiences. Without broker participation, insurers will surely grow impatient and consider acting unilaterally. In doing so, they might disregard the inherent limitations of single-insurer presentations, which are unable to offer choice or advocacy.

Connecting Through the Broker Channel

Insurers that recognize opportunities and are committed to broker distribution would be wise to invest with brokers in cooperative online efforts. Pooled ideas and resources will best serve the consumer. Working together, industry stakeholders can work towards online offerings that are relevant to consumers’ lifestyles. A few basic guiding principles will reinforce brokers’ primary objective of safeguarding consumers’ interests. One of these principles is that the broker’s relationship with the client is key to the client’s obtaining full choice and advice.

Insurers committed to broker distribution would ensure that their public communications, electronic or otherwise, consistently include broker presence. For existing customers, this would include branding specific to the broker the client has chosen. Public-facing websites or other electronic applications or tools would constantly and prominently display options such as ‘Speak to a Broker’ or ‘Your Broker Is …’ as ready links to broker sites where clients might seek out broader options and advice.

Similarly, insurer cooperation with brokers online could reinforce their commitments on privacy, integrity of the broker relationship and respect for consumer rights. Working together demonstrates that all acknowledge the customer’s information is personal and will not be used for any other purposes. Furthermore, the customer is the customer of the broker, and therefore the file information belongs to the broker as the customer’s representative.

Brokers cannot waver in their responsibility to the consumer by accepting compromise on electronic offerings that do not live up to the same standard of service that would be provided in person. Educating the public about finances is becoming a larger part of brokers’ professional duties; therefore, the online delivery of that information is increasingly important.

Uniquely positioned between the public and insurers, brokers enjoy all of the possibilities suggested by abundant multi-directional communication. With an entirely new means of interaction literally at our fingertips, the challenge is to apprehend and apply all its potential. As brokers serve consumers, they cannot be content merely to replicate past activities. It is a question of discovering what the new media make possible, and collaborating with partners to realize this potential. Brokers’ connection with consumers will flourish as it amplifies, becomes multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. It is limited only by our own imaginings.