Insurance companies remain customer-centric
On Thursday, February 20, 2014, Sixth Sense Manifesto, an integrated below-the-line brand management agency, organised the first industry roundtable.
Heads of marketing from some insurance companies, SIC Life, Phoenix Insurance, Equity Assurance, WAPIC and Micro Ensure represented their companies. Participants were asked 5 key questions on the theme “Customer-centric strategies to take insurance to a new level”.
Q: Would you agree that the insurance industry needs to shift to a more customer-centric approach in order to engage more customers?
All participants agreed that insurance companies are customer-centred in terms of product, as well as approach in reaching out to their clients. Most commonly, a face to face approach is used to capture their clients through the use of team managers and agents.
Michael Okyere of Phoenix Insurance - Customers have become so dynamic that they are difficult to handle now. It is, therefore, important that the customer is extremely satisfied at all times. Thus, they must be involved in what we do without trying to tailor-make things for them because you are bound to fail the customer if you do that. The customer is a unique person and each has their own individual needs to be satisfied. We are selling an intangible product; therefore, there is nothing to be seen or felt, throwing a challenge to us our to help our customers understand what we are selling. Consequently, for those who are selling insurance, they need to be customer-centric.
Ebenezer Abeku Onumah of Equity Assurance - “We need to study the dynamics of customers today so that we will constantly be in touch with them, accepting that their needs, tastes and everything keep changing!”
All agreed that there is a gap, a meeting point that needs to be reached between insurance companies and their customers.
Q: Is there an upward struggle to build trust in the insurance industry?
Albert Bahun-Wilson, SIC Life – “If the customer understands the products he/she is buying, insurance companies win their trust. If you look around, insurance companies are not doing enough to communicate the realities packed in their products to their customers.
Efosa Igiehon of Wapic Insurance – “Penetration of insurance into our economy is just less than two per cent; therefore, its contribution to our GDP is very low. The premium we generate from the insurance is only a small percentage of the value. Our industry is based on trust; we are selling a product that is not seen. We are not telling you to give us GH¢10 and we will give you an extra GH¢4. We are telling you that in case there is an accident, we are going to replace that vehicle, and how are you sure we are going to do that…it is based on trust.
Michael of Phoenix Insurance – “For me, I believe that perception is killing us. The perception that insurers are fraudsters, thieves, liars and they vanish into thin air when there is a claim is just unfortunate. Many people who make such statements have not even had any such experience with insurance companies; it is just their perception because they might have just heard and they think that is what the reality is.
Also the body language of insurance companies towards their clients is not the best at times.
Ebenezer of Equity Assurance - “We are selling a promise and the fulfillment of the promise leads to trust. I was just doing some research on insurance and it is amazing that the penetration of insurance in the UK is 16 per cent, followed by South Africa- 13 per cent.
Q: How do you keep in constant dialogue with your audience?
All mentioned that they keep constant dialogue with their customers through spatial visits, phone calls, text messaging and e-mails to do cross selling and reminders for renewals.
Efosa of Wapic Insurance – To be honest, in our industry, we have very low interaction.
Q: Are you using new platforms such as social media to engage your audience?
Efosa, Wapic Insurance – I think the world is really moving towards this kind of communication but I must admit our industry is a very limited one. We have very insufficient funds to play around. Hence in the insurance industry, we don’t do a lot of adverts, among others. We need to be very careful about how we spend our money.
Michael, Phoenix Insurance - I believe social media have come to stay now, so you are either part or you lose out. At Phoenix, we are utilising them and we find that they reduce our marketing costs because they are so cheap. You can easily use WhatsApp to send a renewal message, as well as target and be client specific. They are a good platform that everyone should embrace.
Albert, SIC Life – I wouldn't say that we are using them effectively but we are moving into that direction.
Ebenezer, Equity Assurance – I believe that we are not doing well as far as using social media to engage our customers is concerned. For me, we are all aware of the social media but we are not doing well there because, for instance, it is so volatile. For example, if you are on Facebook and have 100 clients and you are able to serve 99 well and 1 person is not happy about your products, he/she can attack you and the moment they do, it goes viral.
As much as they are good, we need to manage our internal processes and fine-tune them before we can resort to their use.
Q: How do you measure the success of your relationships with customers?
All agreed to use suggestion boxes, feedback forms, measuring their rate of customer retainership and add-on sales and referrals
Analysis
It is the responsibility of insurance companies to educate and build trust between themselves and customers, yet not enough is being done.
The challenge is that the marketing managers are very sales-focused and are not thinking about strategies to position their brand and engage their audience beyond selling the intangible product to rather selling a lifestyle, creating a want and identifying the need.
There is a huge opportunity for growth in the insurance industry. The companies must sell the idea of insurance and the numbers will grow quite naturally.