The insurance industry has been increasingly taking advantage of social media as a brilliant marketing tool and social media are becoming indispensible for businesses in so many innovative ways! I wanted to share with you some ideas I came across while reading an article by social media strategist, Jo Stratmann (based on a report put forth by Ernst and Young) with respect to how social media can be further utilized in the insurance customer value chain.
Here goes:
1. To Research Products – Your customers are researching insurance products on dedicated price comparison websites. They’re seeking answers to their insurance related questions through their social media networks and looking for advice on how to get the best deals possible in terms of their insurance requirements. As an insurance professional, you should be making use of social media and monitoring them to gauge and listen to your customers’ conversations. It’s a great way of garnering valuable information about what’s being said about your products and services. This will assist you in assessing the positive as well as the negative perceptions that are floating around out there in terms of what you’re offering and furthermore, how this influences the research stage of the customer value chain. If, for example, there’s no buzz out there at all pertinent to your products and services, this is a clear indication that your marketing initiatives must be reassessed. One suggestion is to establish Facebook and Twitter accounts (if you’ve not already done so) for your brand so that you can be quick to respond to customer requests and comments and maintain an ongoing, interactive dialogue with them. 
2. To Request Quotations – More and more people out there today are using social media as a means of generating and requesting quotes for their insurance needs. Again, it’s essential that you are connected on the various social media platforms that your customers and prospects are using, so that you can be the one they look to when sourcing out quotations. Offer your assistance and advice and get them the quotes they’re shopping around for. For a competitive edge, research via social media what (deals, etc.) your competitors are offering.
3. To Buy Policies – Industry research conducted by Ernst and Young has found that the vast majority of customers (90%) agree that peer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising. It’s social proof!! If a lot of people are doing something, more and more will want to follow suit, because it must be the right thing to do if so many people are doing it. Product reviews and recommendations from others play an integral role in a customer’s decision making process. Social media sites allow for plenty of customer review and feedback - and if this is all positive with respect to your products and services, just think about the implications in terms of advertising for your brand! You could literally spend thousands of dollars through the traditional channels and it wouldn’t be worth nearly what social proof is worth!
4. To Service Policies – As social media allow customers to communicate interactively with their insurers, this helps you, the insurance professional, to garner crucial information regarding customer needs & wants and assists you in maintaining top-notch service for your customers. You are provided the opportunity to educate them concerning their policies – the benefits, your suggestions for altering their policies, etc.
5. To Lodge a Claim – Social media are very useful in terms of disseminating valuable information that could possibly help to reduce claims. Blogging, for example, is a powerful way of offering advice and guidance – your blog allows you a platform within which to impart crucial information about insurance related issues – i.e. the trials & tribulations of winter driving and how to best stay safe on the roads (snow tires, speed alteration, etc.).
It’s also a great idea and becoming more and more commonplace for claim handlers to mine social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to assess the validity of claims given the data, comments and social networking conversations of the claimants.
6. To Renew & Terminate Policies – Customers generally fulfill their renewal and termination requirements via websites, therefore the same potential exists for insurance professionals to use social media to advance renewal numbers. A fundamental benefit to social media is that it allows you to gather insightful CRM (customer relationship management) data, for example, policy types, renewal dates, etc. Given this information, your social media engagement could encompass not only acquiring new customers, but targeting existing customers prior to the renewal dates of their policies in order to entice them into renewing or changing rather than terminating their policies.
For so much more on using Social Media for your business, why not join one of our Social Networking for Business workshops. For a schedule of workshops in your area, please visit:
