February 9, 2012 – Building positive customer relationships and loyalty continues to remain a high priority on the list of every insurance organization due to rapid changes in the market, new economic realities, and intense competition-all of which lead to high levels of customer confusion, skepticism and uncertainty. As a result, it is critical to make sure each potential or existing customer feels important and informed in order to successfully gain new customers and avoid the risk of losing existing business.
You may not be able to control the economic outlook or regulatory environment, but you can ensure that the materials you use to communicate with your customer are personalized and targeted for their individual preferences, while at the same time controlled for compliance with legal and regulatory standards. This attention to detail will help your organization stand out from the competition and create a close relationship with your customers that is not possible with static communications.
Improved customer experience with personalized information
One way to drive new efficiencies in your organization is to ensure that you are fully utilizing the valuable information you already have about your customers and their preferences. Mining existing customer data will allow you, for example, to use the white space on your statements to send a targeted message that will help your customers better understand their insurance needs and products they may want to consider. Highly personalized communications deliver many benefits. They have a proven track record when it comes to dramatically improving customer response. You also reap the benefit of reduced production costs by eliminating the need to produce separate communications, as well as reducing the time required to get to market with new products and messages. Even the briefest message on the statement can be timed to integrate with a broader campaign, directing members to your website for information to educate them on existing policy features or alert them to your highly competitive rates on various products in which they may be interested.
Delivery via the customer’s preferred channel
Having the ability to determine the communication preferences of each customer, and being able to deliver through that channel is another important consideration. Whether your customer likes paper (mail), electronic (e-mail, Internet) or using mobile applications, being able to meet their delivery preference will help them stay informed and loyal. And it will allow your company to meet changing preferences over time as consumers grow in their expectation to have self-service information available, such as a rate quote, quickly when they are on the go. For this reason, it is important to ensure the ability to create multi-channel campaigns where content is converted on demand and delivered via the preferred method as part of your communication capabilities.
Utilize an easy-to-understand format
Easy-to-understand statements and invoices have the ability to reduce confusion, promote education and build rapport with customers. You can choose to implement a customer communication solution that customizes data in terms of layout, graphical workflow, color management, and even content collaboration. These solutions enable faster on-boarding of new customers and implementation of new products, all while improving the overall customer experience.
Managing processes and content
Compliance with legal and regulatory standards is a priority that makes the need for a secure, collaborative document creation environment essential. This environment should enable management of the processes, users and roles, interfaces, and updating methods of a variety of communications channels. For instance, user roles and permissions should be honored anywhere in your organization’s system and you should have the capability to track and report on document changes, including who has made them and when they were made. Additionally, the ability to manage content-independent of the documents and channels that receive them-is crucial. Software solutions are available that enable even non-IT personnel to develop controlled, personalized communications to be published through a variety of media channels.
Choosing the right Customer Communications Management solution
If you are ready to integrate multi-channel communication options into your current architecture, you can begin searching for the high-level, high-return communication strategy options already available and on the market. However, if you are just starting down this road, it’s important to seek out software that is user-friendly and flexible enough so that it can be used by non-IT personnel, should you decide to
accomplish this in-house. If you use a third-party service provider, know the questions you should ask to ensure that the service provider will be able to meet your needs in the areas of flexibility, agility and control. In all cases, it pays to do your homework as not every solution offers all the capabilities you may want to achieve your goals.
When you make it easy for customers to stay informed and understand the benefits of your products and services, you are on the right track for ensuring greater trust, retention and loyalty. By incorporating relevant information through all of your contact points-print, electronic, or interactive-you can improve customer relationships by providing communications that are consistent and have impact. Delivering products and services that your customers want, when and where they want it, will help ensure your company stands apart.
Doug Cox is the President, GMC North America for GMC Software Technology, a provider of document output for customer communication management. GMC Software Technology offers a seamless, easy-to-use, and powerful solution that enables business users to reduce the complexity and costs of customer communication management across business silos. The company’s secure, scalable, and reliable solution produces personalized and regulatory compliant communications that can be delivered to members via the channel or choice. He can be reached at [email protected].
GMC Software will be exhibiting in booth S14 at the Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference on March 5, 2012 in Toronto.
About About GMC Software Technology
GMC Software Technology delivers the most effective solutions in the field of Customer Communications Management (CCM). With unrivalled experience in the industry, GMC has consistently demonstrated the ability to help businesses increase customer engagement across all touchpoints. The company�s CCM platform, GMC Inspire, enables enterprises to deliver relevant communications, at the right time, through the preferred channel for every customer � driving customer loyalty, acquisition and operational efficiency.
GMC Software Technology serves thousands of clients worldwide across the banking, insurance, retail, business services, telco/utilities and healthcare industry. Having received numerous awards in the field Customer Communi�cations Management, the company is recognized as an industry leader for innovation. For more information visit www.gmc.net.
Doug Cox, President, can be reached at [email protected]
