Do you resolve client queries within 60 minutes, answer most clients within 20 seconds, and ensure that your client service score remains closer to 10 out of 10 than 5 out of 10?
Then you are ready to face the millennial market. Millennials (or Gen Y) is the generation that everyone is chasing after – but why?
Because in the near future, these individuals will begin to reach their maximum buying power as they move into their 40s and beyond. With more buying power also comes an increase in financial risk and of course, an increased need for short-term insurance. Whether it’s a house, a vehicle, or a business, one thing is for sure; millennials are the market to consider if you provide insurance solutions.
Curate an experience
In this article, we will not be exploring the sales process or how to market to millennials, but rather how to retain them with the help of exceptional service. We know that it is difficult to gain consumers’ limited attention today. They are bombarded with brand messages and promises of an increasingly digitised life that will make everything faster, easier and simpler. However, from our perspective, one of the main ways to grab a client’s attention and keep that attention is by providing an exceptional experience.
That experience starts with the first interaction that the client has with our brand, through the sales process, and on into maintaining and servicing to the client’s expectations. This becomes even more important in the case of millennials because research has shown that they are much less brand loyal than previous generations. That means that, yes, product and pricing are important, but brand loyalty – unfortunately more often than not – rests on the service experience you provide a client.
Essentially, millennials are searching for the same experience as that of the traditional client, but they want more control, respect, transparency and reliability when it comes to the ongoing service that is provided to them. What is the type of customer service, environment and experience that will encourage these consumers to stay loyal to a brand and to you as a broker?
Let’s take a look at some of the stand-out initiatives and what you as a broker should look out for when partnering with an Insurer that can support you in these initiatives.
Responsiveness and self-service
Millennials are admittedly more demanding than past generations and expect to be able to interact at any time and on any platform. Millennial consumers want two things: responsiveness and self-service. These form the backbone of how to retain these clients.
Forrester research has shown that, “87% of clients said their time was the most important factor when dealing with client service.” Speed and efficiency are of the utmost importance, in how quickly you respond to a client, and offer up choices of product or service.
From a broker’s perspective, service speed and the provision of self-service are heavily reliant on the Insurer that they partner with. Even for a broker who provides good service by responding to their clients within 60 minutes, the speed with which their insurance partner resolves a claim or provides efficient servicing during the sales process can make or break the relationship with their millennial client.
It’s important to find out from your prospective insurance partners what their client satisfaction rating is, before engaging in a partnership. Ask the difficult questions: how quickly do claims get resolved? What are their SACsi and Ombudsman results? Which digital processes do they have in place that may assist you in servicing your client efficiently? For instance, do they have Emergency Assist services that include crash detection? Do they have claims self-service options?
Does your insurance partner speak their language?
Millennials use different words, and methods, of communicating. Jay Coldren from Marriott says: “The millennials want to converse in their own language, according to their own rules. They speak in tweets, texts, and Facebook posts. If you want to reach them, you have to speak in their native tongue. And you have to be completely authentic.”
Does your insurance partner use scripted language when dealing with your clients, or are they authentic, address the client by their name, and know the client’s details well in advance?
Doing things digitally
Yes, we all know this. Millennials have different ideas of where humans fit into client service delivery. If an app can deliver what they need, so much the better. Which is one reason most millennials consult their smartphones first, even if you broker and humans are there to provide the answer.
It’s important to note whether your insurance partner can provide your millennial client with digital transactional capability. This then leaves you open to having more authentic and deep-delving conversations with your client. Because an important tip to remember is that despite the millenial’s penchant for online, they also yearn for face-to-face interaction and collaboration, hence the need for a broker.
Consider values
Finally, your millennial client is more likely to engage with an insurance partner that demonstrates social value, social responsibility, a green profile, and how ethically it does or doesn’t treat its clients, partners, suppliers and employees. They will reward the company whose behaviour mirrors their own ethics.
This means that you need to keep abreast of your partner’s social initiatives and inform your millennial clients of these.
Millennials have grown up and they are financially savvy, responsible adults who despite all the digital noise around them, prefer sound advice from an intermediary with experiences that count. For you the broker, this is what you should tap into when canvassing their business.