“Online Sales Service is Not Going Away.” Those were the words of advice early on from Chad Hersh, principal in the insurance practice at Novarica in his session Online Customer Service Trends at Top U.S. Life/Annuity Insurers.
For the past five years, Chad has been the primary researcher and author of the market leading reports on insurance core systems, and is a widely recognized expert on the topic who has presented at numerous conferences and conducted numerous vendor selection projects for US and international insurers.
Online sales service is not going away because customer expectations are being set outside of insurance. As Chad noted, “When was the last time you called Amazon?” Odds are you received the service you needed through on-line means. People can look up just about anything these days online and increasingly expect to do so with their insurance carriers.
Consistency is key. Customers looking for information should receive the same quality information no matter the contact means whether it is online, on paper of through your customer service representatives. “If you are not able to provide a single view of a customer, do you value the relationship?” said Hersh, “if there is not a single relationship manager, do you care about me?” You should be consistent across all contact channels.
As Hersh noted, “If you don’t have 24/7 service on the phone, you’d better have it online.”