Loyal customers are at the heart of any profitable business. A sale to a repeat customer is worth almost twice as much as a sale to a first-time buyer – so minimising customer churn is amongst the most important ways that your business can maximise its profits.
Repeat customers are amongst your most valuable assets – and retaining them should be high on your list of priorities. The effective use of bespoke claims management technology can help you to hold onto your customers by streamlining the claims process, increasing transparency, and encouraging communication.
Standing out in a crowded field
The insurance market has never been so crowded – and many insurers are increasingly choosing to compete not on service, but on price.
The apparently unstoppable growth of price comparison sites has meant that many customers now consider price to be the most important factor affecting their purchasing decisions. The continued poor state of the economy, and the downward pressure on business spending that has resulted, have only exacerbated this problem.
This presents insurers with a conundrum. If you cannot (or choose not to) compete on price, how else can you ensure that you stand out in an increasingly congested field – and hold on to the valuable customers you already have?
Great customer service is the answer.
Many customers will only deal with an insurer on two or three occasions: when making a purchase, when making a claim, and when renewing. The claims process is the best opportunity for an insurer to make a good impression, and build brand loyalty. Indeed, if the customer has bought their policy through a broker, the claims process could in fact be the first contact they have with your firm – and first impressions count. By providing an efficient, slick claims process you can help to maximise customer satisfaction, and reduce churn.
Technology and customer retention
Your customers are likely to have three main concerns when making a claim: the ease with which they can make that claim, the decision they receive, and the speed with which the decision is arrived at. Properly implemented claims management software can help you to address all three of these concerns.
Let’s consider the issue of speed. A well-designed claims management solution can dramatically reduce the lifecycle of each claim you receive. This technology provides you with a simple, effective framework within which to store, organise, and peruse claims data. Many solutions offer a very high level of granularity, allowing you to pinpoint the information you need quickly. Additionally, a clear interface helps you to understand the progress of each claim.
When combined, these factors mean that the time between claim submission and decision can be dramatically shortened. Multiple employees can work on individual claims more effectively, and tasks can be easily designated to the relevant individual. Automatic alerts, issued when claims reach specific stages or goals, will also enable you to prioritise and manage your time more effectively.
The decision itself is also a key part of the claims process. Indeed, many customers are likely to consider that decision to be the most important element of their dealings with your business.
Again, good claims management software helps you to come to better decisions, more quickly. By ensuring that your employees have all the information they need, in an easily digestible format, you can help to guarantee that accurate decisions are arrived at as rapidly as possible.
Communication
Communication is key to good customer service and, by extension, to customer retention. Claims management software helps you to communicate better with your customers, and keep them in the loop.
There is no longer any necessity for a customer to be kept in the dark about the status of their claim. With good claims management software, your customers can track the progress of their own claim, through a simple online dashboard. This technology has a number of important benefits. Primarily, it ensures that customers are confident that their claim is being dealt with, and removes the need for them to chase you for information. Secondly, it eases the burden on your call centre staff.
Perhaps most importantly, though, this transparency helps to reassure your customers that their claim has been dealt with fairly – even if it is eventually denied.
Seamlessness
Importantly, these solutions can be built in a way that suits your organisation. A properly integrated solution will capture data from your existing online claim forms, and store it in an intuitive, manipulatable manner – rather than requiring you to spend time developing new question sets.
Customer-facing elements can also be easily branded, and integrated into your existing online presence. This can help to reassure customers that their data is safe, and that they are not required to deal with third parties in order to get their issue resolved. Developing trust is vital if you are to build long-term relationships with your customers – and seamless integration of technology helps to encourage that trust.
An efficient customer retention strategy is necessary for any business to remain profitable. With a claims process that makes effective use of the latest claims management technologies, you can reduce churn, grow your customer base sustainably and, most importantly, maximise your profits.