6 Strategic Mobile Solutions for Insurance Industry

It is common knowledge by now that mobility will permeate every single aspect of life in the future; it will test the limits of human capabilities and completely distort established systems.

"By 2018, insurers anticipate nearly one-fifth (19.7%) of their business to be generated through internet, up from 12.7% in 2013. Another 10.9% is expected to come via mobile channels, up from a mere 1.5% in 2013. In effect, within five years, nearly one-third of the insurance industry’s business is expected to occur digitally."

– World Insurance Report, 2014

Although the insurance industry has taken time to warm up to adopting mobile, it is beyond debate now that not capitalizing on it only means losing millions, in terms of revenue. Mobility for the insurance industry is no longer just about going digital, but rather about giving companies the power to get closer and better connected with their customers as well as their employees. Although not news anymore, let us recap all the various benefits of the mobile solutions for insurance industry:

• The ability to extend all business services to mobile devices
• The ability to extend customers more power and convenience by offering self-service options
• Increasing agent and policyholder satisfaction
• Offering better customer service tools

Being a prominent player in the mobile space is more than just creating a mobile-friendly website. It all comes down to strategizing around various methods of engagement – mastering the touch technology, focusing on ease-of-use and navigation, providing intrinsic value and so on. Mobility plays a key role at various customer lifecycle stages, such as research, awareness, sales, servicing, and relationship management. It enables better client communication by offering customers the option to interact with the insurance company in a platform and device of their choice. In addition to servicing customers, mobility also contributes towards digitizing the sales cycle, rendering more flexibility to address constantly changing customer needs.

Whether it is the customer or the employee, mobility plays a key role in generating engagement. By harnessing the data acquired through interactions and analytics, insurance companies are in a better position to deliver highly personalized and relevant solutions.

The importance of a mobile-first approach in the insurance industry is highlighted in realizing the kind of challenges it has to deal with:

• Intense competition
• Too many insurance plans
• The inability of a customer to decide on the most suitable plan
• Pushy insurance agents
• Lack of in-depth and easy to consume information for the customer (most of which found either on paper or on web)

It is true that insurers have very limited interaction with the customer. This makes user engagement through mobile a doubly challenging effort. Insurers that can think outside the box and adopt a holistic approach in designing their mobile strategy, have vast potential to cater to constantly evolving customer demands and inspire stickiness to the brand amongst their target audience.

According to a recent research by Ernst and Young, "In the current business environment, acquiring and retaining customers necessitates engagement and ongoing dialogue. Measurement should connect with the brand, improve two-way communication and strengthen long-term relationships."

Take a look at these six areas that you can make a top priority when strategizing your mobile approach:

1. Sales Force Automation Through Enterprise Deployment – Insurers should consider enabling sales force automation by implementing a enterprise wide mobile strategy. Such an app will enable insurance agents and sales people with tablet devices to provide quick and extremely relevant advice to their customer. Such a mobile app contains complete marketing collateral and is integrated with the CRM system, gives users the option to quickly capture details and enables managers to generate comprehensive reports through which they can monitor sales performance and optimize it.

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