* This article is part of a White Paper called: “What Insurance Customers Expect from Your Online Services and How to Exceed Their Expectations.”
Problem 1 – Information overload scares away prospects
Creating an online life insurance website is a tough balancing act. You need to give visitors all the information they need to make a decision but at the same time too much information can overwhelm them.
For example, MetLife has decided to provide visitors with more information. This is great for visitors who want a complete life insurance education and will definitely help buyers make more informed decisions.
It’s possible though that they have gone too far. Just on their opening page, they have a large table comparing multiple products, widgets for calculating life insurance needs, contacting an agent, or getting a quote, and links to all of MetLife’s product and information pages.
They might be better off with a simpler opening page and then moving the rest of the information to other pages.
Problem 2 – Self-service is confusing and frustrating
Life insurance can be a complicated product. As a result, self-service can become confusing and frustrating for visitors.
The process to get a free quote can take too long, customers might apply for the wrong product, or they might get the wrong rate because they answered a background question incorrectly.
Your website needs to clearly explain to visitors what they’re doing at every step of the way so they don’t give up midway through the process.
Prudential’s online quote page is fairly easy to navigate and definitely gets customers through the process smoothly so it avoids a lot of these problems. However, it doesn’t tell visitors how long the application process will take which can discourage applicants. They also have so many similar products listed that visitors might start applying for the wrong type of coverage.
Overall they’ve done a great job but they may want to address these issues.
Problem 3 – Extremely low online productivity rates
While consumers are slowly warming up to the idea of buying life insurance online, it’s still not as popular as buying auto or health insurance online.
Many like to go online to get research and collect free quotes to prepare for meeting with a live agent. This is partly because customers still aren’t used to buying policies online but also because the industry hasn’t evolved with the times.
John Hancock doesn’t even allow customers to buy a brand-new policy online as they’re totally committed to the old agent model. This is understandable and works well for them but as the World becomes more digital John Hancock may want to add some online options.
Problem 4 – Frustrated customers leave the website and overload customer service
A good online life insurance page should free up the time of your customer service reps. A badly run website could create even more work for them.
Customers who visit the site and run into problems will start calling your customer service lines. This isn’t bad if they’re legitimate prospects but you risk getting calls from people who are just shopping quotes.
As a result, your representatives will be busy dealing with these calls instead of working with your clients and strong prospects. The Lincoln Financial Group has this problem. Their customer service lines are meant for existing customers but it’s not clear who prospects are supposed to call with questions.
As a result, their customer help lines likely get tied up with calls from website visitors. By setting up a line specifically for online questions, they can prevent overloading their customer service.
Problem 5 – Policies get delayed because customers don’t handle medical exams
Once a customer has gone through the application process for a policy, the sale isn’t done yet. For many of your policies, they still need to pass a medical exam.
The problem is that prospects are busy and might not make this a priority. You could lose sales because prospects buy a policy but then let it lapse by not completing the medical exam.
You may want to invest in customer service reps whose jobs are to keep track and schedule these appointments, like an agent would, so you don’t let sales slip through your fingers.
This article is part of a White Paper called “What Insurance Customers Expect from Your Online Services and How to Exceed Their Expectations.”
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The White Paper covers a range of topics including:
Chapter 1: 5 Online Insurance Challenges that are Detrimental to Your Online Customer Experience Efforts.
Chapter 2: 7 Customer Experience Secrets to Guarantee Customer Retention for Your Online Insurance Services.
Chapter 3: 5 Tools You Must Know About to Improve Your Customer’s Online Insurance Experience.