Improve NPS Collection and Opt-in Handling to Enhance Customer Experience
Insurers gather NPS data to measure and improve customer experience. However, the utility of NPS is limited. They can improve how NPS is collected and used and how text opt-ins and opt-outs are handled to improve customer experience. Here, Tara Kelly, founder, president and CEO, SPLICE Software, explains how to do it.
Insurers want to deliver a seamless, positive customer experience to build loyalty and reduce churn. Surveys like the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which asks customers if they would recommend the company to family and friends, are widely used in the industry to establish a customer satisfaction baseline and measure progress toward customer satisfaction goals.
The problem is that while NPS is widely used, the use cases are typically quite limited. Most companies ask customers who interact with a call center to rate their experience, and digital-first insurers may extend that option to customers who interact with a chatbot. But gathering NPS data only at those points is inadequate. In many cases, the data gathered at the call center and the web chat are not integrated, which limits its utility even further.
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Building trust and loyalty is about keeping brand promises, and when properly deployed, surveys can give insurers an accurate relationship status. The way the company handles customer text opt-ins and opt-outs can also contribute to customer trust and perception of the brand by signaling the insurer’s respect for customer preferences and data privacy. Insurers who fully understand customer sentiment, handle consent for contact respectfully and manage expectations can compete successfully.
Eliminate NPS Gaps and Manage Customer Satisfaction
So, the problem is not that insurers do not use surveys like NPS; they do. The problem is that surveys are not offered at most points along the customer journey. If insurers deploy surveys after the customer asks for a quote, after quote follow-up, at each point during the claims journey, after new products are released, etc., they can gather a much more holistic picture of customer satisfaction.
A complete picture is crucial because when customers feel an insurer has not lived up to the brand promise, they are likely to leave. And online aggregators make taking their business elsewhere easy. An active hurricane season a few years ago revealed many gaps in perception when homeowners’ insurance customers found that they didn’t have the coverage they thought they had. Managing customer expectations is essential to achieving high levels of customer satisfaction, and insurers who allow customers to offer feedback at more points along the customer journey will have a better sense of how coverage perceptions align with policy reality.
Surveying customers at every delivery touchpoint and collecting and integrating data across channels (phone, chat, text, email, etc.) gives the insurer a more accurate view of how customers feel about the brand. It also generates data that can point to opportunities to educate customers better so that their expectations are realistic.
Insurers that eliminate NPS gaps can also use the data surveys generated to assess customers and focus their efforts on policyholders who are the most likely to create value over the lifetime of the relationship. The right data, properly integrated and weighted to reveal insights, can help insurers ensure they keep their best customers happy.
Respect Customer Preferences on Text Opt-ins
Surveys like NPS are the best tools to generate data and manage customer satisfaction. But insurers receive secondary input on brand perceptions from other choices customers make, like opting in to receive text messages, email, etc. When a customer reaches out to their insurer via a call center or chatbot, it is easy to solicit feedback by giving customers that option when the call or chat ends.
In states that strictly regulate businesses’ ability to text or call customers, surveys are generally recognized as a form of communication that exists for the common good, but other points on the customer journey fall into grey areas. Regardless of the prevailing local standards, it is always a good idea to ask for express consent to communicate via text or call and to have an infrastructure that can handle these interactions, i.e., a way to pull records of consent across channels dynamically.
Asking for express consent not only protects the company from a compliance standpoint but also delivers a message that the insurer respects the customer’s choices. This builds trust, and it is critical because even if the insurer gets everything else right when onboarding new customers, handling claims, etc., they can undermine all that goodwill by being presumptuous about texting. In this sense, obtaining consent is another facet of managing expectations.
It is also important to remember that customers can be fickle. They will provide text opt-ins and opt-outs as it suits their needs at the moment. But as insurance companies increasingly rely on automation for efficiency and view customer data as a business asset, insurers need access to voluntarily shared data and communication tools, which requires customer trust and consent.
Managing Expectations Is a Two-way Street
Honoring people’s choices and doing what they expect is a great way to build an insurance brand, and surveys like NPS can give important signals at every step of the customer journey about how well the brand is performing. Customers want to know they are in the driver’s seat, and text opt-in and opt-out choices send that message.
But managing expectations is a two-way street. Insurers can outline the terms of service at the beginning of the relationship so that everyone knows what is expected. For example, customers who visit Apple’s Genius Bar on a walk-in basis for device repair have to consent to receive texts as a condition of service. Apple sends a text message to let the customer know when it is their turn, and there is no textless option for getting that message.
Insurers who want to maximize text opt-ins can set text opt-ins as a condition for receiving information that the customer values. The customer still has text opt-in and opt-out control, but the insurer gets to define how it communicates with customers. And in doing so, the insurer can set expectations about its relationship with policyholders.
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Data Privacy as a (Temporary) Differentiator
Understanding how building trust and loyalty evolves will be essential for insurance success in the coming years. Rules and expectations are changing, and right now, insurers can still use data privacy as a marketplace differentiator. Hopefully, this will not be the case for much longer — respecting consumer preferences and data privacy should be table stakes.
But right now, it is not, so insurers who boldly ask for engagement and respect customer choices by abiding by their communication preferences stand out in the marketplace. So, now is a great time for insurance companies to expand their use of surveys to ensure they accurately capture customer sentiment at every step of the customer journey.
Before this window of opportunity closes, insurers can set communication guidelines so the company can better manage customer expectations and build the infrastructure to handle the collection of express consent and data to drive insights. In the process, insurers will get a clearer picture of the customer satisfaction baseline, i.e., relationship status and data that can help them improve it.
How are you utilizing NPS data and handling text opt-ins to improve customer satisfaction? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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