Insurance Agent Web Power

What is it that makes Apple’s iPhone, iMac, iTunes, and other products so wildly successful and easy to use.  One suggestion, quoted in a recent NY Times article, is that they are ‘disease’ free; that is, none of these devices is afflicted with ‘featuritis’.

“A defining quality of Apple has been design restraint,” says Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster and consultant in Silicon Valley…They are edited products that cut through complexity, by consciously leaving things out — not cramming every feature that came into an engineer’s head, an affliction known as “featuritis” that burdens so many technology products.

We see insurance agents struggling under the weight of management system features; independent agents have the freedom to represent any insurance company that will sign a contract; to launch a facebook page or twitter feed; agents can build and manage their own websites without worrying about restrictions imposed by one mother-ship product supplier.  But does all this freedom of choice lead to featuritis?  What is the minimum feature set delivering maximum benefit for independent insurance agents?  What do they need from the companies they represent, the marketing programs they choose, website solution and social media options…what is that minimum set of features that is super simple to use and provides the most important set of benefits in such a way that it would make Apple wish they had come up with the answer?

A lot of insurnce agencies I talk to are uneasy about customer reviews that might show up on the public web. The fact is, most business owners are nervous about losing control over customer commentary, but I tend to talk mostly to insurance agents. The local search components of all the major search engines have a place for reviews, and services like Yelp exist pretty much for the purpose of sharing customer reviews. You don’t have to draw your customer’s attention to these review services; sooner or later, they will find them on their own.

Unscrupulous ‘web marketing’ service providers will sometimes post false, negative reviews (or positive reviews on a competitor site they are ‘optimizing’). You should be monitoring your insurance agency’s reviews on these services, as well as those of competitors. Search providers are generally responsive to dealing with false reviews, as long as they can be proven false (e.g., the same ‘reviewer’ providing essentially the same review, to multiple insurance providers across the country, and posting all the reviews around the same time). If reviews are legit, however, or if you cannot prove them to be false, they stay.

The best way to offset negative reviews is by out weighing them with positive reviews. Happily, the evidence seems to indicate that there are a lot more good reviews than bad. Geoff Donaker, COO at Yelp, noted that the ratio of positive to negative reviews is 6:1*. If your agency is delivering real value, let go a little and encourage your customers to spread the word.

*From http://allthings.womma.org/2009/05/18/recap-yelp-presentation/, May 13, 2009

In general, I think the most effective bios are the ones that support your agency ‘brand’ and unique value proposition (the things that make you demonstrably different and better than competitors). Suppose for a moment that your brand and UVP include these general attributes:

• Professionalism
• Service
• Personal Relationships

A lot of agencies throw around attributes like those above, but have a hard time backing the words up, or describing what they mean. Staff bios can help. For instance:

• Professionalism – Continuing education, designations, and awards all back up and help explain this attribute; so it’s not a bad idea to include that information in staff bios.
• Service – There are two kinds of service, and the first type has no place on you bios since it does nothing to promote a brand or UVP that would differentiate your agency. The second kind of service merits consideration for publication. I would lump services into two categories: meeting minimum customer expectations, and exceeding expectations. Returning phone calls on a timely basis and processing transactions accurately are both expected. If you don’t measure up, you have a problem; but if you do meet these expectations, you don’t get any extra credit. On the other hand, if you have producers, account managers or CSRs, whose job it is to ‘meet with at least 5 customers a month to review their protection needs’ (annual review) that kind of information can be compelling in a bio. Likewise, individual situations where an agency staff member has found better insurance protection for a customer or helped out in a claims situation will make the ‘service’ component of your UVP tangible and meaningful. Inclusion of these little stories in bios is worthy of consideration.
• Personal Relationships – I read an article a few years ago about medical malpractice lawsuits that pointed out the relationship between average time spent with a patient and the incidence of malpractice lawsuits. The condensed version is that doctors who spent more time with patients were sued less often. That is, those doctors who bothered to build some kind of personal relationship benefited by spending less time in court and paying less for their malpractice insurance. Patients, and people in general, will cut you some slack if they like you; they will also be more likely to refer people to you. You definitely don’t want to be gratuitous in presenting personal info in an online bio; be sure any personal information you provide through staff bios actually represents and supports the kind of relationships you have and want to build. And you definitely don’t want to jeopardize anyone’s safety by putting too much personal information on your website. So this one requires some careful thought, but there are very good reasons for including this kind of information.

Active vs. Passive Bios
You may also want to think about how you might use your online bios. For example, you might want to include links to bios as part of your proposals to prospects (here are the professionals that will be your risk management team); or you might want to routinely include a link to a CSR or Account Manager bio as part of a new business ‘welcome package’, or when there is a change in service assignments.

Your employees might just be inadvertently representing your agency while bouncing around on any of several social networks (LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.). Does your insurance agency need a policy regarding blogging, ‘Facebooking’ or Tweeting on Twitter? The New York Times seems to think they need one, and here it is:

* Don’t specify your political views. This includes joining online groups that would make your political views known.
* Don’t write anything you wouldn’t write in The Times on your profiles, a blog, or as commentary on content you share.
* Be careful who you ‘friend’. Since this is a tricky subject, The Times suggests that its reports “imagine whether public disclosure of a ‘friend’ could somehow turn out to be an embarrassment that casts doubt on our impartiality.”
* Using email addresses found on social networks to contact individuals is fine but the standard rules apply: treat the person fairly and openly and don’t “inquire pointlessly into someone’s personal life.”
* The Standards Editor must be consulted before contact is made with a minor.

A complete article about the NY Times and their social networking policy can be found at Econsultancy (head up courtesy of WOMMA).

I have long encouraged agents to take control of their online reputation. Monitoring feedback left by others at various online rating and search services is a must. Encouraging positive feedback is even better.

I recently concluded a purchase on eBay (where buyers and sellers are sometimes referred to as the ‘EBay community) and received an email soliciting not just my direct feedback, but also a request to rate my experience via the eBay seller rating function. Here’s the email (names omitted to protect the innocent:

Thank you for your purchase from Business Name Omitted.

We received note that your order has been delivered and would like to verify that you are satisfied with your purchase and our service.

Please reply to this email if there is anything that would keep you from giving us 5 stars on all ratings. We’ll do what it takes to make it right.

If you are satisfied we would highly appreciate it if you would leave us positive feedback with 5 stars on all ratings on eBay. Please use this link: Direct Link to eBay Rating for Seller Omitted.

We have already added positive feedback to your ebay profile. Your feedback can be viewed at:
Direct Link to my eBay Profile and Rating Omitted.

If you have any questions you can either reply to this email or call us at Phone Number Omitted.

Thank you for your business,
Business Name Omitted

Taking a cue from this approach and using a version of this email after every agency sale, renewal, or claim will deliver multiple benefits. First, you will be systematically probing to be sure your customers are happy and will be building stronger relationships (aka, less price sensitivity, more referrals). Second, you will far outstrip your competition in the number positive reviews your agency has at Google Maps (local search), Yahoo Local, Yelp, etc. All you have to do is insert the direct link for rating at those services into your standard email, similar to the example above.

I have been ruminating lately on a tale of unusual personal service, and have found myself considering the lessons for local, independent agents in a wired world.

I traveled across the country recently, and was able to catch up with an old friend. During my visit, we started swapping stories about kids becoming teenage drivers and he shared with me a service provided by his insurance agent that, more two years after the fact, still engendered a sense of wonderment in the telling.

His agent called dad and lad in for an hour long meeting about the nuts and bolts of liability and driving responsibility. It seems that this particular agent used to counsel the kids solo, but she was so effective that many of the new drivers tossed their keys to their parents on their return home, muttering they weren’t ready for the responsibility.

A lot of us think that ‘risk management’ isn’t really part of personal insurance, but this is an example of risk management at its finest. Not only that, the teen driving counseling story has been told countless times to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and… me. Two years later, the story is still going strong. You can’t buy word-of mouth referrals like that. And what about the improvement in retention resulting from this kind of service? (For more on that, take a look at the August 2008 National Auto Insurance Study, published by JD Power, and the effect improved loyalty has on price sensitivity. 36 percent of auto insurance customers have actively shopped for a new insurer in the past year – how many of your agency customers actively shopped for a new insurer or agent?)

Too often we are tempted to compete head-to-head with GEICO by providing online quotes, leaving a personal insurance prospect or customer to figure out their own needs, and manage risk on their own. There is nothing wrong with having articles, videos and helpful information on your agency website to help mitigate teen driving accidents. But when those web resources can be combined and promoted along with personal counseling service, a value is created that is unassailable by blandishment of quick quotes and arms-length relationships – even in the face of massive advertising.

Professional or Amateur?

There’s a lot that can be done with video, and having video production capabilities in the family (the kid with the Mac)gives you options. Clearly there is a place for professionally done video production, as well as a place for (reasonably professional), low/no cost, self-made videos (the 50-something with the digital camera).

In fact, there was a recent news item featuring CNN’s opening of ‘bureaus’ in seven cities where they previously did not have one. Expense is a determining factor in opening and maintaining a network news bureau – equipment, technical personnel, etc. The new CNN bureaus will provide broadcasts via web casts, ‘directed, filmed, and produced’ by the reporter. The vastly reduced cost of that kind of production makes it possible for CNN to provide direct coverage in more areas – an example of how fast and inexpensively produced video can coexist with higher production value programming. In fact, CNN has taken this a step further with their iReport service, where virtually anyone can report news and publish video ‘story’.

You have to wonder if there is a ‘best’ balance between videos that are slick and professional, and videos that are not edited with layered soundtracks. I’m sure there is no one right answer, but I’m going to throw this out there: providing only slick, commercial grade videos may suppress total views. Allstate Insurance has had a YouTube video channel for over two years, and the total views have been somewhat underwhelming at 7,114 (and 4 videos account for nearly 75% of all views). There are 37 videos on the Allstate channel, most have been viewed fewer than 200 times. I’m not suggesting that Allstate has not achieved acceptable ROI from its YouTube channel; remember, production and publishing costs would be low. I am suggesting that commercial grade videos may not always be the best way to go on the web, particularly when videos are published to a social site like YouTube.

What does this mean for your insurance agency? Don’t be afraid to have employees, customers, and others in the community produce videos for you. Worry less about matching TV quality production values, but focus on quick publication and community relevance. Your video views, and site traffic, should go up.