In a survey report on customer experiences from a leading consulting firm, they discussed how to “convert opportunities from seemingly lost opportunities” by preventing early defection and identifying what causes churn. Last year the theme of “revenue growth through customer experience” was adopted as a primary initiative across many industries and companies, covering real-time offers and contextually driven real-time campaigns. Many organizations are already on a path to reap the benefits of technology platforms put in place to address customer retention and growth.
Same Old Strategies Lead to the Same Old Results
What are a customer’s immediate purchase needs? Are offers targeted to match customers’ requirements, especially when they want it? What is the conversion rate on an offer? Three out of 100? That’s a 3% offer up-take ratio. Marketing campaigns like this are obviously shooting offers from the hip!
That means 97% of employee resources and money get wasted. Spraying and spamming customers with a traditional marketing offer are hardly relevant to their needs. With enough failures to follow-up at opportune times, the frustrated customer opts-out. That’s just one aspect of customer defection; what about others? Why do customers defect even if the product or the service offered is relevant?
Marketing Can Learn From Sales
In sales, it’s important to have a signed contract. Even if the offers are compelling, if there isn’t any proper customer follow-up process in place, then there is a likelihood of no sale.
Consider a situation we all deal with: a new insurance policy or renewal. Regardless of the quality of experience with the insurer (claims, service, etc.), a majority of policyholders defect at the time of quote. This is true either for a fresh policy or at the time of renewals, and is even more of a factor with higher premiums.
Somewhat paradoxically, this customer-centric review period hurts insurers. That’s the time when opportunities are created for insurers to court other carrier’s customers.
Identify and Close Opportunities Through Process
Simple changes or tweaks are the best places to start improving. A disintegrated process leaves little chance for agents or representatives to really understand customer’s needs and the need to follow-up after the quote has been generated.
Process discovery and business automation technologies allow insurers to model and automate follow-up processes from quote to policy. Once the quote is generated, all customer information is routed in real time to the designated agent or rep to follow-up. A single-view customer dashboard allows customer reps to engage in meaningful conversations, determine follow-up and action items, and allow insurers to keep track of each and every quote status. In an event where customer doesn’t pick a policy, the information is routed to a rep for follow-up to identify the reasons for non-conversion. This allows insurers to get a better grip on customer’s requirements and offer him or her a product that is more likely to be purchased.
Leveraging technology tools with these simple tweaks and changes allows organizations to determine how and when to push the envelope and enable customer retention, as well as repeat business.
For more information, watch our webinar on “BPMs Best Kept Secrets.”
