Customer acquisition can be both challenging and costly for insurers, as typical marketing methods for prospecting can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

The good news is that a well-designed customer service strategy can significantly contribute to new sales opportunities. To accomplish this, insurers need to use effective customer service as a vehicle to drive overall sales. A customer-centric approach, combined with a strong messaging strategy, builds client trust while subsequently adding multiple layers of cross selling opportunities.

Customer Acquisition and Service

The customer acquisition process involves three key steps. The first two are common steps — pre-sale marketing efforts designed to attract target customers, and the physical sale, where the customer makes a product selection and completes the purchase. While both require consumer confidence and engagement to complete a sale, the third stage of the customer acquisition process is customer service, where ongoing engagement with an existing policyowner by the insurer represents another chance to differentiate and build trust.

The service interaction creates an ongoing opportunity to drive new sales and transition first-time policy holders into customers who purchase additional insurance products with the same insurer with whom they’ve developed a strong relationship. Viewing service as an opportunity to establish yourself as a customer-centric organization that can respond to customer needs is essential in creating new sales opportunities.

Service as a Sales Opportunity

Using service as a sales opportunity can help drive efficiencies in customer targeting and development. Effectively servicing existing customers is a significantly less expensive re-marketing method and provides an even higher understanding of the customer experience.

To leverage customer service as a differentiator, it is imperative for insurers to invest in this change. Utilizing a contact center to support your customer service strategy is an excellent way to build effective, flexible channels for communicating with customers on their terms, when and how they prefer, and reinforces the insurer’s customer-centric credentials. Contact centers have evolved into communication hubs that enable insurance carriers to speak with their customers in a wide variety of ways, while collecting customer preference data that will enable insurers to market to these customers more effectively. Inbound and outbound phone conversations, live chats, and even AI powered chat bots can give a more flexible means to engage with customers on demand and enable data collection to facilitate sales personalization.

This data collection is key to understanding your customers and what they want, allowing you to craft a compelling messaging strategy that aligns with the target customer demographic. As customers express interest in learning more about alternate insurance solutions, contact center representatives can play a significant role in driving consumer education to help add valuable insurance protection to existing customers.