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Industry reports: Website to Agent Transition in the Insurance Industry Q2 2009

Researching Life Insurance Online and Want to Speak to an Agent? – Good Luck

Agents are Searching for Leads But Industry Websites Could Play a Bigger Role

So many prospective life insurance customers now research products online but continue to buy through an agent, so transition from online to offline should be a key priority.

About this study

The consumer experience when moving from the website to the field agent can be viewed as disjointed across the industry and more likely to be shaped by the company business model and structure than customers’ needs. This study looked at new individual prospects researching on the website who looked to engage with an agent to progress their interest. Further studies in the series will look at existing customers who want to engage with an agent that can advise or expand their coverage or add policies.

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The business challenges

One of the key goals of an insurance website is to promote and encourage contact with an agent. Features like agent locators and call-back forms, if implemented well, allow agents to do what they do best – sell to prospects.

Agent locators and call-back forms therefore are only the first step in the process that, all going well, ends with an agent closing a deal for insurance. As important as these features are, they are still only elements in a bigger picture. To give agents the best possible chance of closing deals, the whole organization must be geared towards making sure that the process is supported, from the initial website contact to the closure phase. This support would include buy-in and co-operation from agents and support staff, as well as smoothly-functioning backend systems to make sure the agents are quickly and fully informed about new leads

This study looks at two of the main features at the start of the process. To have these optimized is key to the success of the sales cycle. If prospects can’t find an agent locator, or does not have enough confidence in the call-back form to encourage them to submit it, the process will fail. Many of the measurements in our benchmarks are of design choices that are not difficult to implement. Clearly, however, the sites that successfully match prospects to agents will need to complement good agent locators and/or call-back facilities with equally impressive business processes.

Best-rated websites

(in alphabetical order)

Overall

Ameriprise, AXA Equitable, Farmers New World, MetLife, Nationwide, New York Life, Northwestern Mutual, Thrivent Financial, Transamerica, Western Southern Life

Agent Locators

American Family, Ameriprise, Farmers New World, MetLife, Nationwide, State Farm Life Insurance, Thrivent Financial

Agent call-back

Allianz Life of NA, AXA Equitable, MetLife, Mutual of Omaha, New York Life, Western Southern Life

Key Findings: Agent Locators

• Of the 36 websites reviewed, 23 provided an option to locate a company representative. (Some sites provided more than one option.)
• Ten sites provided an agent locator
• Eight provided an agency locator
• Ten supplied information about local or regional sales offices
• Thirteen provided no information about how to find local agents, agencies or sales offices
• 70% of the websites that provided a locator tool positioned a link to it on the home page, but 82% provided a link on the Contact Us page
• 80% of sites that provided local agent information contained individual pages for those agents. The highest-rated agent pages were provided by Thrivent, State Farm and Ameriprise
• Only 50% of companies that listed agencies provided a consistent set of Web pages or subsites for the agencies. Although this does reflect the more independent nature of the agencies, it also negatively affects consumers, who will find it very hard to make an informed choice. The highest-rated sites for providing comprehensive and consistent agency sites were Northwestern Mutual and Nationwide Life
• Of the ten companies that provided local sales office information, none provided consumer choice, with office selections being determined largely by territory. Prudential and Thrivent Financial both warrant mention in that they listed the financial professionals based in the regional office, each of whom has an individual Web page
• Slightly less than half of sites that provided a locator tool allow consumers to locate an agent by name. This feature can be useful for following up a recommendation
• Of the 13 sites that did not offer locator tools, most provided options to call the central company telephone number and a few offered advice about the value of an agent and strategies for how to find one

Key Findings: Agent Call-back

• Just 22 of the 36 company websites (61%) provided some option for consumers to request contact. Consumer expectations will vary from a fully qualified and up-to-speed agent down to a vague hope that some contact will be made
• No site provided an option to set up an exact day and time of appointment
• Only one site (New York Life) allowed a day to be requested (but not the date)
• Time of day was the only common choice parameter provided, and 15 of the 22 websites that offered a call-back option allowed some time control. The most flexible in offering time control were Allianz Life, New York Life, Lincoln Financial, Pacific Life and Western & Southern Life
• Only six sites are rated as good at requesting satisfactory qualification information. Receiving a call from a qualified agent is vital in order to limit any waste of time for both consumers and agents. With territory-based agent allocation schemes, where agents could be determined by zip code only, it would help if they were prepared for the call. Consumers are prepared to supply suitable amounts of information if they believe doing so will be to their benefit
• Only half the sites that offer a call-back allow consumers to specify the product in which they have interest
• Just six sites provide an option on the home page to request contact, and overall just 13 of the 22 sites make it easy to find anywhere on the site how to request contact
• Just six sites recognized a call-back request from the site search engine
• Eighteen sites make the provision of an email address mandatory, even if telephone is the expected contact method
• Eight sites allow email to be specified as the preferred contact method, but of those only two, Transamerica and Minnesota Life, dynamically make the telephone number optional and email mandatory in this circumstance

Contact Terry Golesworthy 978-412-0019 terry@customerrespect.com

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