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Archive for the ‘Web 2.0’ Category

More on iPad as Insurance Business Platform

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

I’ve expanded on some of my original thoughts in this post on the iPad as Insurance Business Platform in this column in Insurance Networking News.

Unlike a laptop or a phone, an iPad is a good platform for entering short pieces of data or selecting from menus in an interactive form from the field. The screen real estate and text-input option is superior to both a smartphone and a stylus-based tablet, and it doesn’t require resting on a surface like a laptop. Once the camera-enabled versions emerge, both still and video image capture will enable field personnel to incorporate rich data into these forms, including audio signatures from customers or claimants validating information.

Posted in IT Strategy, Innovation, Insurance, Web 2.0, eBusiness | No Comments »

E-business is not about “work” — it’s about results

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

At The Life Conference this week, there was an overview presentation about operations and technology trends that contrasted the “old world,” in which the carrier did all the data entry work for customers and agents, to the “new world,” in which this work is pushed out to the customers and agents. The presenter seemed to marvel at this, and shrug that hey, if that was what people wanted, that was OK, but it seemed strange to him.

Here’s the thing: e-commerce is not about the “work” — it’s about the results.

If agents or customers can get a quote or policy issued ASAP, they don’t mind doing data entry to get those results. What they don’t like is doing data entry and not getting anything for their efforts.

Similarly, customers like online self-service because they are in control. They see the information they want, when they want. They can interact with it, and they can do it all without using a call center rep. Unless call center reps are providing advice, they basically serve as an inefficient human interface layer to the company’s systems, translating voice to synaptic signals, to typing, to visual input, back to synaptic signals, and back to voice again.

Companies launching or improving their e-business systems should think less about who’s doing how much work and more about who’s getting how much value in terms of convenience, improved response time, and general efficiency.

PS, if it’s not the user getting the value, it’s not going to work.

Posted in Innovation, Insurance, Web 2.0, Webinars, eBusiness | 1 Comment »

Finding customers in social media platforms

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

When getting started in social media, a common question is how to find your customers. Techniques to use differ for each platform. It also depends on whether you’re looking for consumers or agents. The main three platforms to focus on are Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. YouTube is good if you have the ability to create videos.

Here are a few suggestions for finding customers and potential customers.

First – help them find you!

Add widgets/badges to the website to make it easy for them to follow you on twitter, or become a fan on Facebook, or add you to their contacts on LinkedIn.

Add your Twitter domain, Facebook page, etc. to all customer facing communications – newsletters, brochures, even emails to agents

Create a group on Linked In, and a page on Facebook. You may even want to consider multiple groups because you have such diversity of interests in your customer base. You could set up a group/page on boating – relevant for the marina coverages or a group/page on architecture – relevant to the architects. If you’re planning to use YouTube, set up a channel there as well. You can YouTube without creating your own videos, but it’s more effective if you put your own up.

On Twitter, you’ll want to be listed on other people’s lists. Being on a list that others follow makes it easier for people to find you. (Let me know your Twitter handle and I’ll add you to one of my lists.) You can find lists on Listorious, identify who curates the list, and then follow the curator – The curator is likely to then add you to their list. Additionally, you can see who the curator follows, and who follows the curator and you can then follow all of those people.

Then go look for them!

Each of the relevant platforms has a search feature – so you could go through the laborious process of searching individual names. This would probably only be relevant to find agents in your agency plant. It would be Way too time consuming to look up customers this way. A better technique is to search on relevant terms for your customer base. If you focus on small businesses, search on entrepreneurship. If you focus on affluent consumers, search on terms like art or antique. If you primarily work with agents, search on terms like ‘cheap insurance’. If you concentrate on specialty insurance, search on architects, or construction.

Twitter has a variety of tools like Wefollow or Twellow that make it easier to find people. Once you find them on Twitter, it’s easier to find them in other channels.

Google search and Yahoo! search now include tweets in the search results. You can search on relevant terms and find tweeters there, and follow them.

Join groups in Linked In and Facebook that are relevant to your customer base – e.g. if you focus on teachers, find groups on education; looking for large commercial clients? Look for Risk Management groups. Look for ad hoc groups that have sprung up around the topics you’re focused on. The other members are potential customers.

Follow your competitor’s fans/followers. For example, if you focus on personal auto, you could follow the 3700 fans of Progressive. The usual practice on Twitter is to follow those who follow you – so you’d probably get a certain number of them following you back.

Go to the forums and find like-minded customers there. Try http://www.big-boards.com/ or http://www.boardtracker.com . You can put in key words. E.g. estate planning, and find a number of forums where like minded people are talking to each other.

Build an interesting game, widget, or tool that is provided to the public for free. Put it out there and watch the viral usage grow. A recent video by OK Go, a popular band, has had 8.3 million views, and 14,000 comments. Did you notice it was sponsored by State Farm?

Don’t be taken aback by how long it might take to build a following. This is an organic process that takes work. Start slow, and watch your fan/follower base grow!

Posted in Uncategorized, Web 2.0 | 4 Comments »

Social Media and Insurers

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Social Media usage is growing dramatically in carriers. It’s no longer a question of “is it relevant.” The challenge carriers are addressing is how to most effectively embed social media techniques into their marketing strategies. They are looking at how to use this new willingness of consumers to communicate and interact as a way of furthering their business strategies.

Carriers are using Social Media (Blogging, Tweeting, Facebook, Forums, User Generated Content) for a variety of reasons:

creating brand awareness
managing the carrier reputation (and intervention in customer service problems)
building customer loyalty
education for loss prevention purposes, and
basic SEO – piggybacking on the high ranks of channels such as YouTube, Facebook or Twitter to drive traffic to their site.

I follow over 120 carriers on Twitter, over 140 agents on Twitter, and a number of companies on Facebook. Some that are doing particularly interesting things? Allstate for sure! Geico, Liberty Mutual with their Project Responsibility, Nationwide (although their efforts are mostly internal with their You2.0 initiative), USAA (55K followers on Facebook), Progressives blog strategy, Lexington’s podcasts, or Utica’s focus on the independent agent are all good examples! And there are plenty more!

If you’re thinking about dipping your toe in the social media pond, I recommend

Secure your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn domains early.
Evaluate carefully the potential role of social media in the context of an overall marketing strategy. That is to say, figure out WHAT you want to do before you figure out HOW to do it.
Identify compliance issues that impact your organization and create processes and policies to assure efforts observe the regulatory requirements.
Create governance processes early that include guidance for employees on their personal use of social media with respect to referencing your company.
Identify the metrics you’ll use to measure success – and how you’ll obtain those metrics.

I’ve just published a report that describes the different types of social media being used in the insurance industry today, outlines key governance and compliance issues to consider, and suggests some key metrics to measure the success of different initiatives. It also includes real-world examples of successful initiatives from US insurers across different lines of business.

I would love to hear from you on your own social media efforts – kcarnahan@novarica.com

Posted in Innovation, Insurance, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

Social Media Update

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Couple of interesting social media notes this week:

1. We rescued the “novarica” twitter account from the squatters, so you can follow us online at @novarica, and it’s really us. It was actually a pretty simple process — if your domain has been squatted, ping me at kcarnahan@novarica.com and I’d be happy to share our experience.

2. I’m interviewed by Ara Tremblay on Social Media in the latest ACORD newsletter.

3. Bob Ellis and I have developed an Executive Education program focused on Social Media for insurers and wealth management firms based on our recent reports (insurance/WM). It’s a one day session covering market overviews, best practices, and compliance. Ping me if you’re interested in learning more.

Posted in Web 2.0 | No Comments »

“What we have here is a failure to communicate”

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

From my latest column in Insurance Networking News:

More than 40 years ago, Paul Newman’s prison guard in the film, “Cool Hand Luke,” made famous the phrase, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Yet, today, a quick Google search of the phrase will pull up more than 400,000 hits.

With the quantum leaps in communication technology over the last 10 years, the failure to communicate effectively has become a mortal sin, whether you’re talking about communication within an organization or between an organization and its partners or customers.

…

But enabling this kind of communication takes changes in practices and behaviors as well as technology. In addition to its impact on customer and agent communication, these changed expectations have a significant potential impact on the way IT leaders will manage their own organizations and their relationships with their business counterparts, in four key areas: information accessibility, skills inventory, activity transparency and customer communication with business counterparts.

Read the complete article here.

Posted in Article Links, Innovation, Insurance, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

Best Practices in Social Networking for Wealth Management

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

January 12 (New York) – Novarica (www.novarica.com), a research and advisory firm focused on markets, operations, and technology in insurance and wealth management, has issued a new report identifying best practices for wealth management firms to follow in order to maximize the benefits of Social Networking. Top findings from the report include:

Appropriate use of social networking tools is most beneficial when combined with online trading capabilities, resulting in increased client trading through better distribution of trading ideas and concepts, thereby increasing firm revenues. Without trading capabilities, social networking simply adds costs in terms of managing the new channels.
Outside the self-service online brokerage industry, few wealth management firms are successfully deploying social networking tools, thereby missing opportunities to increase client loyalty and capture the elusive Generation Y investor, the future of wealth management.
Firms need to incorporate social networking at their own sites and on their own servers to ensure appropriate compliance; having advisors doing their own thing on Twitter and Facebook is a recipe for a compliance disaster.

“Social networking is a powerful dynamic sweeping communications and peoples’ daily interactions through technology. By combining social networking tools with online self-service capabilities, wealth management firms can build powerful integrated offerings that improve trading volume and client loyalty while creating a methodology for firms to capture the still-elusive Gen Y investor,” comments study author Robert J. Ellis, a principal and head of wealth management at Novarica.

The 15-page report includes tables outlining current social networking of leading institutions and is available from Novarica at http://www.novarica.com/report_social_networking_wm.shtml. Mr. Ellis will also be hosting a webinar discussing the report on January 27 at 2 PM Eastern. Interested attendees may register online at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/141451256

Posted in Press releases, Wealth Management, Web 2.0, Webinars | No Comments »

Make a Social Networking Policy Your New Years Resolution

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

More and more carriers are successfully using social media – Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and blogs – to build their brand and generate revenue. But many carriers think social media is risky business. The biggest fear factors concern how use of social media at work reduces productivity, the potential increase in computer viruses hitting the IT infrastructure, and that uncontrolled posted content may damage a carrier’s reputation or even lead to regulatory intervention.

Even those carriers who have chosen not to use social media have employees who are using social media in their personal life. What employees post from home can influence how others view your company and can impact the company’s brand. If you don’t already have a social media policy in place, make this a New Years resolution to get in place quickly.

Companies already have policies in place covering employee communications via email or the telephone. A social media policy is really just an extension of those existing policies to include online sites.

How do you get started?

The Agents Council on Technology just published a new guide – Creating A Social Web Policy For Your Independent Agency. The guide provides information to help create an appropriate corporate policy for an agency. It’s a pretty good starting point for carriers as well and includes links to some great resources – such as the social networking policies of IBM, Dell and Intel. Or, if you’re looking for even more, google ’sample social media policy’ and you’ll get 257 million hits.

Posted in Distribution, Insurance, Web 2.0, eBusiness | No Comments »

Smartphone Apps for Insurers

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Our new executive brief focuses on examples and key issues in the area of smartphone apps for insurers.

While we don’t believe that smartphone apps are a do-or-die competitive necessity at this stage for most insurers, the adoption rates in banking and some of the innovative applications launched by insurers in 2009 point the way to smartphones taking an important place in a multi-channel communication strategy in the near future.

We recommend that insurers monitor their competitors’ activities in this space and consider the costs and benefits of creating smartphone apps for their target customers. Benefits include marketing value (for the early movers in each marketplace) as well as facilitating communication with important customer segments. Some cost savings may also be possible, but improved service is a more realistic goal.

When thinking about smartphone apps, insurers should consider the three key capabilities of smartphones – convenience, cameras, and GPS – as well as the short-term and long-term value of apps linked to specific phone platforms vs. the device independent mobile web.

Posted in IT Strategy, Insurance, Press releases, Web 2.0 | No Comments »