For any insurance brand, renewals matter more than new policy purchases. It forms the backbone of their income statements being a recurring revenue source. But it is also one that is most prone to be hurt by economic stress. For example, the COVID pandemic resulted in a drop in renewals. Hence, it is no wonder that many General Insurance companies have shown a specific interest in optimizing their renewal process through automation and digitization, so much so that there are now awards that celebrate digital innovation.
As a leading provider of marketing automation solutions to BFSI organizations in India, it came as no surprise to us, at Netcore, when a multi-award-winning General Insurance company came to us with challenges typical to organizations digitizing their processes. This organization, a joint venture between an Indian NBFC and a German financial services company, had received multiple awards for their innovations in digitizing the insurance process but had faced multiple issues in optimizing their automation communications to their large base of customers and make the most of it.
The Frustrations of Over Enthusiastic Digitization
Typical to any unstructured digitization process, the organization had their information in multiple silos. Each silo had its own system for updating its information, which led to conflicting data points for the same customer across these silos. They also had their own communication processes that didn’t speak to the other silos, which lead to the customer receiving multiple communications with conflicting proposals. In effect, there was a lack of a central database that could be updated with the most recent customer information, with all the policies that he/she had bought into.
Apart from potential answers to their frustrations with siloed data, the organization had two specific objectives setup for Netcore:
- To automate their renewal process.
- To enable them to send hyper-personalized communications to their customers.
Effectively, the needed Netcore to enhance their customer communications, effectively improving the customers’ experience with their outbound touchpoints.
The 3 Step Strategy
Netcore’s team came in with a 3 step strategy and pitched it to the general insurance organization.
Step 1 – Integration
We would start by integrating Netcore’s Smartech with the organization’s CRM tool. Smartech’s servers would collect daily updates on each policyholder through an API call. This would target the issues of siloed information. It would ensure that Smartech’s servers would have the updated information that we need for every communication.
Step 2 – Segmentation
Next, we would work on segmenting all customers. After appraising the organization’s customer base we decided on 90+ segments as per their line of business (LOB), product, expiry date, and policy renewal status. The idea was to target these segments with unique journeys based on their attributes.
Step 3 – Hyper-personalized Communication
Finally, we would work on hyper-personalized ‘Renewal Reminder’ communications for the organization’s customers. The focus here would be people from the rural parts of the country, where there would be the added personalization facet of language. We would send the communications, email and SMS, in one of six languages.
The Launch and the Aftermath
Netcore’s pitch worked, and we went to the field.
1.8 lakh (180 thousand) users were targeted every month.
Sample of Personalized Email
Sample of Personalized SMS
The customer base was segmented into 90+ units and classified into more than 4 Line of Businesses. We targeted these segments under 3 product categories, 2 Wheeler, 4 Wheeler, and Non-motor, under each Line of Business. A thing to note is that a customer might be in one or more product categories, or under multiple Line of Businesses. Once the customer database was put into place, we got to work setting up automated emails for each segment. We also used Smartech in conjugation with information in the customer database, like the customer, policy, and renewal information, to send hyper-personalized SMS and email under predefined automation triggers. Finally, as we’d planned earlier, customers from rural communities were targeted using the most applicable one of six regional languages.
Interestingly, through the process of implementing our strategies, we identified 3 types of customers:
- The early birds, who were customers who renew at least 5-6 weeks prior to their expiry date.
- The last moment users, who renew in the last week of the expiry date.
- The late risers, who renew after their policy has lapsed.
We used this information to further fine-tune our automated and personalized communications.
Below are the results we observed after implementing Smartech:
- Sending hyper-personalized communications resulted in an open rate of 31% and CTOR of 11%.
- Sending multiple reminders to customers at various intervals starting at least 2 months prior and 15 days after the policy has expired helped to increase the renewal rate.
Smartech contributed to 1 in 3 policy renewals (overall) made in the financial year 2019-20.
The investment in Smartech has been highly rewarding in terms of the ROI, both in money and time, for the brand. We shall continue to aid them and other BFSI brands to achieve their goals and more. For now, take the first step by letting us show how we can help you.
