Digital transformation in the insurance industry has led to the digitization and automation of many tasks that are traditionally performed by insurance agents. However, this doesn’t mean that the agents will become obsolete. The insurance management platforms that are being developed aim at helping insurance providers and agents to deliver improved customer experiences. They’re not being developed so they can erase the insurance agent. The agent still plays a vital role in the insurance process even amidst digital transformation.
The role of the insurance agent amidst digital transformation
Insurance agents are the backbone of the insurance industry both traditionally and in the digital age. They are the key figures in the insurance industry because, through the sales process, they generate income for insurance businesses or companies by brokering deals or signing up new clients. Therefore, their roles in insurance businesses will always be vital even when there’s a rise in digital transformation.
One might argue that most insurance providers are adopting direct sales through digital channels, and this might affect the role of the insurance agent. However, you’ll find that most of these insurance companies are redefining their agents’ roles and giving them tasks that deliver even more value. For example, agents are now not just selling the insurance products, their roles now also include building lasting relationships and providing clients with advice and guidance. This is because the customer-centric business environment will always be essential for success, whether it’s in traditional or digital insurance.
Digital transformation helps build a customer-centric business environment
Digital transformation helps in building a customer-centric environment. It does this by improving the speed and accuracy of insurance processes. As a result, it enables insurance agents to give their clients better services.
For example, using an insurance management platform, an insurance agent can instantly generate a quote and make quote comparisons from different insurers for a potential client. This reduces the time that could have been spent to manually generate a quote or make quote comparisons. The rest of the time can be spent working on closing the sale.
There are many other examples of how digital transformation promotes a customer-centric business environment. You can read more in our previous blog here. But basically, what we’re saying is, once agents are empowered through digital transformation, they can build stronger customer relationships and create customer loyalty through direct engagement with clients and improved customer experiences.
The improved customer experience
Insurance clients want a seamless and personalized buying process and customer service experience, and digitization provides this. It empowers insurance agents to serve clients better because:
- It gives them more time to engage with clients by reducing the time spent doing manual processes.
- It helps them to track their clients’ needs more effectively through integration with customer relationship management (CRM) applications
- It enables them to cross-sell and up-sell new products and services, because they can keep track of when clients go through life changes, such as getting married or starting a family.
- It enables them to accelerate the on-boarding process with a quicker and automated underwriting process.
Digital transformation through insurance management platforms
Fortunately, insurance companies don’t have to build an insurance management platform from scratch. Having considered the need to create seamless and personalized buyer journeys for your insurance clients, insurtech companies like Agencify are creating insurance management platforms for agents, to consolidate important agent and insurer functions. These platforms empower agents and insurers by:
- Giving them real-time access to their clients’ records/ profiles.
- Automating processes and workflows to meet individual and business preferences, e.g.) sales goals.
- Creating a consolidated view of product, pricing, policies.
- Providing access on-the-go because the insurance management platform can be installed on a mobile device or tablet.
- Generating ready quotes and quote comparisons that help agents to advise their clients through choosing a policy.
- Connecting the agent and their clients throughout the entire policy lifecycle. This promotes relationship building and engagement.
- Enabling insurer branches to monitor and measure the performance of individual agents and their offices.
To learn more about Agencify, contact us today.
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