A lot of insurance agents wonder if there’s a “best way” to tell clients about their new insurance app. And the answer is yes! Ultimately, the best way is every way! Email, text messaging, social media, etc. By communicating across multiple channels, you can successfully educate and encourage clients to use the app. 

Communicating with policyholders often enough can be difficult, which is why it’s wise to use more than one approach. Research shows that customer communication preferences shift depending on the situation. And having an agency-branded app is the perfect solution to deal with this shift! 

Why?

Because all communication channels are readily available in the app. So, clients can reach out to you using the method they prefer. As a result, it streamlines communication for policyholders, making it easy for them to connect with their agent – anytime, anywhere. 

But in order for policyholders to reap all the benefits that come with using your app for communication and more, they have to know it exists. 

So with that in mind, here are some best practices for communicating with your customers better and encouraging them to take advantage of your app…

1. Ask What Your Policyholders Want and Make It Easy for Them to Get It

This may seem obvious at first, but it’s something that many agencies fail to do. Policyholder preferences can vary significantly between different groups (and situations), so it comes down to your unique client base, as well as your agency’s capabilities. 

Start out by conducting surveys and using incentives to gather information – along with reviewing more traditional analytics. Once you have hard data about your clients’ communication preferences, you can go from there…

Maybe your clients like to communicate with you solely via email. Perhaps there’s a large group that wants only to talk through the chat option on your site or receive text messages. It’s important that you know which is the case.

Having insight into your clients’ communication preferences is always helpful. But it’s especially valuable when you’re trying to promote your new insurance app. By making use of various channels your clients have demonstrated they like, your attempts will be much more successful!

2. Mention How Your New Insurance App Eliminates Inconveniences

Greater convenience is often the highlight of an app’s capabilities. So, be sure to mention how it reduces inconveniences and even hardships. For example, the ability for your clients to self-service via app can eliminate the need to meet in person and help them avoid risk given the current situation.

Calling an agent to file a claim is time-consuming for both parties. So is changing policies, signing forms, and many other related activities that must be done. However, an app adds a self-service component that both reduces how much time people need to invest in a task AND eliminates the need for taking any kind of in-person risk.

Explaining these benefits can go a long way toward getting more of your clients to download and use your new insurance app. And by taking a cross-communication approach, you can ensure your clients don’t miss out. 

3. Don’t Forget to Be Personal

Nothing turns people off to a business as quickly as receiving messages that were intended for thousands of people instead of just one. If people don’t feel valued by a company, then they may begin to value that brand less. And if you’re trying to promote your new agency-branded app, this can reduce the likelihood of them taking advantage of it…

When communicating with clients (especially via email) addressing them by name should be the beginning of your effort, not the end of it. It’s also a good idea to find any occasion to congratulate a policyholder about a specific accomplishment or situation that you learn about. This can often be automated if necessary, but it also helps to have agents handle it directly in rare situations since you know that the customer will surely remember it.

Adding a personal touch helps increase familiarity with your agency. And when you do so across various channels, your attempts to promote your new insurance app will be a lot more effective.

4. Balance Email Frequency to Help with Communication 

To maintain a good relationship with clients – and see better results when the time comes to promote your new app – you need to strike the right balance with your communication efforts, especially when it comes to email. 

• If you email policyholders too often, there’s a good chance they’ll bail on emails as quickly as possible by hitting that unsubscribe button. 
• If you don’t email often enough, then you could risk frustrating policyholders when changes happen to their account without you informing them first.

Although frequency of communications is something to consider for all channels you use, email is the one that agencies seem to struggle with most. So, focus on providing valuable information. Keep in mind that your clients won’t ask you to email them more, but they will be unhappy if you drop off entirely.

Make it clear to your clients how they can adjust their own email frequency in as straightforward a way as possible. Don’t bury it deep in emails. Instead, have it someplace obvious.

Additionally, remember that you have some leeway when introducing your new insurance app. In that case, it makes sense to increase communication frequency to ensure your clients know exactly how to download and use the app to their advantage. 

5. Include an Immediate CTA in Emails

Companies like Amazon frequently send emails to users describing something that may not apply at the moment but will later down the road. In such cases, the email contains an immediate CTA that users can take when they’re ready. What you may not realize is that your agency can use the same tactic to encourage app activities. 

Essentially, it’s about educating your policyholders and giving them information about how to execute a CTA at a later date – in the app. The important thing is to make sure that the email has a CTA that is clear about exactly what to do in the app. The main goal of the email should be to get users excited about the value of the app. 

In contrast, the app itself should be a place for executing actions easily like changing a policy, adding a new one, reporting a claim, paying a bill, etc.

Takeaway

When introducing your new insurance app, the key is cross-promotion to serve and support all customers. It’s important to streamline communication and make use of all channels your clients prefer, including email, which remains a highly effective means of communication. By following the best practices listed above, you can make sure your efforts complement your new app and look forward to getting better results when communicating with clients.