Should your agency have a Web site? Or would you be better off using the Internet to provide out-facing services to your customers? Are they both really the same thing?
Should your agency have a Web site? Or would you be better off using the Internet to provide out-facing services to your customers? Are they both really the same thing?
Why should your agency have a Web site? Because the agency down the block has one? Because the IIAA/ACT "Blueprint for Electronic Commerce" recommends it? Because your ISP will host one for free? Because creating a Web site would give your teenage son or daughter something useful to do?
Apparently most agencies have yet to encounter compelling reasons for creating a Web site--or at least that appears to be the case. (Based on an unscientific search using the IIAA Agent Search at www.independentagent.com, fewer than one in ten agencies have sites, though that may be a reflection of the incompleteness of the IIAA agency list. If you're an IIAA member and have a Web site, is it listed at www.independentagent.com?) But even if the agency has a site, is it all that it could be? If you were to spend some time looking at agency sites, as I have, you'd notice that many of the sites that do exist could offer a great deal more than they do.
Some would argue that the glacial pace of agency Web site adoption and evolution is a consequence of the antediluvian technology perspective of the independent agent. I don't agree. In my view, the leisurely adoption rate is the result of agency Web sites being viewed as peripheral and superfluous rather than integrated and fundamental. The problem is that we've tended to look at agency Web sites as something new and extra rather than as an extension of the current agency operation. And therefore they fare second best, waiting for a break in the traffic to get attention. We have good intentions but the wrong concepts. Fortunately, though, if we think a little differently, we can make progress.
Rather than thinking in terms of Web sites and whether or not you have one, it's more productive to ask whether the Internet has the potential to extend your out-facing services in a way that would please your customers. The answer to that, as we'll see, is clearly yes. From there we can address the question of how to make that happen.
Out-facing services; in-facing services
But what are out-facing services? And if there's such a thing as out-facing services, are there in-facing services? And what are they?
Out-facing services are the points of contact between your agency and your customers and prospects. Your receptionist or automated telephone system is an out-facing service. Your invoices are an out-facing service. Your Yellow Page ads are an out-facing service. Whenever your CSRs talk to a customer, that's an out-facing service event. When you make a sales call that's out-facing service. Customer-directed e-mail is out-facing.
In-facing services are what you do for yourself, inside the agency, or more broadly what the insurance industry does for itself. For the most part, your office space is a kind of in-facing service. Your agency management system, rating software, internal e-mail, reference manuals, computers, and so on are in-facing services or make them possible. In-facing services are what you use and what the customer generally doesn't see but can benefit from indirectly. Insurance technology has been preoccupied with creating and improving in-facing services. That's classic agency automation of the last 25 years.
Over the quarter century, the industry has done a good job using technology to provide in-facing services. The Internet, expressed through the World Wide Web, now makes it possible to use technology to provide a broader and deeper offering of out-facing services to your customers and prospects. And one of the most promising ways to use the Web is to extend your office right into it via a Web site. This is a new world, not addressed by classic agency automation and not yet well understood. Using technology to provide out-facing services, especially through the Internet, will become a new industry preoccupation--and promises to make independent agents more valuable to their customers.
Sometimes vendors talk about how their products serve agency front office and/or back office needs. Presumably, the front office deals with the customer and the back office with accounting and infrastructure. But front office and back office are not the same thing as out-facing and in-facing services since in fact both agency front office and back office divisions provide out-facing services.
Further confusion is created by grouping all Internet-based insurance technology into the same pot. Thus we lump management system ASP issues in with agency Web sites because both relate to the Internet. That's a mistake. The former belongs in the province of in-facing services and the latter in out-facing services. Rather than grouping technology services according to the platform they're built on and then trying to evaluate them, we'd be better off looking at the constituency they're intended to satisfy and then see whether they do a good job.
Marketing, policyholder service, and sales
If you buy my view that agency Web sites are potentially important not because they're on the Internet but because they can provide a new and attractive way to deliver out-facing services to your customers and prospects, then the issue turns into understanding what's possible, choosing the configuration right for your agency, and then getting it done. The question isn't whether or not you should have a Web site but what you might do with a Web site and whether it would be worthwhile to you and your customers.
Broadly speaking, there are three major categories of out-facing services you provide today that can be enhanced by and extended through an agency Web site: marketing, policyholder service, and sales. Marketing related services--information, education, and motivation--are the most promising, at least right now, because they are mostly under the control of the agency. Service is more complex because it's interactive, data driven, and vendor dependent. Sales is even more problematic--not simply because of inadequate technology--but because most people want professional help with insurance buying (as opposed to shopping). It's not enough to have a policy, they want assurance from someone local they can hold accountable that they're going to be OK.
Marketing
Marketing means establishing an identity and brand. Marketing tells about you, builds credibility, and motivates the buyer to do business with you. Marketing explains your products and services and it provides information and tools that customers can use to understand their insurance needs better. Marketing can provide comparative pricing as well.
Here are some specific ideas:
Map locator and driving instructions: Explaining over the phone how to get to your agency can be a clumsy and time-consuming experience. But you can provide it on your Web site--and it's free.
Replacement cost: You may already subscribe to a home replacement cost service. Why not provide it along with auto valuation, jewelry, and other inland marine valuation, direct to your customers?
Special risks: Flood, earthquake, and other geographic risk information is available online. Why not make it available to your customers as well?
Comparative pricing: Your customers may not demand the lowest price but they want to feel confident their premium is in the ballpark.
Needs assessment: Help your personal and commercial lines customers understand the risks they face and how they can be covered.
Nonstandard coverages: People's lives don't fit neatly into standard coverages. What about the wine collection the customer forgot to mention? Or an extended trip coming up? What about other financial services?
Claims intricacies: A policy means what the courts decide it means. Your customers might want to be able to do a little research on their policy.
Company background: What are the strengths--and not just financial--of the companies you write with? Your customers might want to know. Even if they just skim the text on your site, they'll feel better. And why not link to the company sites as well?
Agency background: Who are you? What do you bring to the table? What are you especially good at? What kind of business are you looking for? What are your service standards?
Locality background: What do newcomers need to know? How can you help them get settled and organized? Information about local government, utility and phone service, trash pickup, recycling and so on would be appreciated. What about churches, synagogues, fraternal associations, and the library? Or where to get a good latte?
Community involvement: Do you sponsor some local or national organizations? Has your agency received awards or recognition for good works? Is there something you believe in you'd like others to know about?
Affiliate background: Are you connected to some local, regional, or national groups? What about related services: lawyers, CPAs, realtors, and so on? How about trade associations, such as your state and national association memberships?
Insurance related links: There are a great number of sources of insurance information accessible on the Internet. Your customers likely don't know the half of it. How about providing a mini-insurance specific portal?
Your out-facing marketing list
When you got started with agency automation, you probably found that it was valuable to bring the whole staff or a representative group (if yours is a larger agency) into the process. They came to own the work, the process, the changes, and the ideas. The same technique applies to appraising and extending your out-facing services in the direction of the Internet.
Here's how you might get started:
1) Take a look at the Web sites of local professional businesses you know. Take some notes. What did they choose to include and why?
2) Review some agency sites.
One way to do that is to go to www.iiaa.org, select the Find an Agent function and then search for agencies in your state that have Web sites and then peruse them.
3) Take a look at www.ultimateinsurancelinks.com, Barry Klein's site, for links to interesting insurance related sites and see what you can learn.
4) If you haven't already done so, write out a description of your agency identity, your business development focus, the kinds of customers and business you seek, your strengths and weaknesses, and your industry business partners. What is your story? How can you tell it succinctly?
5) Given who you are and where you want to go, my list of suggestions above and what you observed looking at various Web sites, make a list of what tentative marketing related--information and educational--content and services you'd like, ideally, to include on your site. Don't worry at this point about where they might come from.
6) Schedule a meeting with key staff people to discuss your out-facing Web site, create an agenda and pass on your notes and list of content suggestions.
7) During the meeting, stay focused on your agency identity and what you want it to become. Think carefully about what your customers and prospects could use. Try to see through their eyes. Prioritize your list and pick the top five items for implementation with the thought that you can come back for more later. Decide in this meeting how to measure success. Is it leads-generated through the site? Customer comments? Hits?
8) Make or have the changes made to your Web site. (Boy, that was easy! We'll cover issues of implementation another time.)
9) Publicize your improvements through your invoices, newsletter, word of mouth, e-mail.
10) Apply the metrics you decided on at your planning meeting. How are you doing? What works? What doesn't? Do you need to make some adjustments? What's the next thing to do?
Having a Web site isn't the point. Extending and improving the out-facing services you provide your customers is--and a Web site can be a great vehicle by which to accomplish this. But like everything else in your agency, the principals need to be committed and involved. The staff needs to have input--because they have something worthwhile to offer and so they'll have ownership. And Web site publishing, like agency automation, is a process, not an event. Done right, it'll begin to strengthen and re-intermediate your agency. The best is yet to come. I'm certain of it. *
The author
John Ashenhurst is president of Sound Internet Strategy, publisher of "Sounding Line," a monthly newsletter that focuses on insurance and the Internet. Ashenhurst has created and written about insurance technology since 1975. For more information, see www.soundingline.com.