How have client expectations of engagement changed in the past 5 years? What is one thing which clients expect from their provider now which they didn’t 5 years ago?
Relevancy is becoming more and more important. Because we are able to send more personalised messages customers expect us to do so for their value, not ours. If a client thinks we are spamming, then we have crossed a line. 5 years ago, this was true to be fair, but it is getting even more fundamental as technology allows us to be more precise with our targeting and our messaging.
There are many difficulties associated with increasing client engagement. What is the one thing which you would change across the industry to remedy this?
Reliable and relevant measurement and the digital technology to make that happen would be the biggest single way to improve engagement. Not all engagement is directly about generating revenue, so it needs to capture a variety of different outcomes. People receive a lot of communications and it isn’t straightforward to single out and measure the value of a single program, or email.
But if we could get this done our ability to understand what good engagement looks like will skyrocket.
What would you consider to be the one technological innovation that has a proven track-record of improving client engagement?
It’s a left field answer, and maybe not what you were looking for, but Smartphones. The fact that our clients now carry a device with them 24/7, that allows us to send them communications in a variety of ways, is a real game changer. Obviously, you need to do it well, and I’m not sure that that is always the case, but it certainly can be. We can, as a result talk with our customers on a personal level, on a higher frequency and more customisable basis than ever before. It also means that every time a new comms channel reaches healthy adoption levels it is easily accessed on someone’s phone.
Can you give us an example of an initiative that LV= has taken to increase client engagement?
The launch of the LV= ‘refer a friend’ programme has seen some impressive results. It has provided a digital way for our customers to share their advocacy for the UK’s Most Recommended Insurer with their friends and family. These personal recommendations are becoming very powerful in increasingly cluttered environments. The success of this activity highlights how much our customers really love to recommend us and how much effort and care we put in to our products and service.
What is one thing you think will have changed in 10 years’ time in terms of client engagement?
One thing we can be sure of is that digital as a basis for communications will be even more entrenched. As today’s younger consumers move into parenthood and all the changes that being 30 and 40 bring with them, we will need to deliver a broad range of expectations across a broad range of channels. They will expect to receive communications on the platforms of their choosing, messaging services will become more fundamental and we will need to be able to use all of them. The ubiquity of SMS will feel like a distant luxury.