5 ways digitalization brings today’s benefits brokerage into the modern area

While the pandemic has pushed many brokers to adopt technology quicker than they had planned, many would agree it was past due.

Digital technology enables benefits brokers to transform their previously broken and manual processes into productive and profitable workflows.

The pandemic and the need to work remotely have pushed independent agencies and brokerages to accelerate their digital strategies—or in some cases, create them for the first time—in order to produce new business processes and customer experiences that sustain operations and create greater value for today’s tech-savvy customers.

While the pandemic has pushed many agents and brokers to adopt technology quicker than they may have planned, many would agree it was time for digital transformation—especially on the benefits side of the business. Benefits brokers have long been weighed down with traditional, paper-laden workflows, lengthening the time it takes to close with customers and ultimately restricting their ability to deliver a superior end-customer experience.

Related: Why the insurance industry needs to embrace digital transformation in 2021

At the same time, customer expectations are changing, driven by other industries that offer omnichannel and mobile-first customer service models. The need for more efficient operations, a digital customer experience, and now, the need to work remotely due to the pandemic, have forced benefits brokers to no longer see digital transformation as a competitive advantage, but as a business necessity.

These dynamics have created a runway of opportunity for benefits brokers to leverage the available technology and transform their customer service models. From the early stages of marketing and lead generation to sales and driving new business, to presenting benefits plan options and analyzing efforts for success, brokers can automate workflows and seamlessly flow information in and out of each application for greater efficiency and value. To discuss how, and most importantly why brokers should digitally transform, we will follow the customer life-​cycle, beginning with marketing to prospects and customers.

Marketing to today’s inundated customers

The insurance industry has historically viewed marketing as person-to-person interactions, requiring phone calls and in-person meetings to secure business. Mailers or mass emails may also be used; however, these tactics are resonating less with today’s consumers. Phone calls and emails go unanswered and mailers are trashed, often seen as just more marketing noise competing for attention.

Where these traditional marketing tactics fall short is their “shotgun” strategy, using a single message for all prospects. Customer expectations have been forever changed as other industries have redefined marketing with an extremely targeted approach. The challenge for brokers now is to focus on how to market the unique strengths of their business to individual employers and clients.

Marketing automation enables benefits brokers of all sizes to create and maintain robust marketing campaigns to send the right messages to the right prospects at the right time. Rather than sending one-off emails to celebrate a birthday or begin the renewal process, brokers can build compelling and targeted digital marketing campaigns to nurture prospects and clients over time.

To create targeted and compelling campaigns, brokers can send relevant insurance-related content to engage and educate customers. For example, a broker can create a marketing campaign targeted to his existing commercial customers explaining why his brokerage can provide the benefit plan options that work for them and include content educating them on various available plans.

All marketing communication is automatically documented in the customer account for historical reference, thanks to marketing automation’s tight integration with the agency management system. When the customer responds, the management system triggers the sales workflow that the agency set up and the lead is converted to an opportunity. This is the next step primed for digital transformation.

Create visibility between departments

When a lead turns into an opportunity, many brokers are challenged with a lack of visibility between their marketing and sales teams. Those who have multiple applications that don’t share information struggle with reduced productivity, risk of E&O, negative customer experiences, and the possibility of losing leads in the process.

Whether on the go or in the office, salespeople need insight into all customer and prospect touches, as well as the ability to subsequently organize all prospecting activities, manage their pipeline and get in front of upcoming renewals.

A robust sales application that seamlessly integrates within the management system to the marketing automation application creates a holistic view of all marketing and sales campaigns. Agents can view all open leads and opportunities, as well as the total book of business, and can work open leads, add notes to the account or track communications and campaigns.

Now that staff have the most up-to-date information, they can move on to the next stage of the benefits sales process that is ripe for reinvention and improvement: benefits plan modeling.

Visualize benefit plan comparisons

Benefits plan modeling can often be extremely cumbersome, including difficult and time-consuming number crunching, confusing spreadsheets, and static presentations that make it difficult for employers to make the best decisions for their budget and employees. Further, benefits brokers typically must stretch the process across multiple meetings as they update spreadsheets based on employer requests.

Given that today’s customers expect digital experiences, brokers must replace these manual processes with interactive, real-time benefits modeling. Interactive benefits modeling provides brokers with a tangible way to showcase their benefits plans in a clear, visual format. When plan options are presented visually, it’s much easier to see the impact on the bottom line, as well as how employees are affected.

The broker can also make changes in real time to immediately show the impact when employers have a question or want to tweak a plan design. Further, in just one meeting, employers can explore countless plan options to discover the best option to balance the overall cost with employee impact, shortening the time dedicated to the process.

Once the customer is satisfied with the plan and the deal is closed, the broker is not finished. He must measure and track his results to ensure he is maximizing efforts for success.

Understand data-driven insights

No process is complete without the ability to measure and track the results. Brokers must be able to access information and data analytics to know how their business is performing in its current state and over time.

While leveraging analytics is a common goal for most agencies, many struggle with the ability to collect and consolidate relevant information from systems that don’t integrate. Having a management system that acts as a single source of truth is critical, along with a digestible way to deliver those insights through visual formats. Rather than using spreadsheets and numbers with no baseline, brokers must utilize technology to deliver new insights in graphical presentations so they can understand them and make better business decisions.

Focus on your core purpose

As the world continues to change and customer expectations evolve, businesses must be ready to innovate just as quickly. Digital technology enables benefits brokers to transform their previously broken and manual processes into productive and profitable workflows. Marketing automation drives marketing efforts with targeted campaigns and insurance-focused content. Connected sales tools allow a seamless flow of information between sales, marketing and servicing. Interactive benefits modeling creates a visual comparison for quicker decisions. And robust analytics allow leaders to visually track and act upon key performance indicators.

All of these solutions, when seamlessly integrated with an open management system, enable brokers to focus on their core purpose: to advise clients so they can safeguard and protect what matters most in their employees’ lives.

Michael Howe, executive vice president of product management, is responsible for the strategic direction of the Applied product portfolio. Howe joined Applied in 2013 with more than 20 years of experience in enterprise software.


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