How Great Content Management Systems Shape the Insurance Customer Journey

Perhaps a customer becomes aware of your company’s product through your YouTube ads that seem to pop up before every video and decides to see what it does. Or maybe they just had a horrible claims experience with their current car insurance company and realize they need to find a company they can trust.

Either way, the prospect becomes aware of a need in this stage.

A great content management system (and team behind it) can catch the customer at this phase. Ranking for Google snippets, having quick answers on your website, and guest posts on other websites are all great ways to get your name in front of the prospect.

A custom content management system (CMS) can show you exactly where your content is to keep track of when and where you’re extending helpful information.

It will also show you your SEO weak points and make updates easy as products and underwriting guidelines change.

At this point, the customer has a general idea of what they’re willing to consider. For example, they might feel more comfortable with whole life over term life insurance.

Now prospects are seeking long-form content. They might purchase a book, but more likely they’re online with a list of questions. It starts with questions in search engines and ends up on forums dedicated to niche topics.

Most of the resources on insurance right now are written by independent agents on their own sites or news sites. Insurance information sites may even have their own quoters – which means your company is trying to stand out on price, not the quality of your policies.

This is great if you offer the lowest rates for that policy and demographic set. It’s less of an advantage if you offer a stronger policy that will serve someone better in the long run. How are they to know?

Here’s how.

A strong CMS plus strong content can get your product positioned in front of researching customers trying to understand if insurance is just a price game or if there really is something worthwhile about paying a little more for better coverage.

The research stage is a wonderful opportunity to take control of your content and put out product info and case studies. Rather than look at a 3rd party website for an outdated product, your content management system can guide prospects to which of your policies will offer the best fit for their unique situation.

At this point, as younger generations start on their insurance journeys, digital transactions are becoming standard. They might never see an agent in person, even if they speak with one. That means insurers can no longer rely on insurance agents or even call centers to handle the informational load.

But there is a huge opportunity here. Integrating your CMS with your company’s mobile application can deliver the information on the applicant’s terms when they want it.

Plus, you can personalize the experience.

If someone purchases disability insurance, they could use your app to schedule the paramedical exam and have direct links to your articles on how to prepare.

As other technologies, like machine learning, improve and speed up the underwriting process, this stage will shorten. Still, a good support touchpoint can reassure your applicants that they’re making a smart purchase.

Hopefully, this will be the longest stage of the cycle.

New products come out. Regulations change. Some companies offer customer loyalty discounts and other types of policies have options to increase coverage at certain life-changing events.

Let’s go back to the disability insurance example. A reminder in the app that the insured can apply for more benefits through their Future Benefit Increase rider is more helpful than a letter that may or may not get opened. It can also point to guides on how much disability insurance financial experts consider adequate.

What if it’s homeowner’s insurance? Storm warnings can lead to articles on how to prepare a home for windstorms or sandstorms. Wildfire season brings its own dangers, and homeowners have many options to protect their house, even if they don’t know it.

That’s a win for both your company and the client. Between geonets and a connected CMS, you can be there to help prevent disaster.

A few weeks ago, an elderly neighbor knocked on my door asking me to help find an email from her car insurance company. Someone had hit her parked car several months before, and she was still waiting on the claims check.

We couldn’t find the email she remembered seeing, but I couldn’t help thinking that it would have been nice if there had been an app or specific point of contact to answer the questions she had rather than spending half an hour sorting through an overflowing inbox.

Claims prompt so many follow-up questions beyond “where is my money?”

Putting information about the claim process (walkthroughs, examples, case studies) and using your smart CMS to get it in front of customers will help retention – especially if the claim doesn’t go as planned.

Hiding information behind producer logins is becoming obsolete as fast as 3rd parties can write content.

A CMS allows you to take advantage of omnichannel content and lets you cut off 3rd party information that can be outdated or mistaken.

More insurers are embracing a new route of transparency and freely-given information. Soon, consumers won’t need strangers on forums to tell them things like which insurance company has the best policies for diabetics.

But to control the river of information, insurers will need a content management system that can integrate with all of its other touchpoints for the omnichannel presence the future demands.

Equipping your team with a modern content management system in addition to a robust content management strategy is one piece of the digital transformation. Explore more with our Digital Transformation Roadmap.