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04:41 PM
Manas Nayak, EY
Manas Nayak, EY
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Measuring Mobile Performance in Insurance

With increased mobile channel investments, subsequent higher adoption and customer engagement, there is a greater need to define measurement strategies.

As mobile technology becomes the dominant mechanism for information and web access, insurers need to invest in mobile technology as a channel to leverage integrated multi-distribution and implementation strategies. Mobile technology provides unprecedented channel access capability, extending internet and social media to an organization's employees, customers and partners and bringing communication, anytime and anywhere, to the forefront.

The core reasons insurers are embracing mobile technology solutions are to:

• Extend business services to the mobile channel

• Attract new customers who need more self-service options

• Modernize customer service tools to increase agent and policyholder satisfaction

There is tremendous promise for business strategy mobility and an imperative for insurers to embrace it. In this paper, we address parameters for an organization to use as a benchmark to measure the impact of mobility. We focus on enhanced benefits and the strategic direction of mobile enablement, highlighting actions insurers need to take to justify current activity and validate future investment. We call this the mobile effectiveness lifecycle, and it's illustrated below:

lifecycle

In the first part of this series, we'll talk about why we measure, what we measure, and how to go about doing it.

Why measure?

Metrics and measurement play a critical role in aligning performance with key objectives and enabling companies to stay on course and achieve mobile business goals.

Insurers are providing a wide range of mobile features for consumers, agents and brokers. However, in spite of significant interest in mobile insurance, actual usage has been low. The push to adopt mobile insurance may need substantial structured efforts, considering the limited number of interactions between insurers and consumers and the complexity of multiple mobility channels and platforms.

Moreover, insurers have high expectations to grow their businesses, increase self-service, reduce business risk, lower operational costs and enhance productivity. In order to generate additional investments, mobile insurance teams must connect the dots with definitive metrics, such as sales, loyalty and customer satisfaction, that prove the business impact.

With increased mobile channel investments, subsequent higher adoption and customer engagement, there is a greater need to define measurement strategies. These must have the ability to withstand management's scrutiny about total cost of ownership and return on investment (ROI). Measurement is the key to building a future-ready mobile insurance solution.

What to measure?

The key is to identify priority areas where metrics can be established to measure the effectiveness of mobile touch points for customer connections and business outcomes.

Important considerations for measurement effectiveness include the following:

Business outcomes versus investment

Insurers' ROI depends on their ability to perform environment analysis (i.e., analyze the mobile activity of current customers to determine the level of feature adoption and use among target policyholders). Viewing the mobile channel as a long-term investment will require tracking results, such as customer experience, multichannel servicing enablement, customer retention, demand generation from younger customers and claims processing costs.

Mobile channel impact and efficiency

Mobile insurance teams and business leaders need to understand and quantify the effect of mobile initiatives on customer and agent relationships and business performance. To measure the impact, it will be essential to identify active mobile customers and their behavioral changes across a range of metrics, such as call center interactions, spending patterns and electronic bill paying. Behavior should be measured before and after adoption, rather than simply comparing mobile users with customers who do not use any mobile insurance function. It is important to measure how these initiatives have changed behavior, not simply how mobile insurance users differ from other customers.

Value enhancement for the customer

Consumers increasingly prefer insurance products that are targeted, simplified, affordable and personalized to meet their needs. Mobile self-service applications for quotes, policy renewals and claims processing enable insurers to offer customers a convenient and differentiated experience in a shorter time frame. The key would be to create measures to identify customer preferences for targeted products and features. This would generate new revenue streams, strengthen the value proposition and differentiate the insurer in a highly competitive market.

Effectiveness of the customer engagement

In the current business environment, acquiring and retaining customers necessitates engagement and ongoing dialogue. Measurement should connect with the brand, improve two-way communication and strengthen long-term relationships.

Application and feature preferences

The current mobile landscape is driven more by the need to match competition than by customer and agent demand. However, important factors to consider are how the customers are using mobile devices and what features they value most. Key measures include customer loyalty to various apps and features, time spent and depth of usage, and most downloaded apps.

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