In our previous blogs, we’ve documented how insurance is a complicated product for the traditional commerce process. Let’s recap what we’ve covered:
- It’s a product mandated by the state, financial institutions, and professions for many parts of life – driving, homeownership, rental, professional liability, and others. But it’s not a product that most of us enjoy shopping for in our daily lives.
- The consumer journey involves complicated terminology and morbid situational analysis increasing the aversion to shopping for many of these products.
- Purchasing can involve many channels, from online to working with agents commissioned on what they sell. Can the consumer really feel confident in their purchase decision?
- Insurance is one of the few purchased products that one hopes to never have to use – fulfilling a claim means something bad has happened.
All of this combined makes the insurance industry one of the 10 least trusted domestic industries. As a whole, it’s amazing that the consumer ever gets to the shopping cart at the end of the journey.
But what if these conditions actually created an opportunity for carriers to differentiate themselves in the commerce process? What if they supported the customer journey to help consumers feel empowered and enlightened with their purchasing decisions? Rather than focus on conversion at the point of purchase (the cart), carriers can support the journey to purchase and build consumer loyalty through transparency, personalization, and confidence.
Over the next series of four blogs, we’ll lay out a four-step approach to building a commerce strategy beyond the shopping cart. We’ll go over the following:
- Your Commerce Strategy – Creating a vision and definition of what digital commerce means to your organization
- Understanding Your Customer – Focusing on customer obsession by understanding your customers’ needs, wants, and expectations
- Gaining Internal Commitment – Harmonize the internal buying and selling of products and services to the digital-first expectations of the customer
- Technology Enablement – Finally, aligning your technology approach to the needs and wants of the business to enable your people and customers
Follow us as we embark on this journey of understanding the commerce process. For more information on enhancing your commerce strategy with the assistance of rising insurance trends, download our guide, Commerce Experiences and the Rise of Digital-First Insurance, and connect with Brian Bell and Beth Duerr on LinkedIn to engage with them further on the growing relationship between commerce and insurance.
