Your policyholders are expecting more. They’re looking to their insurance agent to be a trusted advisor — someone they can collaborate with to reach their financial goals year after year. In fact, 75% of policyholders would switch insurers in order to get more personalized service.

So what does this mean for today’s insurance companies? It means shifting focus from protecting your customer’s assets today to developing an attainable plan to grow those assets well into the future. It means earning a policyholder’s trust by proactively reaching out with the right advice during critical life moments such as buying a house or welcoming a new family member. It’s this shift from reactive insurance agent to proactive trusted advisor that’s causing insurers to take a fresh look at how they manage customer relationships and how they can lock in loyalty for years to come.

In order to make the leap from insurance agent to trusted advisor, it's important to follow these three steps:

1. Deliver Personalized Customer Journeys

2. Adapt to a Shifting Industry Climate

3. Opt into a Digital Transformation

And the key to this transition is putting the customer at the center of your business. Are you engaging customers at key moments in their lifetime, are you empowering them with the ability to contact an agent at a moment’s notice, and are you establishing the foundation for a lifetime relationship built on trust?

It can be easier said than done, especially when you take a close look at the insurance industry. The challenge to date has been a lack of digital solutions for insurers that provide the agility and personalization needed to deliver superior service across any channel or device. Insurers often rely on siloed systems of record that fail to collect customer information in one central location, making it impossible to deliver personalized advice and more importantly, to do so at scale. This reliance on systems of record has failed to provide customers with the personalized service they’ve come to expect. But forward-thinking insurance companies aren’t standing still. They’re taking notice and acting fast to make the right technology investments needed to make the shift to becoming a trusted advisor for their customers.

Make sure to check out our new e-book “From Insurance Agent to Trusted Advisor: How to Cultivate Customer Loyalty” to learn about the three areas of opportunity where you can transform your customer engagements and do so at scale.

Curious to learn more? Check out the webinar Personalized Insurance: Staying Relevant in the Lives of Policyholders.

About the Author

Jamie Bisker is the co-lead for Insurance Solutions at Salesforce. Jamie has over 30 years experience in utilization of technology across all lines of business in the insurance industry. He promotes a dynamic future vision for insurance companies, their distribution channels, and for policyholders as they work to manage risks in their environments.

Jamie is excited about bringing the power of a cloud-based technology platform to the global insurance and risk management business as they work to  better serve their customers and stakeholders. Key to this approach is helping the industry recognize their full potential by putting great customer experience at the center of their business strategies.