When serving only a few hundred clients as an advisor, you can stay close to them and have a good sense of what's happening. However, for an office with tens of thousands of customers, such one-on-one service becomes unfeasible. Essential client information resides in the minds of advisors, of which you'll need more and more. This approach is risky and costly. Personalization based on data analysis is the only scalable way to get close to your clients and maintain that proximity. In this context, we define personalization as: communicating only the right information and offers to the right client at the right time and through the right channel (email, app, phone, etc.), and all in the appropriate tone of voice.

In short: the goal is to remain as relevant as possible continuously for every client.

Key to Success

In the short term, you can still benefit from your reputation and past results, but to stand out to your clients, more is needed. Personalization is a key to success. A personal approach creates a sense of trust, increasing confidence in the organization. As a client, you feel understood and seen.

Clients Demand Personalization

Personalization is nothing new per se. It started with companies sending personalized email campaigns to simply increase the chance that someone would be attracted to their value proposition. However, engaging and bonding with customers is becoming more challenging, as they are raising their standards. This means you're no longer just competing with a similar insurance company but with businesses offering outstanding customer service through extensive personalization like Bol.com, Booking, or Amazon. Recent research by McKinsey & Company (Next in Personalization 2021 Report) shows that a whopping 71 percent of consumers expect a business to deliver personalized interactions. Worse still, 76 percent get frustrated if this doesn't happen. Over three-quarters then start looking for another company!

Not starting with personalization could mean losing many clients because expectations aren't met. People simply lose trust in your company.

‘Everyone in the organization must be aware of the importance of data quality’

Personalization offers a lot of value: the research indicates that companies excelling in this area show, on average, 40 percent better results. Another recent study (conducted by TJIP) focused on consumer re-orientation regarding financial products acquired via financial service providers. The main outcome of this research was that 72 percent of consumers find it crucial to be approached regularly with a personal offer. Therefore, personalization is no longer a nice-to-have; it's a must-have.

Examples of Personalization

Customers know exactly what they expect when it comes to personalization. A client wants to feel special, treated as an individual, not as a (policy) number. Customers also immediately recognize when communication is irrelevant or useless. You must provide a positive experience at every touch point throughout the entire customer journey. And remember, for insurances or mortgages, unlike short cycles at Bol.com, it’s more of a life journey. Investing in the relationship often pays off in the long run.

Practical examples of personalization:

• Inquire about interests rather than just focusing on a transaction;

• Welcome a client to your company once they’ve closed a first product;

• Send only relevant information (not the same newsletter for everyone);

• Send short how-to videos or white papers on a relevant and specific topic;

• Celebrate milestones (years as a client, total relationship) with the customer;

• Proactively respond to upcoming life events (e.g., cohabitation, moving);

• Offer clients proactive, attractive deals on insurance or other services, even if it doesn’t directly benefit your company;

• Assist with difficult choices: ‘Others like you, usually choose this...’;

• Provide dynamic frequently asked questions (FAQ’s) on your website/intranet to proactively answer common questions;

• Request clients to leave a review.

How to Get Started?

As mentioned, data quality is vital to get started, although many organizations may not realize they already have enough data/client information. Begin with the part of your portfolio where you are confident about data quality and build from there. Once you’ve taken the first step, it becomes easier internally to demonstrate why continuously collecting more contact and client data (as basic as a correct email address) is crucial for long-term success. Everyone within the organization must be made aware of this importance.

Many companies start by creating specific clusters of clients with similar needs, such as startups, families with children, retirees, SMBs, or freelancers. Subsequently, they use marketing automation software to send information per cluster, rather than sending the same newsletters to everyone.

To get a sense of how it can work, this is a good first step. The downside of this approach is that it is time-consuming, not genuinely distinctive, and the clusters are often too large to truly be relevant.

Especially if you have a large office (e.g., more than 50,000 clients), it is more interesting to skip this step and dive directly into one-on-one personalization. If you aim to continuously provide so many clients with ever-changing daily needs and constantly evolving customer journeys with relevant information, you need advanced, self-learning technology (artificial intelligence). Fortunately, this technology is becoming increasingly accessible. For smaller offices, this might be available through your software vendor or service provider. Make sure to get well-informed; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Expert Tips:

Wilbert Beelen, digital marketing specialist at Univé:

• Approach clients who have closed a first product immediately afterward for a comprehensive discussion. While still top-of-mind, introduce them to what you have to offer. You can do this effectively by only approaching clients with a high predicted Customer Life Value for a personal discussion.

• Introduce a loyalty factor in the customer journey by including clients in your community and offering them additional services or benefits.

• Dare to make mistakes. Personalization is never 100 percent perfect from the start. If something goes ‘wrong,’ like a client receiving an incorrect offer, advisors can easily manage this face-to-face. Inform your advisors in advance about campaigns and avoid email debates with clients over ‘mistakes.’

Mark Kruisman, senior digital marketing specialist at Centraal Beheer:

• Set your primary goal as helping as many entrepreneurs as possible with specific issues instead of focusing only on selling insurances. For example, focus on startups. What should one consider when starting a business? Hiring staff, how does it work? Identify what resonates with people and tailor your content accordingly. This allows you to more accurately showcase which solutions are suitable, offering insurance and/or possibly other services. Centraal Beheer actively embraces the partner in life strategy (tip: read the book The offer you can’t refuse by Steven van Belleghem).

• User-friendliness is the new form of loyalty. The less effort something takes, the more loyal customers will be. Competing on premium or terms becomes less critical. Measure the amount of effort a client must exert, such as reporting damage or closing an insurance policy, using the Customer Effort Score (CES). The CES is based on the question: ‘How much effort did it take you to have your query addressed by organization X?’ (5-point scale). The lower the CES, the easier customers are helped. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty. The NPS involves the question: ‘To what extent would you recommend us to friends and family?’ (10-point scale).

• Your data is of utmost importance. Ensure it is in order. Start personalization where you can easily maintain control. Email marketing is the perfect channel to start experimenting with personalization. You can send campaigns asking for more information from your customer, achieving a better understanding of what is relevant to them. Adjust your communication accordingly and measure everything.

Source: This article originally appeared in VVP, read here the online version.