Retaining customers when their insurance agent unexpectedly leaves the company.

Challenge

In the insurance business hundreds of insurance agents leave the company every year without notice or planning (due to unexpected retirement, termination, death, etc). This impacts hundreds of thousands of customers, resulting in customer dissatisfaction and churn.

We set out to understand the reasons customers were leaving, what expectations customers and insurance agents had for these transitions, and how we could improve retention.

Team & My Role

For the strategic portion of this project, I planned and conducted the research solo, and received guidance and support from my manger for ideation and framing results for executives.

For the quick win solution, I collaborated with legal and our business partners, and for the strategic implementation I led an interdisciplinary team of designers and developers.

Process

In-depth Interviews

12 Insurance Consumer Sessions

9 Insurance Agent Sessions

We did virtual in-depth interviews with consumers and insurance agents who had recently been through this transition process.

We spoke with customers from our client and their main competitor, and 6 insurance agents who had received customers temporarily during a transition period and 3 who received customers permanently after the transition.

Outcomes

Findings & Insights

After their insurance agent left the company, customers were being “parked”, or assigned to a new agent agent temporarily, for months or years. They were not notified of this change, and often were surprised by this news when they tried to call their former agent, and temporary agents did not have access to customer records or information, making it difficult for them to handle their insurance needs or build a relationship. Customers expected clear, accurate, and proactive communication about any changes.

Recommendations

We recommended quick win and strategic investment solutions, highlighting the targeted business objective of each solution.

Quick-win Solution

We recommended immediately assigning a new agent to customers when their previous agent left, selecting the agency to assign them to based on location and the agency’s cross-selling metrics, and proactively and transparently communicating this change to customers.

Objectives of Quick-win Solution:

  • Improve customer retention

  • Increase cross-selling

Upper management was eager to move quickly on this solution. I worked with legal and our content writers to get approval for a draft letter, and conducted a task-based quant between-subjects unmoderated study comparing the current and proposed emails. After reading the letter participants were asked questions to gauge reception and comprehension like “What did the letter say?” “How did it make you feel?” and to subjectively rate their agreement with “I would be open to a relationship with my newly assigned agent” and “I would have questions about this”.

The quant study showed a directly positive trend. We implemented this change and since the retention rate of those customers has improved.

Strategic Investment

For the strategic investment, we recommended notifying the customer of the change allowing them to select their new agent.

Objectives of Strategic Investment Solution:

  • Improve customer retention

  • Increase cross-selling

  • Improve customer satisfaction

  • Cost savings

To explore this further I conducted generative concept feedback Rapid Iterative Testing with 3 concepts at a time.

We recommended providing customers with the option to forgo having an agent, be automatically assigned to a new agent, or pick their new agent with the help of relevant filters. We received feedback on details around how the microsite could be built to build trust through the transition process and specifics about contextual preferences, for example, customers who were not interested in selecting an agent didn’t want to engage with anything past reading the email.