CRM for the Insurance Industry: Should You Use CRM or Not?

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

Using CRM in business is becoming increasingly common, especially in the insurance industry. In the past, we only used email marketing software to send emails and store customer information. But today, using separate tools for individual purposes is no longer effective. That's why CRM for the insurance industry came into being — to manage all customer-related activities while also serving as specialized software built for insurance.

So what is CRM for the insurance industry, and how does it benefit the sector?

1. What is CRM for the insurance industry?

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is software that automates a business's everyday customer care activities: capturing leads, managing workflows, and tracking customer purchasing behavior! Insurance CRM software comes equipped with the features an insurance agent needs to work more effectively and productively.

2. Challenges facing the insurance industry

2.1. High competition in the insurance industry

Although demand for insurance products keeps growing, insurance companies still face very intense competition in the industry, with rival foreign brands that have decades of experience as well as younger domestic players.

2.2. Fragmented sales processes

Sales staff in the insurance industry work with extremely fragmented sales processes, which drags down productivity. The sales team doesn't interact with one another and works in silos — members share no information at all about what they're doing.

2.3. Lack of control over consumer behavior

Precisely because of the lack of interaction between departments, the Sales & Marketing team and the Customer Care team cannot agree on a shared workflow, leading to inaccuracies in the information given to customers, or customer personal data that doesn't match up.

2.4. Difficulty generating leads

Covid-19, over nearly the past two years, has affected customers' income levels. Insurance products only really attract customers' attention when their basic needs — health safety and sufficient food and clothing — are covered. The impact of social distancing on employment has reduced the economic capacity of many households, while the threat to health has significantly reduced the focus on insurance products, making lead generation difficult.

2.5. Customers developing individualized needs

Every customer has a different starting point for buying — in demographics, living and working environment — as well as different buying motivations and barriers. The customer base of the future is expected to consist of Millennial consumers and Generation Z — generations with a strong demand for personalization.

3. What makes a good insurance-industry CRM?

A good insurance-industry CRM must include the following elements:

3.1. The essential features

• Management of social media channels (for communicating with customers, etc.).

• Organizing and managing webinars, events, and more.

• Email marketing.

• Ad browser (managing and distributing advertising content).

• Integration with third-party software.

3.2. Automatic lead distribution

CRM software suited to the insurance industry must be able to automatically distribute leads to sales teams according to defined conditions. For example, if your business is a multinational insurance company, the right CRM software must be able to route the leads captured by the marketing team or sales channels to the appropriate advisory teams. Specifically, it can automatically analyze customers' IP addresses to see where they are visiting from, then when a customer sends a message or email, automatically assign that customer to the domestic team in charge of that market. The same applies to smaller segments such as cities or provinces.

3.3. Automatic lead scoring

Insurance-industry CRM software must also be able to evaluate customers automatically — in industry terms, this is called customer scoring, or lead scoring. Using a scoring system helps salespeople know which customers to prioritize so they can optimize how quickly they close deals.

3.4. Notifications

This is a feature few CRM systems have, yet it is the most important one. An insurance agent has to stay in contact with many different customers continuously, so having reminders such as "call A", "meet B", "reply to C's email", etc. is essential. This helps insurance agents organize their time and manage their daily tasks more effectively.

4. Optimizing CRM with the SimCRM application

This application helps businesses identify customers by:

• Allowing users to access customer information, from personal details to consumption preferences;

• Searching for keywords customers care about: through keyword search, the business can find out whether the problems customers are facing match the products the business offers;

• Creating reminder schedules for the sales department so no customer group gets missed;

• Managing and tracking KPIs/sales per country/salesperson/sales team;

• Storing internal information and customer information: once customers have been identified, the business can consolidate customer data in the system to manage it and set up future customer care activities, turning new leads into loyal customers;

• Handling documents related to customer information and all paperwork, in an easily readable format — saving agents a great deal of time;

• Monitoring employee activity: all sales activities are tracked using the features of the time-tracking tool;

• Managing and updating policies for the insurance industry: insurance policies change constantly, so keeping information up to date is essential;

• And many other features,...

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