This article was produced in partnership with Intact Insurance and Armour Insurance Group.
Desmond Devoy of Insurance Business Canada sat down with Rob Marusin, president and CEO, Armour Insurance Group Ltd., Rob Stevenson, director of strategic marketing, Armour Insurance, and Mohammad Ridha, national director, digital, Intact Insurance, to talk about how choice is the key ingredient of a successful digital strategy.
It’s never been easier – and harder – to get in touch. The explosion of digital tools means each of us has our own unique way of managing how we want to connect and communicate with each other. Rob Marusin re-learns this lesson every time he tries to call his teenage son.
“If I try and phone my son, he doesn’t answer. He texts me back: ‘What do you want?’” said Marusin (pictured), president and CEO of Armour Insurance Group Ltd. If Marusin wants to talk with his son, he needs to stop calling and start typing.
He applies this lesson daily in how his brokerage approaches communication with clients.
“We have to be mindful. It’s not about what we want. It’s about their journey – it’s about what they want,” he told Insurance Business. “Increasingly, they want things done more digitally.”
In response, the Alberta-based, 37-person brokerage offers its clients a full spectrum of contact points, from completely online to the old school phone call, as well as options Marusin did not even entertain a few years ago.
“We had to add TikTok as a lead source,” he said. “I never thought that would happen. When we started the brokerage, Yellow Pages was king. Look at where the Yellow Pages are now. We have to adapt to be relevant to how our customers communicate.”
If their customers are on TikTok, Armour is on TikTok. So far, the response has been good.
“People are engaging,” Marusin said. The social media channel lets Armour make the digital connection personal. “People want to buy from real organizations and real people. It’s the personal that resonates, especially in the digital space.”
For Rob Stevenson, director of strategic marketing at Armour, this philosophy of meeting customers where they are is key to business retention.
“Why do clients leave the broker channel, or any channel for that matter?” he said. “It’s usually the result of complacency. They haven’t been contacted. They don’t feel valued.”
Talking to customers about communication preferences is one way of deepening the relationship, showing people that you care and giving them that sense of connection that’s so critical to business retention. As Stevenson stressed, “No matter how you’re talking to them, the customer needs to feel that there’s somebody who has their back.”
Brokers can give their clients that feeling on the phone, via email, on an app – or on TikTok – using each tool to show clients they are supported and valued. Digital, Stevenson and Marusin both noted, does not mean hands-off and self-serve.
“There are places for self-serve insurance, and there are people who prefer that, which is totally fine,” said Marusin. “For us, the people part of it is still always there. As we use digital to its fullest advantage, we’re using it to build that personal connection.”
Armour’s digital strategy includes leveraging the platforms offered by Intact Insurance, which, as Mohammad Ridha, national director, digital at Intact, explained, are all about offering customers choice.
“We understand that every customer has their own unique needs in terms of the digital solution that they’re looking for,” said Ridha. “Going digital is not all or nothing: it’s a spectrum. Just like people’s everyday lives look different based on their personalities, their lifestyles, and their values, so does their use of digital tools, in insurance and elsewhere.
“What people need and demand when it comes to ‘going digital’ is choice.”
Brokers can bring this spectrum of choices to customers by connecting them with Intact’s suite of online services, which gives customers options for how they want to receive updates about their policy and how they can submit claims. They can also use these tools to request roadside assistance.
“To deliver customer service, we need to deliver choice, and to make sure customers end up with the right tool,” Ridha explained.” For some it’s an app. For some it’s a website. And for some it’s a phone call and a mailer. We make a mistake when we think of digital as a homogenous, one-size-fits-all solution.”
Brokers play an important role in helping their customers connect with the choice that’s right for them.
“In insurance, brokers are the agents of choice of customers,” said Ridha. “They are the ones who guide customers through all of their options. That’s why, in our tools, the broker logo and the broker contact information are front and centre, so the customer can get in touch with the broker easily.”
After all, that’s what any good, customer-focused digital strategy must be about: making connection easy.
“As a broker or insurer, investing in a digital strategy does not mean giving up other ways of connecting with customers and each other. It means adding another choice to our arsenal,” summed up Ridha.
