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Loyal Customers; Happy Intermediaries


Introduction


Beyond generating higher sales and increasing customer retention, working with Riverside can improve the relationships insurance companies have with customers and intermediaries.

For customers, the Riverside approach offers valuable additional peace of mind – delivered through service communications that customers value.  

The benefits for intermediaries are:

  • Increased commission from additional sales and better retention of existing policies
  • Inbound sales enquiries from customers included in the campaign
  • A list of customers who respond to the campaign – thereby identifying themselves as good current prospects for insurance sales
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The Riverside Approach


To illustrate the benefits for customers and intermediaries, here is an example of a Riverside programme for the UK Life Division of a major European insurance brand. Intermediaries are the main distribution channel for this company.

The campaign involved offering a Term Life upgrade through direct mail to a targeted selection of existing Life customers.

Using Riverside’s unique approach to data analytics, we carefully selected the customers to be targeted across the intermediary customer base.

The company announced the planned campaign by email to all the intermediaries. This communication explained the benefits of the campaign both for the intermediaries and for their customers. 

And most importantly, every intermediary had the opportunity to exclude some or all of their customers from the mailing, if they so wished.

Results


Most, by far, of the intermediaries agreed to participate fully in the campaign, with just a small number asking for certain customers to be excluded.

And there was no reported negative comment about the campaign from any of the intermediaries at any time.

Overall campaign results were highly successful, with over 9% converted response – extremely high for a Term Life offer in the UK – plus a significant improvement in customer retention.

However, the insurer was keen to understand how customers felt about the campaign – including those who did not respond. So they ran a research programme – 9 weeks after the initial mailing.

Some key findings:

  • 86% of campaign responders and 70% of non-responders appreciate receiving direct offers from the insurer.
  • The campaign tested a “customer service” style message against a traditional “marketing” approach: the service message was preferred by customers.

We have repeatedly shown, time and again over the past 10 years, that Riverside Customer Marketing programmes deliver valuable incremental sales and higher customer retention for the insurance companies we work with. 

The business case described here also demonstrates that our approach is welcomed and appreciated by customers and intermediaries alike.