Fostering great customer relationships through excellent UI and UX

Today insurance customers are informed and aware of their needs and requirements. For every need that is created for them, they have several different market players ready to serve them. When they select a brand, they expect that brand to deliver not just the product or service but also a great experience.

Technological innovation is at the heart of any company’s strategic plan to acquire and retain customers. To maintain a great customer relationship, a robust digital platform is not a choice anymore. It is a necessity. Brands that are successful with customer relationship management through digital platforms know it is essential to focus on the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).

But what are they, anyway?

User interface (UI) is how a brand interacts with its consumers through the digital medium. It is the point of contact between them. A series of screens, pages, and visual elements comprise the UI. It is taken care of by developers.

User experience (UX) is the user’s interaction experience while interacting with UI – website, app, or device of a brand. A good UX result when the UI is holistically designed focusing on how they are used rather than just how they look.

A UI may be appealing visually, but not necessarily User Experience (UX) optimized. UI is what appears. UX is what it affects. A great UX can only be ensured when the UI is set up with UX in consideration.

While UI is tangible, UX is experiential for the users. A great UX can persuade consumers to return to the business for more. Interfaces that have been ergonomically designed after anticipating and reducing the frictions and risks in use by the users, ensure a seamless user experience with the business offerings. Ease in comprehension and navigation through the user interface delights the users that build on the user experience.

Customers provide their data to the company and communicate with them on a timely basis. Customers are always looking for the best services that simply applied to the insurance industry too.

As user experience has become an integral component in the insurance industry, more insurance agencies are investing in understanding user experience as it is crucial for their long-term growth. Yet, some companies do not pay attention to it and hence, fail to understand its role in the customer acquisition and growth cycle.

The case for insurance companies to focus on user experience for maintaining customer relationships can be explained further by the following points.

1. UX connects to Consumer Psychology and Consumer Behavior

Interaction with digital systems has a direct impact on the perception of the brand. UX involves the use of colors, words, and designs which affects the human brain in several ways. It is up to the UI designers to ensure that this effect is positive. When policyholders interact with a clear and interactive interface, the resultant experience is a productive and positive.

2. UX decides your Brand Authority

Insurers know that user experience has a direct impact on the brand image, And the brand can create for itself a position of authority only when the user experience is top-notch. Customers tend to forget good experiences but do not forget the bad ones. Hence, the company must ensure a position of authority in the market to maintain and build its brand value.

3. UX helps create better User-centric Design

UX revolves around understanding the user – his motivation, desires, emotions, and goals. Some of the key points to keep in mind while creating user-centric design are.

● Needs and Desires: What actions would be taken by the user?

● Requirements: What are the requirements of the user?

● Implementation: How will the user interact with the interface?

● Improvements: How will the adjustments be made to the front end of the interface without affecting the current backend systems, in the future?

4. UX helps in decision-making

With an easy to understand design, a customer can make better decisions about purchases and policies upgrading. This helps the customers better understand the services on offer and how they can help them. This directly impacts the amount of revenue generated by companies.

Strong customer relation builds a strong brand

Customer expectations and customer experience are closely linked. To create a great user experience, understanding customer expectations is crucial. Customer experience decides the success and failure of a business. Insurers need to know how customer expectations evolve

Below are a few reasons to drive home the point:

Experience

The customer’s previous bad will mean they have higher expectations for better services from the next brand they place their trust. As we already said, customers can judge your customer services through user experience. Good user experience helps fulfill customer expectations which are directly proportional to customer acquisition and retention. Regardless of whether it be with a given brand or its competitor, the customer experience impacts the customer’s mindset. As a result, it forms their perspective and sets their expectations higher than before.

Customer retention rate

Customer retention rate measures how successful insurers are at satisfying the needs and expectations of the existing customers. A study by the Harvard Business Review shows that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25-95%. When a customer has a bad experience, listening and understanding his/her problems, needs and expectations help set the right expectations going forward. According to Forbes, listening to your customer grows customer retention.

Knowledge

Fecund experts believe in consumer education. The companies need to provide the consumers with information, skill and abilities required to become informed buyers. The digital era calls for the customers to be increasingly aware and informed of the services they are looking for. With the availability of an ocean of information, policyholders are now looking for personalized service. Their expectations are higher than they had ever been, previously.

Innovation

Innovation helps make customers’ lives easy by fulfilling their needs. Customers are always looking for better options. A great user experience does not mean the end of the work. The brand must keep innovating and make consistent efforts to improve the experience. This is essential. Consistent innovation guarantees an everlasting excellent user experience.

A great user experience process involves the following areas of focus:

Process

The user interface plays an essential role in the digital journey of the customer. It is important to understand what customers think, know, and expect before visiting a digital platform. This can define how they might react. For example, when an insurance seeker visits a platform, he or she may want to buy a policy, the user interface should make the buying policy process easy. Designing the policy seeker or policyholder journey from start to end is important for a business to grow. The customer should leave the website delighted. That is the only thing that matters at the end.

Expert

An expert with adequate knowledge helps maintain a good customer relationship. Similarly, a user interface optimized for a great user experience helps fulfil customers’ needs and expectations. Such expert-designed interfaces help bolster a brand’s online reputation.

Technology

A business, technologically-sound, has more satisfied customers than those that ignore the importance of technology. Digitizing businesses makes them grow effortlessly and work efficiently.

People ignore businesses that ignore people

As the world goes offline to online for most industries, the case for the digitization of insurance businesses has also increased. Policyholders and seekers are looking for personalized services. They want to know which company can offer them better than others. To win customers, insurers need to think beyond price, product and maintain relationships with the customer, they need to think beyond customer services. User experience is the sure-fire way to improve customer retention and acquisition rates for a company.

Great insurance user experience means great brand value for the insurance companies.