#AsiaeCommerceAwards spills: Income sets eyes on seamless CX experience

Insurance company Income made a name for itself at the Asia eCommerce Awards 2020 hosted by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, taking home the silver award for the category "Best in eCommerce (Brands) – Banking / Financial Services". Its head of digital business, Anny Huang, also snagged the gold award for eCommerce Leader of the Year (Individual). 

Income stood unfazed amidst the rapid digitalisation that COVID-19 brought upon businesses, as it moved away from traditional advertising years ago, and were fully ready to serve customers digitally even before the pandemic. In an interview with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Huang (pictured) said instead of cutting on advertising spends, Income had to increase on digital spend to ensure we were able to follow through the digital journey of its customers. Not neglecting offline channels as well, Income worked with its service branches and financial agents to ensure it was able to leverage its digital data to help them in their sales and service processes.

This interview is done as part of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s winners and finalists’ interview series for Asia eCommerce Awards 2020. To find out more about the awards, click here.

What are some of the expectations your consumers now have for your brand?

Huang: In today’s digital-first landscape, consumers are increasingly digital savvy and are kept up to date with the latest technologies and apps. The integration of technology, speed and convenience at different touchpoints in their lives, such as ordering food via an app within a minute, have in a way developed an expectation for brands to stay up the speed and cater to their changing needs.

They no longer just focus on the product or service, the entire pre-post purchase journey matters and often it can be a key factor to gaining their trust and loyalty towards a brand. Customers expect fast and personalised service wherever and whenever they need it. The business landscape is so competitive and the moment you don’t capture their attention, another brand will.

Hence, to remain competitive in the insurance industry, we need to offer the most seamless experience possible across all channels, from online to offline– an experience that puts customer-first, and this is where data and eCommerce plays a huge part in shaping a more data driven customer experience.  

How has your marketing plans shifted in 2020?

Huang: In the area of eCommerce at Income, we have already digitised our core offerings well before this pandemic, enabling customers to purchase traditionally offline policies online through an intuitive and streamlined eCommerce portal, which aligns to our vision of making insurance accessible all. This forward planning in building a strong digital platform really helped Income and our customers when COVID-19 hit.

Consumer behaviours, requirements and priorities shifted from travel to protecting their Health, Life, Home and Cars. During the circuit breaker, people were unable to visit branches to either renew or buy new policies. Customers’ expectation also changed drastically during this period of time. Due to all the lockdowns and limitation in face to face transactions, customers expected Income to still be available at all possible digital touch points.

Due to Income’s ability to quickly pivot its strategy through its digital offerings, we were able to keep up with the changes in consumer behaviour and priorities.

In addition, at Income, we moved away from traditional advertising years ago, and as such, we were fully ready to serve customers digitally even before the pandemic. Instead of cutting on our advertising spends, on the contrary, we had to increase on digital spend to ensure we were able to follow through the digital journey of all our existing customers and prospects. We also worked with our offline channels such as service branches and financial agents to ensure we were able to leverage our digital data to help them in their sales and service processes.

What are some of the trends you see carrying on post-pandemic, and how are you readying your workforce to be ready with these trends?

Huang: In some ways, the pandemic served as a catalyst for digital adoption. As more of our customers, including those who typically prefer offline channels, become more familiar with our digital tools and the convenience it bring, it has become a go-to channel/ tool that some will continue to use post-pandemic. The same goes for our financial advisors and they have adapted well to online tools such as the Remote Customer Experience (RCE) tool to continuing engage with their customers digitally from the safety and comfort of their homes.

In addition, we also have our Personalised Advisor Store (PAS) that serves as a readily accessible online portal for customers to choose from and interact with their preferred advisor. This also enables our financial advisors to create their own personalized storefronts online to serve customers digitally. During COVID-19, Income’s PAS had been instrumental in building on the advisor’s offline relationships and bringing them online easily, providing the customers with a seamless experience.

As such, we are continuing our investment in digital enablement. This pandemic has taught us that we need to be ready, or rather 200% ready for any unforeseen situations. With the increasing focus on customers, and how to serve customers with relevant information at the right time, in the right manner and tone, investment into martech is incredibly important in today’s context. We are looking into new tech tools to enable us to better understand our customers in real time and will be adding martech talents to the team to speed up the adoption process.

What do you think makes for great marketing these days?

Huang: To me, great marketing is when people don’t feel like you are selling them something! Marketing is also a process of helping people discover what they need. From an insurance perspective, many people who are underinsured actually don’t know that they are not sufficiently protected from adverse situations, and they may not realise the struggle if anything unfortunate happens to them. So helping them discover their protection gaps and guiding them in that realisation process, embedded within the marketing process, is what I would called great marketing these days.

How are you planning for 2021?

Huang: This year, we are looking to sharpen the customer journey of our large policyholder base at Income, with the use of data derived across all our various channels, so the customer journey becomes more seamless, informed and personalised.  

Personalisation is becoming a big part of the customer experience so it is important for us to see each customer as an individual with different preferences and needs, and address their needs accordingly. We aim to better segment our customers and prospects, and drastically increase our marketing efficiency.

The opportunity lies in building on our strong digital capabilities and continue sharpening our online-offline-online capabilities and touchpoints to build a customer-centric data-driven journey.