Insurance providers are finding themselves modernizing more and more aspects of their businesses to attract a new generation of policy holders. These new policy holders expect a different, more flexible experience, from how they’re billed to how they communicate with agents. That’s why so many insurance companies are turning to popular and effective channels—like insurance SMS—to streamline their communications.
Insurance SMS has attracted the attention of top and emerging insurance companies for many reasons. First and foremost, texting is a highly popular channel with clients, boasting a 98% open rate and average response time of 90 seconds. Modern business texting platforms contribute additional benefits for insurance companies, empowering team members to securely and efficiently manage incoming client messages. And for insurance companies who want to make the most out of their business texting services, there are certain best practices they can follow.
Read on to learn more about insurance SMS best practices, from securing opt ins to automating where possible.
Insurance SMS Best Practice #1: Secure Opt Ins
Compliance with federal and local regulations is critical when it comes to business SMS. One of the most important aspects of compliance is ensuring that the clients your company texts have opted into your business texting program. To secure opt ins, be sure to:
Offer multiple ways to opt in. When publicizing your business texting services, be sure to offer clients various ways to opt in. For example, clients should be able to text into your number with a special keyword or click a box on a web form to successfully sign up.
Be transparent. The goal of compliant insurance SMS services is to send communications to consumers that they actually want to receive. When publicizing your SMS services, be sure to list the type of content you’ll be sending and how often you plan on sending it.
Confirm opt ins. When a client sends in the appropriate keyword or clicks the box on your web form, send a confirmation text to ensure that the client is aware that they have signed up for texts. This measure simply ensures that your client has willingly added themselves to your SMS list.
Insurance SMS Best Practice #2: Personalize Messages
To build a strong relationship with your clients, add a personal touch to your messages. This way, customers can feel sure that they are messaging with a human, not a bot.
Including a client’s first name and any pertinent information in each message is key. This is simple enough when you’re texting a single person at a time; however, teams can also personalize messages sent to larger lists of clients. With merge tokens, business texting platforms draw on custom fields to personalize outgoing messages, so that each text received by a client feels like it was sent personally by an agent.
Additionally, team members should add a quick signature to the end of each text, so that clients can be sure messages are coming from a human and not a bot. Signatures can be automatically added to all messages with the help of business texting services.
A fully optimized, customizable template might look like this:
Hi there, {{first name}}, {{agent name}} from Wisconsin Property Insurers here. Would you like to go ahead and schedule a follow-up appointment to our last meeting on {{last meeting date}}? —{{agent name}}
Insurance SMS Best Practice #3: Focus On Client Care, Not Sales
The fact that clients have to opt in to texting services can be considered a great benefit to your business. This means that each person on your texting list genuinely wants to hear from your brand. However, this also means that they can opt out of your business texting services.
To prevent clients from opting out of your business SMS program, ensure that you always provide value with your texted content. While your business should focus on using your SMS channel for answering client questions, there is some content that you can send opted-in customers. Appropriate content includes:
- Claims progress, renewal, or other administrative notifications
- Quotes or other key information
- Appointment scheduling
- Insurance industry-relevant tips
In essence, when you avoid sales-driven SMS content and focus on building relationships, you can increase both client loyalty and satisfaction—while growing your SMS lists.
Insurance SMS Best Practice #4: Automate When Possible
One of the top benefits of cutting-edge business SMS platforms is that they have the ability to streamline your teams’ workflows through automations. There are many key aspects of the insurance workflow that can be automated. These include:
Sending notifications. Whether you want to update a client on their claim or send an appointment confirmation, business texting platforms allow teams to create notification templates that can be customized and sent to large lists all at once.
Informing clients about response times. When clients text while your team is busy or out of the office, they can get frustrated without an immediate response. A business texting platform can automatically send a reply listing basic information like average response time or hours of operation.
Confirming opt-ins. Insurance companies can even create automations that recognize key information and trigger automated responses. For example, an SMS platform can identify a texted phrase, like “OPTIN,” add the client to a list, and reply with a confirmation text.
Routing incoming messages. Your insurance SMS platform should also be able to route messages with particular content to relevant agents. For example, texts containing the word “appointment” can be directed to the schedule coordinator. Texts containing the word “claim” can be directed to an agent, and also sent a templated reply including the main claims phone number and a notification that an agent will get back to them shortly.
Managing long-term campaigns. Drip campaigns can be used for a wide variety of insurance tasks. For example, insurance agents can set up a campaign to check in with new clients who have just signed up for their service, or those who haven’t completed paperwork. Campaigns can automatically remove clients who reply with opt-out requests or redirect those who reply with questions.
Insurance SMS Best Practice #5: Be Mindful Of The Content You Text
Finally, insurance companies should remember the importance of ensuring everything they text is compliant and not confidential. While insurance SMS messages feel casual, they can be considered legally binding in many cases. Because they are written, courts sometimes consider texted statements equivalent to written contracts.
This is not a common problem with business texting programs. Regardless, you should be careful to avoid texting:
- Guarantees or promises
- Premium costs or quotes
- Confidential or personal information
- Inappropriate or unprofessional language
If you do have to share documents, consider providing a link to your Dropbox or Google Drive folder via SMS. If you need to reveal confidential information, be sure to use a phone call. Toggling between phone calls and texts with customers should be easy; most insurance agents have local telephone numbers that can be quickly text-enabled so customers can both text and call a single number.
By avoiding the above items in your texts, your insurance company will be able to reap all of the benefits of business SMS without any drawbacks.
Ready to try out insurance SMS? Test our platform today.
