Looking To The Future: Why Agencies Must Go Digital
It’s easy to downplay the importance of a younger demographic group. “Baby boomers” was often used as a dismissive term decades ago, and now it’s common to hear people shrug aside the needs and desires of “Millennials.”
That’s a huge mistake. The Pew Research Center reports that millennials (ages 18-34, also known as Generation Y) are now America’s largest generational group, bigger than either the so-called Generation X (ages 35-50) or the Baby Boom generation (ages 51-69). And more millennials are becoming adults every year; the total size of the “Generation Y” group isn’t projected to peak until the mid-2030s.
Why does that matter to Health Insurance Agents and the way they provide services?
Millennials have never known a world that isn’t technology-based. They’ve had computers at home and at school throughout their lives, they’ve grown up attached to iPods, and they’ve been permanently connected to their smartphones (well, figuratively at least) for years.
That’s why millennials are early adopters of all new technologies. More importantly, it’s why they expect to be able to perform almost all important tasks digitally.
Agencies who neglect their own digital presence – or who don’t provide an optimal digital experience for customers – are essentially writing off the largest group of potential clients in America.
What Smart Agencies Must Do
In two words: go digital. In five words: perfect your clients’ digital experiences.
Many agencies assume that “going digital” simply means displaying product offerings online, offering a contact or email form, and perhaps creating a protected area where clients can review their coverage and options.
That may be enough for baby boomers, but millennials expect much more from online platforms. They’ve grown up easily navigating sophisticated user interfaces, and are put off by complicated or non-intuitive user experiences. They expect compatibility with all of their computers, phones and other devices, they expect an easy and enjoyable self-service environment but also a feeling of community as well as 24/7 customer support, and they expect the ability to share their thoughts on social media while still on your site. That’s the type of digital experience that will satisfy millennial clients.
To an agency, all of that might sounds intimidating, and in today’s world, it can be. There are third-party software solutions designed specifically for every industry, including insurance agencies. In most cases, you select the solution that works best for your agency, and then hire someone to set it up, customize it and maintain it.
There’s an even easier and more sensible, answer to the dilemma. For example, Candor for Agencies™ offers a turn-key health insurance solution that allows agents to link their clients to their dedicated section of the Candor website, where a robust digital platform is branded with the agency’s name and logo. Candor does all of the work, the agency maintains client control and receives the commissions – and millennial clients will be delighted with their digital experience.
Grow your agency! A completely new take on insurance agency software puts you in command instead of demanding more from you.
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