Riding the Whirlwind

Strategic Interactive Marketing for the Insurance Industry

Key Points:

Telephone based services are seen as the growth area.

Kiosks are also seen as ideal for the mass market.

5.12 Summary

5.12.1 All interviewees saw a continued explosion in the use of the telephone, especially for the more commodity products like general insurance. Using the telephone for commerce was extending to all parts of society and was fuelling the move to global business round the clock. Consumers are gaining in confidence but equally businesses saw opportunities for forging relationships by using the telephone. Organisational, HR and technological implications are significant and need addressing in the short term.

5.12.2 Many financial service providers believe that kiosks provide an ideal means to reach the mass market, either within their own outlets or by placing kiosks in a wide variety of public or work places. Being a step-up from ATMs, they expect them to be widely accepted by consumers for information and transactional purposes. Kiosk can deliver services without dependence on other information providers.

Interactive TV looks promising as many homes are expected to acquire it.

Web-TV may attract casual Internet users.

Postal mailings will be more integrated with the other delivery mediums.

- Mass Market Bets on I-TV -

5.12.3 Those insurers who are addressing the mass market see Interactive-TV (I-TV) as a promising delivery medium in the medium term. They see I-TV as being popular for delivering home entertainment to the masses, especially via cable. They think the same consumers will have a propensity for home shopping. From this base, interviewees saw home banking being the initial financial service.

5.12.4 Web-TV will be attractive to a significant body of people who do not want the cost or complexity of Internet access from a PC but who want more information than provided by I-TV.

5.12.5 The postal system will continue to be an important marketing and administrative delivery mechanism, especially for outbound communications. Integration with other delivery mediums, such as the kiosks, I-TV, the Internet and e-mail will make for efficient and personalised communications.

Bill Gates is to build an alternative Internet using 300 satellites.

5.12.6 Fax machines, pagers & Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) have a role in disseminating information of a timely nature, such as changes in the value of an investment portfolio. Those with a more professional client base may find these useful in delivering value added services. In time most people will have a mobile phone or pager.

.... Bill Gates to invest his own money in the $9bn Teledesic project to circle the globe with 300 satellites launched by Russian missiles. networked together they will form an alternative to the Internet. ....Astrolink and Iridium are two competitors ..

E-mail may well become ubiquitous but companies are ill placed to handle this and the other new mediums.

Most interviewees are cautious about the Internet.

Major content providers may well dominate any of these mediums. It is this that will determine which medium to use.

Larger companies will offer customers a choice of mediums. Customers will choose according to their personal preferences, equipment and the stage in the buying cycle.

5.12.7 E-mail could well take-off if it was to become widely available from kiosks, I-TV, Web-TV, Smartphones and PDAs. Most organisations have concerns about the lack of business processes in-place for handling e-mail. Telesales centres will almost certainly expand to handle e-mail and then later for Internet communications.

5.12.8 Most interviewees are cautious about the Internet, especially the World Wide Web (WWW). They see Internet users either as techno junkies ("anoraks") or as hard-to-please professional explorers. In the long run, if the cost of purchase and ownership was significantly less than today, then they saw it being a main stream utility used by the majority of the population.

.... Murdoch's LineOne is rumoured to be buying Pointcast, the market leading push technology company .....

5.12.9 Major content providers such as Microsoft or International News may determine which of these mediums become significant. Within those mediums that survive or take-off, cultural and social issues along with the task people are trying to do, will be a greater determinant than the technology itself. Most interviewees broadly agreed with the behavioural model that was presented (see section 4), excepting perhaps the use of the telephone which they see being widely used by all market segments.

.... Microsoft launches msn news for UK audiences. it's aimed at those who want a daily 20 minute digest .....

Most see the new mediums as complementary, not as a fundamental new way of doing business.

Supporting the new mediums will place severe pressures on internal capabilities.

5.12.10 The various mediums will convergence and integrate. In many instances, companies will have to provide a choice of medium to their customers. Never-the-less, there is a tendency for some mediums to better suit the different stages within the buying and ownership cycles. This includes face-to-face. Whatever mediums a customer uses, there will be an expectation that the clerk will know about any earlier communications.

5.12.11 Whilst there are some concerns about the legal and security issues, these will be overcome.

- Complementary, Not Fundamental -

5.12.12 On the whole, interviewees see these new delivery mediums as complementary to today's way of doing business. They see the impact and constraints to be on the internal mechanisms (organisation, personnel and existing technology) and for some, it is also in the distribution chain, especially intermediaries. Telesales organisations could well establish a role in handling all the new mediums.