Crisis Communication And Insurance: 4 Ways To Bridge The Gap

It’s hard to believe that only a few weeks ago the majority of us were carrying about our day (and business) as usual.

A lot has changed since then and with parts of the world on lockdown and everything coming to a standstill this has severely crippled many businesses and in turn our economy.

Because technological advances have been at the forefront of our industry, we are fortunate enough to have many resources at our fingertips to provide the best possible service to clients and help insurance businesses run as smoothly as possible under the circumstances.

Here are 4 ways you can help bridge the gap between your departments, your agents, and clients:

1. Provide Updates

It’s important to keep your agents up to speed on industry changes including; software development, changes to policies, new procedures, and more.

You can create channels of communication to help streamline message delivery from your website to your social media and through emails as well as newsletters.

2. Be An Advocate

In times of crisis, your team can find themselves overwhelmed with client inquiries not to mention their own worries. As stressful as the situation might be, it’s important to stay calm, focused and empathetic.

Be as helpful as you can, anything you can be doing to make the workloads easier across the board should be a priority.

Fortunately, there are multi-faceted CRM programs like Salesforce that can buffer repetitive tasks for your agents, ease communication between departments, and improve accuracy and efficiency within client files.

3. Create a Resource Library

With all of the mixed messaging going on in our media it’s hard to see the silver lining in the storm.

Giving your agents and their clients a resource hub will be well received and appreciated.

Here are some suggested resources you can share:

• Provide a list of companies that are waiving their prescription medicine delivery fees

• Highlight charitable causes and their offerings

• Add relevant emergency contact numbers

• **Include government packages and their informational page links
  **

4. Develop A Crisis Chain of Command

Just as your team of agents are overwhelmed by the influx of client inquiries, your customer service center is probably feeling the strain too!

Establishing a chain of command for emergency situations along with communication protocol is an important step in the prevention of system overload.

If your customer service team has clear direction and training on the common scenarios they can expect, the results will be shorter call times, decreased wait times, and an overall improvement in this vital department.

Keeping in mind that in an emergency or crisis situation, protocol and command levels change, there should be a way for your customer service team to have access to this information along with an alert system to monitor and report changes at all times.

Perhaps one of the most important things to remember no matter how dependent we become on technology and all of its advances, is that at the end of the day, the entire purpose of our business and what we do relies heavily upon human interaction.

Patience and empathy demonstrated towards every level of your business operations will go a long way.

We hope you’ve found this information helpful. If you’re interested in finding ways to improve your CRM systems, you can request a no-obligation consultation with one of our specialists here.