Summary
A Personalized, Automated Customer Welcome Journey by HDFC Life Posed with the challenge of building strong relationships with newly on-boarded customers, we conceptualized & implemented an insights backed, structured Email engagement program. Rooted in customer lifecycle principles with personalized & automated communications, the program helped us achieve 5.5% uplift in year 1 renewals & 12-25% increase year-on-year basis, 24% drop in policy surrenders and 59% higher Email response rates.
Challenge
Life insurance, being a long term contract in nature, witnesses challenge of building strong customer relationships due to lack of regular engagement & interaction opportunities. Mostly, the engagements are limited to the premium payments; either at the time of a policy purchase or for renewal premiums. At HDFC Life, we analyzed customer data and realized that some of these challenges are even accentuated in year 1 of policy for customers, where there’s a need to handhold customers and help them navigate their policy & journey better. Thus, the marketing opportunity was to aim at an insights backed, structured engagement program that could meaningfully engage with newly on-boarded customers & existing ones so that they continue with the brand for full policy term, leading to desired impact on business objectives of persistency (renewal/revival payments) and cross-sell/up-sell.
Objective
The campaign objective was to meaningfully engage & strengthen connect with the newly on-boarded customers in the first year of their policies, leading to higher engagement levels on communication response and uplift on year 1 renewal payments. Thus, to measure the campaign effectiveness, both Marketing and Business KPIs we set out to achieve were: • Higher customer engagement levels - Measured via Email response rates (open, click etc) • Impact of the campaign on Business KPIs - Persistency (renewal/revival payments) - An improvement on collections for the year 1 renewal payments • Impact of the campaign on Policy Surrender Aversion
Strategy
As the strategic approach for meaningful engagement with policyholders, we designed communication journey for year 1 of policy based on customer lifecycle management principles. The communication interventions in the journey were backed with research/customer data insights and strong creative execution. Below are key details on the Personalized Customer Welcome Journey design: -A set of 15 communications/creatives covering policy information, awareness, reassurance, servicing etc. - Personalized communications backed by data analytics & insights derived from customer queries & concerns gauged through call center data, sales feedback, research etc. - The journey was built on customer lifecycle principles and interventions were strategically planned at regular intervals in order to address queries and concerns that are often raised by policyholders in the first year. Target Group: The target group here was the newly on-boarded customers who would be due for year 1 renewal payments next. Channel: We used direct marketing communication channels like Email predominantly, with SMS as an alternate channel.
Data
A customer paying for Year 1 policy renewal is a clear indicator of their association and trust with the brand. Our research and analysis suggested that the typical reasons for non-renewals are low awareness on the policy benefits, process and dissatisfaction on the policy servicing front. This also reflected in the customer’s apprehensions observed through the queries & concerns at the call center. Key points observed from call center data and sales feedback: • Customers’ key concerns and issues • Common queries on policy information and renewals • Frequency of calls for particular queries Research Insights on customer behavior in year 1 of the policy: • Need for policy information • Awareness around managing funds and premium paying readiness • Propensity to consider another policy basis needs The findings helped us build an automated journey with curated interventions, personalized for each policyholder basis their date of on-boarding, to address their needs around policy information, awareness, reassurance, servicing etc.
Solution
We followed the overall campaign strategy with a strong creative execution idea, where the content was back by data and insights along with timely communication deliveries. Following are the key highlights of creative execution. Creative concept & design: To depict the communication journey innovatively, we chose the creative route of The Life Express; a visually appealing train journey where each train station drew parallel with the communication interventions in our journey and delivered on relevant information specific to that intervention. All the 15 creatives used in the journey were designed in a way that they looked consistent and interconnected (simulating a journey), in spite of each one delivering a specific messaging related to identified interventions. Consistent creative elements like the visual route of a train namely The Life Express, a visual roadmap of policy stations for ease of navigation, hyperlinks with past policy stations in case one wants to revisit, watch out cues for forthcoming station etc not only made the storytelling & content interesting but also added to the efficacy. All communications carried a call-to-action, giving our more information to browse on the related topic. Personalization and automation: The communications designed were personalized basis the profile of the policyholders and fields like customer name, policy name, policy number, renewal due date etc helped in making the communications relevant and relatable, delivered through an automated journey according to their communication preferences.
Results
As a marketing unit, a successful campaign for us is the one which solves for customer’s needs as well as aids in organizational objectives. And, the Personalized Customer Welcome Journey campaign delivered on both. Below is a snapshot of the significant impact delivered by our campaign on set KPIs: KPIs: 1. Higher customer engagement levels - Measured via Email response rates (open, click etc) 2. Impact of the campaign on Business KPIs - Persistency (renewal/revival payments) - An improvement on collections for the year 1 renewal payments 3. Impact of the campaign on Policy Surrender Aversion Impact delivered: 1. 59% higher Email open rate observed with 250% boost on clicks 2. Up to 5.5% Uplift in the renewal premium collections. Further, we observed 12% to 25% upside on collections on year-on-year basis 3. 24% drop in policy surrenders during campaign period
