10 Reasons Your Agency Should Go Mobile

Smartphones are the most commonly owned device worldwide—and between 2012 and 2016, the number of people who used one as their main way of accessing the internet increased 40%, according to GlobalWebIndex.

“Mobile has impacted everybody’s life in some way,” said Matt Aaron, co‑founder of Insurance Agent Mobile Application, when he joined the Agents Council for Technology for a webinar on 10 reasons mobile is vital to your agency’s future.

Here’s a quick rundown:

1) Mobile search is how prospects connect. Aaron noted that more than 70% of internet traffic takes place on mobile devices—and 80% of insurance shopping starts on mobile, too. Plus, comScore confirms that more than 66% of shoppers leave and never come back if an agency website is not web-optimized.

“Your agency’s website needs to be optimized for viewing on a mobile device,” Aaron said. “If someone has to pinch and squeeze and zoom to navigate your site, stats show users don’t have patience for that.”

2) Consumers are app‑conditioned. “Big companies are training all of us, including your clients, to engage via mobile apps,” said Aaron, citing names like Delta Airlines, Bank of America, the Wall Street Journal and more.

“There are very few business verticals that actually deserve real estate on someone’s smartphone, but insurance is one of them,” Aaron continued. “You don’t necessarily know when someone’s going to need to reach out to you, but when they do, an event has transpired and they don’t want to be messing around trying to figure out how to contact you.”

3) Clients want to download an app—“for the right reasons,” Aaron said. “Many agency principals think their clients will never download an app, but when I ask them why, they don’t have an answer. All too often, we don’t talk with our clients and ask them their opinion on what they want, what they need and what they’d use.”

4) Mobile facilitates self‑determination. If you think you’re assisting clients when you advise them to download an insurance carrier app so they can self‑service, you’re forgetting an important problem: Your agency gets lost in the equation.

“You’ve only facilitated the direct relationship between the carrier and the client, and that is the quickest route to extinction,” Aaron said. “Carrier apps are all about the carrier—not your agency.”

Besides, only about a third of the top 100 property-casualty carriers in the U.S. have deployed a mobile app, “and in many cases, those aren’t ready for primetime for many reasons,” Aaron added. “The insurance industry definitely lags far behind other verticals when it comes to mobile. Don’t be lulled into thinking that just because carriers are not moving forward, it’s OK for your agency to be complacent. Now is not the time to be relying on your carriers for technology-related marketing solutions.”

5) Mobile is the internet all over again. When Steve Jobs was asked about the future of the internet in April 1995, he said it would “make available a presence in the marketplace for very small companies that is equal to very large companies.”

Today, “you could very easily replace the word ‘internet’ with ‘mobile,’” Aaron said. “Insurance was late to the internet party many years ago, and the directs took great advantage of what the internet could do. Now it’s time for the independent channel to seize control of the mobile platform—because you can.”

6) InsurTech is real. “There’s a lot of money being invested in startup companies to disrupt the way the insurance industry has historically conducted business, and that includes insurance agencies,” Aaron said—nearly $5 billion, to be exact. “Your new competitors think mobile first. In some cases, you can’t even interact with these companies until you download their app. This disruption means the agency of today cannot be the same as the agency of tomorrow.”

7) Consumers want to be in control. Mobile enables you to present your prospects and clients with options for their user experience. There’s a difference between a mobile-optimized website and a mobile application, “and they’re each designed to do different things,” Aaron explained.

8) It’s a win-win. Mobile gives your clients one-touch access to your agency, enables you to proactively engage with clients while reducing service costs, and offers a cost-effective return on investment. But perhaps most important, the right app will also neutralize the threat of insurance advertising retargeting.

“If you make your clients search for your agency on a browser, they will be retargeted with advertising by directs or captives or even your competitor down the street,” Aaron pointed out.

9) The world is mobile—your agency should be too. “What you do first thing in the morning is reach for your phone, and that’s after sleeping with your phone the night before,” Aaron pointed out. “Most people can’t get through the day without their device.”

10) Mobile helps you engage and retain. “This is about utilizing a platform and all it has to offer so it will benefit your agency for the long-haul,” Aaron said. “If you think mobile isn’t having an impact on your prospects and clients, it’s time to rethink that.”

Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.