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Increased sales, regulatory compliance, improved branding consistency and email delivery all taken care of for Apex Insurance.
Financial
Apex Insurance is an independent business to business commercial insurance broker. Apex has worked closely with Cumulo9 to address a suite of business communication needs since 2013.
The Challenges
Firstly Apex wanted to improve the branding and delivery of every day employee emails to be consistent and professional. Secondly it was crucial that Apex be able to quickly and efficiently verify that their insurance brokers and customers were receiving important information as a part of improved business activity.
In order to improve sales closure and assure delivery, Apex was interested in an email tracking solution that removed potentially intrusive follow up enquiries that might normally be made by brokers. Being in Financial Services, it was also necessary for Apex’s communications to comply with the regulatory requirements - in particular those that fall under the audit/compliance rules of the Financial Markets Authority in New Zealand.
Lastly Apex wanted to target sales opportunities for customers that would normally be considered un-economical. In addition they wanted to do this in partnership with other manufacturers/service providers.
Solution and results
The Solution
Solution #1: C9 Signature
The Cumulo9 C9 Signature product provides “version controlled” email templates so that Apex now has assurance that every single email is on-brand and professional. In addition, the use of version controlled templates ensures each email contains the correct delivery of legal documentation (e.g. Personal Disclosure Statements). This dramatically reduces both compliance and brand risk.
Solution #2: C9 Campaign
Apex uses Cumulo9’s C9 Campaign product to distribute it’s quarterly Pinnacle newsletters to 5000+ customers.
The Pinnacle newsletter is designed to keep customers up to date with important news, as well as facilitate long term customer loyalty and expand sales opportunities.
Solution #3: Automator Digital Forms
Cumulo9 also provides Apex with business automation technology through the use of their digital forms solution - Automator. These forms can be attached to any email and are easily customised to match company branding. The recipient fills in the relevant details and from there the sender is notified, while email review details are time stamped and stored for analysis on the Cumulo9 reporting interface.
The Results
C9 Signature
Combined with silent “click” and “read” alerts both the Apex staff and their Compliance Manager now have immediate notification of the review of their important emails. This identifies any links that may have been clicked on to review (such as disclosure statement or website link). This insight generates both prospect follow up opportunities and provides “proof of review” of important documents.
C9 Campaign
Relevance is key - using the “easy-build” template designs, the Apex staff can build attractive and compelling newsletters. The rich reporting functionality allows them to easily track which topics resonate with readers. This helps them to better target and customise their material to suit their audience. The impact of improved engagement has translated into increased sales ‘conversion’. Useful features such as the real time heat maps and the drill down reporting have made segmentation and personalisation of future emails easy. This data is also easily extracted to excel and integrate with existing company reports.
Even though it is relatively new to them, the Mailprimer C9 Campaign system has already improved relevance and engagement with the Apex client base and open rates are climbing steadily, with an average of 50% plus.
Automator Digital Forms
Overall, these automated processes make it easy for a prospective customer to complete an online form (as opposed to paper) meaning reduced downtime and higher engagement/ conversion.
Digital forms allow most of the quote and insurance application completion process to be fully automated, yet still highly personalised, completely accurate and fully compliant. This allows Apex brokers to spend time talking to and advising the customer rather than administering their policies.
As a consequence Apex can now turn a low margin class of business into a profitable class. Apex can now effectively leverage business opportunities that were otherwise not financially viable.
Real gains can be made for very low cost insurance products with high volumes of customers. Apex is able to offer signficantly reduced premiums for specific schemes and still provide a credible revenue stream.
We started using the newsletter functionality which Cumulo9 makes easy. It gives you that rich data on what clients are opening and the silent tracking eliminates any confusion regarding who has seen what. This can prevent litigation and potentially exorbitant legal fees.
James McGhie
MD, Apex Insurance