According to Pew Research Center, 95% of Americans own a cell phone. And 90% of texts sent to those phones are answered within three minutes, making it no surprise texting response rate is 8x higher than email. That’s some serious marketing capital your agency needs to leverage.

Your customers are calling for texting, too. Research shows almost 75% of Millennials and 82% of Gen Z want to text with their insurance provider.

Still not convinced your agency needs this digital insurance tool? Keep reading.

Discover more essential tech for your agency on the SIS blog

Top Three Reasons to Embrace Texting as a Digital Insurance Tool

1. It’s immediate: With such a high response rate, texting gets you the answer you need faster than email or calls.
2. It’s personal: The conversational manner of texting makes it feel more personal for customers and prospects, something they look for in an insurance provider.
3. It’s permanent: Texting boosts E&O protection with a permanent record of your conversations tied directly to the client’s profile.

See why texting is an essential piece of making digital insurance personal

What to Look For

As with all Insurtech elements, not all systems are created equal. There are a few key items to look for in your texting system:

• Integration with your management system and/or CRM
• Built-in opt-out messaging sent with each new text
• Ability to send and receive photos and videos (essential for claims management)
• Connection to marketing automation system to send messages at pertinent moments in the buyer’s journey

Don’t forget about email – leverage email integration for increased efficiencies in your agency, too

How to Use It

While our top reasons to text are enticing, many agents still wonder how they’ll use texting. The uses are vast, but here are some practical ways agencies use texting.

To Make Sales

Texting can be leveraged for upselling and cross-selling, offering links to updated coverage in a text around renewal time. You can also text for referrals, sending customers links to pass on to their family and friends. Finally, texting linked with marketing automation can increase lead conversion. Schedule texts to send at critical moments, like when a lead requests a quote, to increase response.

To File Claims, Faster

There is a lot of back and forth when it comes to claims management. With texting, you can communicate immediately and directly with customers during these tense moments. Customers can send photos of incidents, and you can keep them updated with reminders on info to send and processing time.

To Keep Up on Policies

Texting is great for policy renewal reminders and checking in on payments or other updates. You can also send texts to let customers know about discounts or new offerings as they come up for renewal.

To Send Reminders and Notifications

Send out reminders about meetings, eliminating no-shows, and keep customers updated with agency happenings via text. You can also leverage the system to send disaster and/or weather notifications to help keep customers safe.

Get details on Texting Best Practices on the SIS blog

Take Advantage of Texting Integration with Partner Platform

To reap the full benefits of texting, you need texting that integrates with your agency management system. Texting integration closes gaps in documentation, making texting reliable, safe, and effective.

Partner Platform’s integrated text messaging solution makes it easy to send and receive texts and images with customers, saving a permanent record of the conversation with one click. Plus, you can leverage automated text messaging campaigns to text when a policy is coming up for renewal, when a payment is late, or for whatever is needed.

Find out more about our integrated text messaging and other Partner Platform capabilities at https://sispartnerplatform.com/.