Late in 1999, Allstate announced a new distribution and service approach, what it calls its "multi-access strategy." The strategy is intended to allow "customers to reach Allstate how, when and where they want to be served," integrating the company's 13,000 agents, call centers, and the Internet, while providing identical pricing across all channels. By the end of 2000, Allstate had implemented its multi-access strategy in 15 states.
Allstate is clear about the role their agents will play. Once their only sales channel, agents now "compete" with company-direct sales, though the agent eventually derives benefit and commission since every insured is assigned an agent. Allstate has also changed its business relationship with its agents; once employees, they are now independent contractors.
It remains to be seen whether Allstate can succeed at a multi-channel sales strategy. If Allstate agents feel they don't really "own" direct sales that have been assigned to them, those insureds may drift away through inattention with both Allstate and its agents suffering over the long run. And it's not clear whether Internet purchase of insurance policies will be popular anytime soon. On the other hand, if anyone has a shot at a multi-channel sales strategy, it's Allstate (along with State Farm), since Allstate has the requisite brand identity. "You're in good hands" is now 50 years old.
On the other hand, from a service, as opposed to sales, point of view, Allstate is clearly on the right track. By allowing the customer to choose the service channel they want to use -- whether the agent, a 24x7 call center, or the Allstate Web site -- Allstate is implementing a service model independent agents could do well to emulate. What's particularly important about the Allstate approach is that the service channels are integrated. The customer can move between service channels seamlessly because the agent, call center, and web site all share the same information source.
Though it's interesting, certainly, to hypothesize about Allstate's overall business strategy and chances for success, we're interested here primarily in what they've done with their web site and what we can learn from it. In particular, we want to see how they support marketing, service, and sales.
Marketing
Allstate.com has both public and private web site sections. The former contains both marketing and sales related information. The latter is intended for policyholder service and requires both a UserID and PIN for entry.
Perhaps the most important marketing aspect of a web site is whether it can be found. Given the strength of Allstate's brand, a consumer would likely enter www.allstate.com into their browser address field, and that would in fact take them to Allstate's homepage. On the other hand, if a consumer were to search for "Allstate," through Yahoo, for instance, they would find listings for Allstate, but also for www.allstateinsurancesucks.com and www.insurancejustice.com.
The first site seems to be concerned especially with unhappy claims experiences -- and not just with Allstate. The second, subtitled "You're in Bad Hands With Allstate" points to the Equal Employ-ment Opportunity Commission's determination "that Allstate violated federal statutes in its use of a release and waiver during its drive to transform its agent force from employees to independent contractors." Neither site would give a consumer confidence about Allstate.
If a consumer were to search for "auto insurance" through Yahoo, they'd be encouraged to use the Yahoo Insurance Center (that is, InsWeb) or a number of sub categories that would, for instance take them to a list of about 30 quote sites -- Allstate not among them.
We can say, tentatively, that consumers can find Allstate's site if they are looking for it specifically, but they're likely to get more than they (or Allstate) bargained for if they search for Allstate, and less if they're shopping generically.
The Allstate site does a good job both supporting and drawing on the "Good Hands" slogan. The graphics feature images of agents/call center CSRs and apple pie family and couples pictures. Auto, Home, and Life links are obvious on the home page. BOP, boat, RV, and other products are mentioned on a subsidiary page. Financial services links (annuities, banking to come) are available indirectly through the home page. The consumer can request a version of the site in Spanish.
The Allstate site provides information/educational resources to the consumer as well, for instance related to buying a car or house. The auto section offers topics such as "Which is better: new or used" and "How safe is my Year 2001 car." The topics have the potential to be useful or interesting but what Allstate offers seems to me too general and non-offending to be worthwhile. In contrast, State Farm organizes its consumer background information by life event, for instance potential insurance issues associated with getting married Ð and that may be more useful than the Allstate policy type approach.
Links on the home page provide for locating agents (maps are provided), finding out a bit about them (e.g. community connections), and sending e-mail forms (pre-categorized). Once you've searched for an agent, Allstate pops up a little survey form to find out more about your insurance buying expectations and anticipated dealing with the prospective agency. Clearly they're trying to understand better who's using their site and why, a laudable goal.
The site features a home page privacy statement link that retrieves a statement/FAQ that covers what happens with collected information, cookies use, and so on as well as a link to TRUSTe that confirms that Allstate conforms to the TRUSTe Privacy Program. A home page link also provides access to Allstate press releases, history, and other information, which is probably not important to the typical consumer, but relevant to the larger community.
A home page "About Allstate" link connects to company background, job opportunity, community involvement, and financial information. Linking to "Contact Us" provides something more like a brief FAQ than a communication channel.
Allstate uses the same page structure throughout the site. A banner across the top displays and reinforces the brand. A persistent five item horizontal menu links to Insurance Products, Customer Care Center, Find an Agent, Financial Services, and Resources & Tools sub webs. Under-neath the banner and horizontal menu, two columns on the right provide space for variable information, forms entry, and so on. Allstate uses a third, left-most column to present what amounts to rotating Allstate advertising messages and links -- a clever idea.
From a marketing point of view, the site does its job, but is not very creative about helping consumers make real sense of their insurance needs or the process. On the other hand, it may be difficult, even impossible, to educate short-attention span consumers about the true intricacies of insurance. This problem (and it's the industry's, not Allstate's) has two solutions: significant simplification of insurance policies (not likely for many reasons) or continuing agent (or para-agent) involvement in needs analysis and product matching (likely for many reasons).
Service
The Allstate site home page provides direct entry into "the Customer Care Center" via a UserID and PIN. The first-time user registers and picks a UserID and PIN but cannot use them immediately Allstate mails back (via paper) what they call a User Authentication Code. Once that's in hand the user can sign in, enter the UAC once, and begin to use the Allstate services The UAC technique provides a reasonable, yet operationally unobtrusive way for Allstate to confirm the identity of a prospective Customer Care Center user. Through another security element, Allstate tracks session time, timing out idle users and then requiring a page refresh to continue -- a good idea.
For a new user, the first order of business is to identify the policies that are to be part of your Allstate insurance portfolio. Once done, the choices persist into future sessions, though the list can be edited to add or drop policies. But from the insured's point of view, it isn't at all obvious why Allstate needs to be told which policies are yours. They know who you are and therefore should know which policies you hold.
Whenever a user picks a policy from their portfolio, a list of five policyholder functions become available for that policy: view policy; billing status; report a claim; claim status; and make a payment. In addition, claims reporting and policy information FAQ links are featured.
Viewing a policy means seeing an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, and that means having to download Acrobat Reader if you don't have it. Allstate provides a convenient link for free download, but why not view the dec pages in HTM? I assume the reason is that PDF allows the policy to look just like its paper version, and that likely satisfies the lawyers and insurance commissioners. Interestingly, Allstate makes it clear the electronic policy really isn't the policy: "The information displayed online is for informational purposes only and is not part of your insurance policy. Your insurance policy consists of the policy forms sent to you, including any endorsements." So much for slowing the mowing of forests to print policies.
Billing status is what you would expect -- basically a statement. The claims reporting module is policy type specific and provides a channel for first notice of loss. The insured can enter as much or little information as desired. The claims department will follow up and the agent is also notified. The claims process provides a good deal of information about what to do and what to expect and is likely useful to the Internet savvy insured with a new claim. Allstate provides on-line credit card payment for policy premium, a convenience and way to earn credit card-based frequent flier miles for those so inclined.
Allstate's service functionality is useful and a real improvement over the traditional world of paper and the USPS. But more could be done. Though a "picture" of a policy can be retrieved, it will provide little solace to the dec sheet-impaired (most everyone). It would be nice to have some links to background explanation, though the lawyers would probably object.
Second, it would be useful for the Allstate site to look at the whole insurance portfolio, and, when asked, comment on it. If an insured has auto and home, are the limits consistent? Would an Umbrella policy be useful? Could it result in lower primary limits and save the insured premium?
It would also be useful to be able to retrieve an existing policy and re-rate it with changes (e.g., with a prospective new vehicle), but quoting is only available as part of the sales (or perhaps more broadly, marketing) functionality.
Sales
Not long ago we all heard claims that agents (of all kinds) would disappear as consumers flocked to the Internet to buy insurance. It hasn't happened, though we're likely to see more of it over time. Allstate has their toe in the water and provides on-line quoting and sales.
The Allstate quoting process is tedious (as usual), but better than some and worse than others. Two observations come to mind. First, as you proceed through a form field by field, the browser talks to the Allstate server in the background and may suddenly redraw the whole form. More could be done within the browser using JavaScript and the background conversations with the server could be more polite and less disruptive.
Second, if you leave a field blank inadvertently or answer questions in an inconsistent way, the form does not know it until you submit it to the server. Therefore, it's not unlikely that you'll have to deal with the same form over and over while you try to figure out what the server objected to. It's amazing to me that so many Web applications continue to mimic batch-oriented/dumb terminals like the IBM 3270s of the past. It creates a clumsy user experience, and with available technology really isn't necessary.
I found it particularly interesting that the quote I created myself on-line called for twice the premium an Allstate agent quoted me over the phone. I tried hard to answer all the questions in exactly the same way for both channels. Either I failed miserably or Allstate has two different quote systems -- one for agents and one for Internet consumers. David Clifford, of Allstate Media Relations, checked for me and confirmed that all quotes are handled through the same system.
My experiences with quoting only confirm that rating is probably more a marketing than actual sales element. It is too easy for the prospect to do it wrong and end up with the wrong coverage, expecting a falsely low premium, or scared away by a falsely high premium.
Allstate deserves kudos for developing and deploying a multi-channel service and sales strategy. Independent agents need to find a way to create something similar (agency access, 24x7 call center access, and Web access), but across multiple companies. But that's a topic for another article.
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