Personalized Communication: The Key to Stronger Customer Relationships

The Challenge of Modern Customer Communication

For insurers and managing agents, the customer communication landscape has grown increasingly complex in recent years. Organizations must navigate a multitude of communication channels, stricter regulations, and customers with ever-rising expectations for service and communication.

An effective communication strategy delivers tangible benefits: improved response rates, faster payments, up-to-date customer information, and fewer inquiries to customer service. Achieving these results requires a clear understanding of customer preferences—how they want to communicate, which channels they prefer, and how they consume information. It is equally important to consider varying language levels and information-processing capacities.

The Dilemma of Personalized Communication at Scale

While organizations aspire to communicate with customers in a more personal way, high communication volumes often make this impractical. As a result, many fall back on traditional methods: sending documents accompanied by generic messages. This approach offers no insight into whether messages are received, opened, or understood—leading to poor customer experiences and a negative business impact.

The Role of Customer Portals

Customer portals play a valuable role in providing access to data, enabling updates, and storing documents. However, when it comes to proactive information distribution, additional communication channels are essential. Not all customers open or even receive the emails that direct them to the portal when a new document is available, and insurer messages are rarely at the top of their priority list. The portal experience itself can also hinder conversion, as customers must often complete multiple steps to access the information they need. An integrated approach—combining portals with direct communication solutions—ensures both accessibility and a seamless customer experience.

Key Areas for Improvement

Insurers seeking to enhance their customer communication need to address three core challenges:

1. Digitalization

Choosing the right communication channels, with a clear preference for digital, is essential. The goal is to make information as easily accessible as possible for customers.

2. Compliance

Adhering to regulatory requirements such as the European Accessibility Act and DORA obligations is non-negotiable. Centralized documentation of all communication, backed by a legally valid audit trail, is crucial to demonstrate compliance.

3.  Customer Experience

A personalized approach is key. This means understanding how customers prefer to receive information, their language capabilities, and their level of comprehension. The more organizations know about these preferences, the more effectively they can tailor communication.

To achieve this, many organizations adopt software that integrates with existing systems, enabling automation and personalization at scale.

Tangible Benefits of a Better Approach

An effective communication strategy provides real, measurable value. In terms of customer experience, personalized communication leads to higher satisfaction and stronger engagement, while reducing customer service inquiries related to information already shared. From a compliance perspective, complete adherence to regulations combined with thorough documentation ensures peace of mind and legal certainty. Operational efficiency also brings significant cost savings: selecting the right channels lowers printing and postage costs, automation reduces manual effort, and optimized delivery of invoices and payment requests accelerates cash flow.

Conclusion

Shifting to customer-centric communication requires a strong focus on digitalization, compliance, and customer experience. Organizations that succeed in this transformation unlock significant benefits—for their customers and for their business.

Postex is a European technology partner for customer communication, payments, and credit management. The company supports insurers and managing agents in optimizing customer communication, with compliance, customer experience, and digitalization at the core of its services.