Help! My client wants to chat with me

What do you do when you are on vacation and receive a picture of a completed claim form via a chat message? Or if you are standing along the line of the sports field on Saturday and your customer lets you know that he has bought a new car? Jurriën Schel (account manager at ANVA) gives you five tips on how to deal with this.

The financial industry, too, must be affected

The 2019 Social Media Insurance Monitor by consulting firm ITDS revealed that insurers are still far from meeting customer demand to communicate via "new" media such as Whatsapp or Facebook. At the same time, the researchers noted that insurers will quickly catch up. For (business) consumers, the use of messaging apps has been the most normal thing in the world for several years. The consumer assumes that an app to independent advisor should be fine, but in practice this still leads to disappointment in quite a few cases. I speak to many business owners where the use of Whatsapp with clients has suddenly arisen. No thought has been given to the place of this means of communication in the existing working method, resulting in annoying mistakes or extra administration. When can you be reached? What questions can your customers ask via chat? And who is responsible for this communication?

Create the right expectation

Customers (and we ourselves) today expect immediate or quick answers to all our questions. Therefore, communicate clearly about what the customer can expect from you. Here are five tips to get you started:

• Let your customers know when they can expect a response from you. Often this is already done for email, but don't forget the other means of communication such as Whatsapp or Facebook.
• Indicate to the customer what communication channels you use and what information you need to be able to help him further.
• Going on vacation? Communicate this well in advance and provide an easily accessible replacement.
• Be careful when exchanging personal data.
• Make arrangements with colleagues/employees for accessibility and administrative handling.

In addition to the above tips, I would like to share with you that more and more organizations are no longer sending confidential information via Whatsapp and Facebook. For example, last month the UN banned the use of Whatsapp for its employees. I notice that many offices are finding it increasingly complicated to communicate with their clients in a safe and efficient way. In my next blog, I'd love to tell you more about that.

About the Author
Jurriën Schel is an account manager at ANVA and has worked in the financial services industry for many years. In various positions, from insurance advisor to account manager, he has gained broad knowledge of the market. He enjoys using this knowledge to promote commercial and efficient operations at both large and smaller advisory firms.