Source: Keynote Systems Inc.
June 21, 2006 - San Mateo, Calif.
Keynote's customer experience study shows that consumers are turning away from obtaining auto insurance quotes over the phone and increasingly turning to the Web for those same quotes. This study uncovered that in the highly competitive $158 billion auto insurance industry, price competitiveness and the online quote process are the leading indicators of success in landing new customers online.
The Keynote Customer Experience Rankings for Auto Insurance Web Sites examines the online experience of 1,500 prospective auto insurance customers as they interacted with leading auto insurance sites.
The study measured 250+ metrics for each site including ease of use, satisfaction, brand appeal and customer acquisition impact during April 2006. A companion study, the Keynote WebExcellence Insurance Carrier Scorecard, measured and ranked insurance sites for online excellence according to their use and execution of 240+ industry best practices in online policy sales and servicing. That study was conducted in May 2006 and was based on the collection of nearly 4,000 pieces of competitive data for each of 16 sites included in the study.
Close to three-quarters of online consumers (72%) report they use the Web to obtain quotes when evaluating auto insurance coverage options; a 5% increase since last year's study. By comparison, the number of people reporting they obtain a phone quote decreased by six percentage points, dropping from 55% to 49%.
"We have seen a steady trend upward in the number of consumers using the Web to obtain quotes and a corresponding steady drop in those using the phone for quotes," says Lance Jones, associate director of Internet research for Keynote. "The online channel continues to grow in importance and will be the key driver of sales growth in the auto insurance industry. The companies that provide a strong online customer experience, such as GEICO and Progressive, will ultimately benefit from this trend."
The single most influential driver of a consumer's decision to purchase auto insurance is price, with more than three-quarters of consumers (77%) saying that price is "extremely important" in their decision.
However, with the Web becoming the primary source for obtaining quotes, Web site features and ease of use are gaining in importance. Almost two-thirds of consumers (64%) say that the ease of use of a company's Web site is extremely or very important in their selection of an auto insurance policy--and 74% report that the actual online quote request process is extremely or very important in their selection process.
"Price satisfaction was clearly the leading driver of customer acquisition success. In fact, price was more important in the auto insurance industry than in any of the other dozens of industries we study, including the online travel industry, where price is of paramount importance," says Jones. "Despite this, auto insurance companies need to pay much closer attention to their site effectiveness with consumers. We saw some sites gain a significant advantage over competitors based on their online experience - and we saw some very competitively priced competitors fall flat because of their poor online experience. Price and online experience are the dual engines for driving quote and sales growth in the auto insurance industry."
