GEN Y

Reaching

Research Results

During our focus groups with Gen Y individuals, they expressed many of the same priorities and concerns voiced by most customers when dealing with insurance. These included a local "relationship" offering "personalization" when meeting their insurance needs. They also prefer referrals (or "reviews") from others who have had experience with the same products and services they are purchasing.

 

However, when they are online, they have developed certain expectations simply "because it's the internet."

 

At the same time, they know that there are hazards involved and exercise "caution" when going online.

 

You can hear focus group express their thoughts on these issues, in their own words, by clicking on the audio file while reading from transcripts of their comments.

It's the internet

Reviews

Caution

Relationship

Personalization

  • Why do you use the Internet to help you price purchases?

     

     

     

    Moderator: So why? Why do you use the Internet to help you price purchases?

     

    Participant 1: Convenience

     

    Another Participant: You don’t have to go store to store.  It saves time and gas.

     

    Another Participant: You can compare prices, too.

  • Too amateur, too unprofessional

     

     

     

    (In the following exchange, participants are commenting on a poorly done agency website).

     

    Participant: It just looks too mom and pop, too amateur, too unprofessional.

     

    Another Participant: My problem with it is similar to yours.  I mean, I feel like they had their little cousin take a picture or something like that.  It’s like they didn’t hire someone to, like, take professional pictures, to set it up. You know, typically, you’ll have something on the side like, “Meet our Staff,” and then you’ll go through and they’ll be a picture of each individual person, tell you what they do there. I mean, this just kinda looks like, “Hey, everybody gather round, you know, Bobby’s here with the Polaroid, let’s take a picture.”

     

    Another Participant: You could spend a thousand dollars and get a website 200 times better than that.

     

    Another Participant: It’s a logo or something… something 15 or 20 years ago.

     

    Another Participant: That’s a back click real quick.

     

    Another Participant: To me, it kinda looks like one of those template websites. To me, again, they’re not investing a lot in their own business, so how good could it be.

  • Get to the point.

     

     

     

    Participant: I kinda like things that get to the point. I mean, if I want to know their mission and stuff, like that’s something that I would like to click on separately.  I mean, these messages…

     

    Another Participant: They all seem to have them.

     

    First Participant: I want to plug and enter, and spit something out.

     

    Moderator: Okay. So, in other words, when you say get to the point, you mean you want to know where to go for the quote.

     

    First Participant: Right.

  • In the ballpark

     

     

     

    Participant: I’d check the price and then I’d go look at the other stuff.

     

    Moderator: Okay.

     

    First Participant: Cause if the price is not right, I’m not bothering with it…

     

    Another Participant: Right. I mean, if it’s astronomical…

     

    Moderator: Okay.  So, it’s important for the price to be “in the ballpark,” so to speak.

  • Tell me what you're going to do.

    Moderator: That seems to be a theme that I keep hearing here, and that is, tell me what you’re going to do, tell me exactly what you’re going to do, whether it’s how you’re going to contact me, how I’m going to contact you, what I’m going to get, which companies you represent…

     

    Participant: But don’t sound too good to be true…because no one will believe you.

     

    Another Participant: Tell the truth, you know. Put it all on the table and let me know what’s going on, and let me make a decision.

     

    First Participant: Right.  And because there is the Internet and we do have so many options to choose from, I don’t want to mess around with someone that’s going to lead me on. I’ll just find someone that tells me like it is.

     

    Another Participant: And the thing is, anything I have to purchase that is going to be something longstanding that I have to draw on at some point… just fill me with all the information, fill me with the facts. Don’t try to sell me on this is cheap, or this is fast, or this is easy. Give me the real deal, and put it all up front, and make it simple.

  • Thumbs up or thumbs down?

    (In the following exchange, participants are commenting on a poorly done agency website).

     

    Moderator: Thumbs up or thumbs down?

     

    Participant: Thumbs down.

     

    Moderator: Okay, so, what do you think when you go to a web page like this? And there are a couple of ways you could go to a web page like this.  One way is that you could actually find it on a search engine or in a listing somewhere. Like Yellow Pages . com or something. So you might say, oh, Jasper Jones...I’ll click on that and you come to this web page. So, you might find it that way over the Internet. Or, the other way you might find a web page like this is that someone might say, (like you are satisfied with an agent) “Oh, Jasper Jones Agency, I like that agency.”  So there are two ways that you could go to that.  Do you feel the same way in either case?

     

    Participant: They’re really not trying to keep their image.

     

    Participant: I think that it makes them seem (inaudible), too boring.

     

    Participant: Small time, like smaller town, less resources, less buying power.

     

    Moderator: Okay, so you might doubt the company because you say their website is not professional.

     

    Participant: I don’t think so.

     

    Participant: It’s just the way the page is set up, I mean, the picture they didn’t put any time or thought into this page.

  • More professional

    Participant: More professionally done.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah.

     

    First Participant Continues: There’s more stuff on the, you know, the home page that you can, you know you don’t have to, like they were talking about, navigating through… Everything is kind of set up there where you know you can go to life or auto or home or you know…

     

    Another Participant: And you’re already set up as far as the quote - right there.

     

    Moderator: How important is that, that you see that quote right there?

    Another Participant: I like that.

     

    Moderator: Is that important for everybody?

     

    Another Participant: Right.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah.

     

    Moderator: You want to see that quote right there.

     

    Another Participant: Uh huh.

  • What your company stands for.

    Participant: Image is everything. I mean, you want to portray what your company stands for, especially on your home page.

     

    Another Participant: It’s kind of like a storefront.

     

    First Participant Continues: This is, small time.  I wouldn’t trust them.

     

    Another Participant: I think that between this one and the last one, it’s like a storefront where you’ve got one that has a good sign, and it’s a nice looking building, and it’s inviting. Whereas the other one might be more kind of like in a warehouse where someone threw up a cardboard sign with a Sharpie…

  • I look at the other reviewers.

    Moderator: Are you more likely to trust sources that you know more about? For example…

     

    Participant: Yes.

     

    Another Participant: Yes.

     

    Another Participant: Well, it depends on - I look at the other reviewers…

     

    Moderator: Okay. So, the reviews are important.

  • Who else uses them?

    Participant: This one’s interesting. They qualify themselves a little bit better between the Angie’s List thing. And also you can look at the companies that they represent. I at least would have clicked forward to see who else uses them.

  • Family and friends

    Moderator: So how do you know?  How do you know if the company is any good?

     

    Participant: Commercials.

     

    Moderator: Okay.

     

    Another Participant: I talk with family and friends that have insurance.

    Moderator: How many of you all have talked to family and friends about this?  (hands raised)

     

    Moderator: Okay. So everybody’s picked up something along the way.

  • They're drawing you in.

    Participant: Pressing five numbers before I get to a real person? That would be bad.

     

    Another Participant: They’re drawing you in.  Okay, this is the simple form and only a few minutes. But then we’re going to call you, and e-mail you, and send you…

     

    Another Participant: It doesn’t really tell you what’s going to happen after you fill out the form.

     

    Another Participant: Right, right.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah, what does that mean?

     

    Another Participant: Things that promise, like, oh, one simple solution.  It’s always never the truth. I’d prefer something that was, like, here’s really what’s going to happen and here’s what you need to do.

  • Is it really going to do everything that they said it was going to do?

    Moderator: Any of these other categories are you concerned that maybe you’re going to get sold?

     

    Participant: Insurance always.

     

    Another Participant: Insurance. Investing money. I mean, both of those… Anything where you’re dealing with future planning. Because it’s easy for them to sell you on that.

     

    Another Participant: Anything that gets your money over and over and over.

    Another Participant: That, too.

     

    Moderator: Okay. So…

     

    Another Participant: Is it really going to do everything that they said it was going to do?

  • Criteria for an A rating

    Moderator: In terms of this A+ rating business here, what would—Who would you expect to be doing that and what would their criteria be for an A+ rating?

     

    Participant: It’s mainly based on how they have paid claims in the past.

     

    Another Participant: What does that mean, though?

     

    First Participant Response: If they have had the money to pay claims.  In other words, a company gets a lower rating if they had claims turned in that they have been unable to pay to their clients.

  • You can pick up spy-ware and stuff like that.

    Participant: I picked out immediately the ones that I would never even bother clicking on.

     

    Moderator: Okay, which ones?

     

    Participant: 800-Insurance… Craigslist… And I think I was iffy on Esurance. I mean, you see the commercials all the time, but I’ve never known anybody who’s used them, never really heard enough about them to bother looking at them.

     

    Moderator: Okay

     

    Another Participant: The only ones that I said I’d click were D, G, and H.  “D” because it looks like a local company and you know it’s not going to be like some random advertising website. The last two you’ve heard the names before and you know they’re actual companies. All the rest of them, I kind of feel like it could be spam sites, like advertising sites, like just junk. I just wouldn’t trust anything like car insurance rates .com ‘cause I feel that’s where you can pick up spy-ware and stuff like that.

     

    First Participant: Right

  • Are there any downsides to that?

    Moderator: Let’s say you go out there and you decide to fill it out from eight individual companies… Are there any downsides to that?

     

    Participant: You get spammed a lot. (Group laughter)

     

    Participant continues: And the information you’re putting in the form, maybe it requires a social security number, you don’t want to fill out with people like that.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah, every time they check your credit score, it actually… brings it down.

  • Instant messaging & text messaging

    Moderator: Who wants to contact their insurance agency or company by instant messaging?  (the group is laughing)

     

    Moderator continues: Everybody’s laughing.  Why are you laughing?

     

    Participant: I don’t think people really IM their insurance agent.

     

    Another Participant: But you have to be online to do that.

     

    Another Participant: It’s not convenient.

     

    Moderator: Okay, how about text messaging?

     

    Another Participant: There’s no sure fire way that that person is actually going to respond to that.  You can text them, oh, my spouse just passed away, what do I do?

     

    Moderator: So it’s not necessarily reliable. You can’t count on it to get through.

  • Confidence that they're going to take care of me

    Participant: If it’s a company that I don’t recognize, again, I’m really looking to see how they’re going to qualify themselves, that they deserve to be taken seriously. I mean, I want to see some ratings… who their clients are… something to give me some confidence that they’re going to take care of me, that other people are happy with them.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah. If a company was recommended to me, then I’d be like, yeah, lets get to the business, let me see a quote. If I haven’t heard of them before, I kinda want to spend some time getting to know if it sounds like a decent company or not before I’m like, oh, they’re cheap, so let me get my insurance with them.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah, I’m with him. I want to see ratings. I want to see reviews from actual clients. Something to acknowledge that they are what they say they are.

  • For me, it's both.

    Moderator: Is it the service, the way they take care of you, or is it the actual coverage itself, how it’s going to pay off?

     

    Participant: Both

     

    Another Participant: Both

     

    Participant: For me, it’s both.  I like to have good service. I know, with my insurance company, it’s a small insurance company. They know me by heart.  If anything goes wrong, [unintelligible], their P’s and Q’s. I’m not just a number, you know. If I have to call up, oh man, this is my claim number here, this is that. They come, they bring me a rental car. They do pretty much anything I want them to do.  They’re not too expensive as well, too.

     

    Another Participant: Well, and cost does play a part, too, because as much as we would like say, yeah, we’re going to pay for great service, we’re not going to pay double the amount from a different company to get that service.

  • Not just an 800 number

    Participant: I also didn’t like that it said, “To talk to a representative, call the 800 number.”  So, I’m gonna call this 800 number and be on hold for 20 minutes to talk to a representative?  That’s why I kinda like the ones that have pictures of the people so you know you’re dealing with people and not just an 800 number.

     

    Another Participant: That there’s people…

     

    Moderator: Okay.

  • I like both.

    Participant: Because if it’s something that important, I want a phone call.  I don’t want to risk it getting lost in my e-mail, even though it’s followed by a phone conversation.  I prefer the phone call right away.

     

    Another Participant: I really like the e-mail.  You know, like hey, just calling you, but also letting you know that I did send you an e-mail. I know you’re busy, but, you know, if you have any other questions, give me a call back or, you know.

     

    Another Participant: For me, I like both, because I can save my e-mail and it’s something in writing. When I’m on the phone, I’m not going to sit there and record it while I’m talking to someone.

     

    Another participant: I like the idea of being able to talk on the phone because if you have any questions on the fly, you can quickly have a conversation instead of having 10 e-mails that go back and forth. I like to get an e-mail at first. I mean, e-mails are good, ‘cause I keep them organized. But then I want that phone conversation and we could just have a quick dialogue.

     

    Participant: I picked e-mail with attachments because I can print it off. A lot of times with mail, things don’t stay in the places I put. My husband has a better idea and, you know… So with e-mail, I can print it off so I can look at it hard copy, but should anything ever happen to it, you know, I misplace it, I can have that electronic copy that I can pull back up.

  • What are you looking for from them now?

    Moderator: What are you looking for from them now?

     

    Another Participant: How long they’ve been in business.

     

    Moderator: How long have they been in business, okay.

     

    Another Participant: Customer service.

     

    Moderator: Customer service, okay.

     

    Another Participant: Where are they? I mean, where are they located?

     

    Moderator: Where are they?  Okay, right.

     

    Another Participant: Is it close to me or am I going to have to drive.

     

    Moderator: Right, okay the location.  Because it’s just a website so you really don’t know.

     

    Another Participant: Right.

     

    Another Participant: Uh huh.

     

    Moderator: So the website’s made it easy for you to approach that agency…

     

    Another Participant: I like the 800 number on there…

     

    Another Participant: Me too.

     

    Another Participant: It makes it look like a bigger company to me…

  • Choice is important.

    Participant: I would like to hear from them soon instead of dragging it out, but I want it to be on my terms, as opposed to theirs.

     

    Moderator: Everybody like the choice in how to contact you?  Okay.  What might some of the choices be?

     

    Participant: Phone or e-mail.

     

    Moderator: Phone or e-mail. Okay.

     

    Another Participant: And phone during the day or in the evening, like at work or at home.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah, well they call you, but then you could tell them what hours you prefer to be called.

     

    Another Participant: I would actually prefer the direct contact than to have them calling me left and right.  I can’t answer my phone very much, so I’d much prefer someone said, “Here’s the person you need to talk to.”  I’d rather call and not have the person be there, than have them call me three times in a day. I can’t check my messages and we’re just running around like that.

     

    Another Participant: That’s why I’d take the e-mail and then I’d call back.

     

    Moderator: So, I guess what I’m hearing is that since everybody has a slightly different opinion is that the choice is important because everyone has a different way to do it.

  • Tell me what an independent agent is.

    Moderator: Tell me what an independent agent is.

     

    Participant: When I first got insurance, I’m pretty sure that it was through an independent agent, and they had several different insurance companies that they worked with, and they were able to get me quotes from all of those and then sit down with me and decide which one was the best for me specifically.

  • They find the best price for me.

    Participant: It’s kind of nice to go through like the small middle man agencies. Like I have this little place called Walnut Grove Insurance in Staton Oregon, and they find the best price for me, and I call them up, they’re mom and pop place. It is kind of nice. You feel like you’re getting the best deal. If I didn’t list it under them, I’d probably just go to the Internet.

  • They give you 2 options.

    Participant: They give you two options, either do it online or just call somebody.

     

    Another Participant: I like that.

     

    Another Participant: Yeah.

     

    Moderator: Oh, okay, so how many of you like the option? (hands raised) So you all like the option of filling it out or calling somebody maybe to get some more information. Okay, you want both. All right.

  • I would say, have the option.

    Moderator: Okay, how about e-mail followed by a phone conversation?

     

    Participant: Why would you not just call them?

     

    Another Participant: Yeah, just call them. Or just e-mail.

     

    Another Participant: I would say have the option. Here is a situation that needs further review – then e-mail if it is…

     

    Another Participant: If you have insurance through somebody, you should probably trust your insurance (inaudible) so I would think phone would be just as good as e-mail.

     

    Another Participant: Instant response back, you don’t have to wait.

  • Being able to choose among several options

    Moderator: How would you prefer we contact you, is that important?

     

    Another Participant: Yes

     

    Another Participant: Yes

     

    Another Participant: Yes – very.

     

    Moderator: Oh, okay, so what are the options there?

     

    Another Participant: E-mail …

     

    Another Participant: Phone …

     

    Moderator: Okay, so would it be on the phone, would it be, when’s a good time to contact you?

     

    Another Participant: Yes.

     

    Moderator: How about if you could contact them, and they gave you the name and phone of a person to ask for?

     

    Another Participant: That’d be good.

     

    Moderator: That’d be good, too?

     

    Another Participant: Rather than having to having them call.

     

    Moderator: So just basically being able to choose among several options.

  • E-mail and mail

    Moderator: But then a couple of you didn’t say mail, so, how come?

     

    Participant: I lose things easily, so e-mail is great.

     

    Another Participant: I like the idea of e-mail because you can print it out immediately and yeah, if you lose it or if you need another copy for another car, you can just print it out.

     

    Another Participant: What about e-mail and mail both?

     

    Moderator: Yeah, how about that?  How about e-mail and mail?

     

    Another Participant: Usually the cards they mail you are better than the paper ones.

     

    Another Participant: I’m on my e-mail all day, so that’s why I said it.