In a recent call with my Inner Circle group, one of the members brought up the topic of forms and application completion. He described his recent experience completing an insurance application using an intuitive question-and-answer format. It was quick, easy, and hid the traditional form with fill-in fields. He commented that he wanted his agency to be able to “enhance the customer experience with gathering information necessary for applications.”
We talked for a while about some of the potential options available. SurveyMonkey is undoubtedly one of the most well-known options. It’s likely you have completed a survey created with the SurveyMonkey platform. Most of the SurveyMonkey surveys I have completed have worked okay, but I was not fond of the overall experience as much as some other options that are available.
Creating Beautiful Forms with Paperform
One of the options I have been experimenting with for a while is Paperform.
Paperform is a web platform that allows you to create online forms that are beautiful, simple and look just like a regular webpage when embedded on a website. You can use them to capture information, as quizzes, or to create quotes, to name a few.
One of the differences with Paperform is that the forms feel very natural. They are clean and straightforward — not clunking ugly. There is no unnecessary clutter, but you can customize the look and feel however you want. You can also create a branding theme to match your forms to the rest of your organization’s visual brand. This makes for a more seamless transition for your clients, leads or whoever is filling out your forms.
The Paperform editor allows you to build forms with a simple point-and-click process. You have complete control over how your questions and information appear. You can control which questions appear on which pages, how they are grouped and how all the questions interact. It is intuitive, and even the most technology-challenged among us could build a Paperform without requiring too much effort.
Some additional capabilities include:
- Automatic saving of forms, and the ability to roll back to previous versions of forms
- Rich text emails (including images, links, text formatting, and colors)
- A whole new theme experience, including a finer level of control over UI elements
- Organize your forms into “spaces” on the new dashboard
- New question configuration, like multiple file uploads, restricting addresses to countries and forcing phone numbers into a specific format
- New logic options, including the ability to create nested conditions for advanced logic
- Tighter integration with Zapier so you can see the Zaps enabled for your forms and add new Zaps easily from within Paperform
- Restrict when form submissions are open to a specific date range, and customize the content that is seen when submissions are closed
If your organization has not used a form creation platform before, you may be wondering what types of forms you could create. Here are a few ideas:
- Auto and homeowners quote request forms: I’ve seen many agencies use paper-based quote forms to capture the information necessary to be able to generate a quote and proposal for a prospect.
- Endorsement request forms: Same idea as above but used to capture the information to make a change on an auto, homeowners, or any other type of policy.
- Certificate request form: This could be for internal or external use. Many agencies already have this type of form on their agency website, but would a Paperform version create a better user experience? The only way to find out is to test.
- Any other form you currently use: Hopefully, you’re getting the idea that any paper-based form can be converted into a smart electronic form.
- Applications: I would wait on this one until you have a better experience with internal forms. While Paperform would be a much better experience for the consumer needing to fill out an application, the challenge will be taking that captured data and putting it into your agency management system or carrier website to generate a quote.The Zapier integration that is included with Paperform would allow you to seamlessly move the data to any other application on the Zapier platform.
The lowest subscription package for Paperform is $15 per month (or $12.50 per month with annual prepayment). This allows for an unlimited number of forms with 10,000 forms-use per month and 1000 submissions per month. This basic plan should be adequate for most insurance organizations. The Pro plan at $39 per month (or $32.50 per month with annual prepayment) allows for an unlimited number of form views and submissions per month. This pricing compares very favorably with other options on the market.
Whether you decide to use Paperform or some other form completion platform, I believe it’s essential for your organization to do a better job of removing the friction your customer experiences when working with you. Streamlining capturing information is but one example.
How are you currently handling electronic forms for both internal and external use? Leave your comments below.
Summary:
In this episode of The Digital Broker, Steve and Ryan confront the challenge of profiting from small commercial accounts at insurance agencies. By listening to this episode, you will learn:
The Digital Broker podcast is brought to you buy Indio Technologies. Indio turns the application and renewal process into an online TurboTax like experience for your clients. As a result, the 1,000+ agents using Indio provide their clients with a top-rated customer experience, reduce their E&O exposure, and outgrow their competition. To learn more about Indio, click here!
Recap:
Small commercial is a vice among insurance agents and brokers. Everybody pretends not to care about it, but behind the scenes, they’re all doing it. It is said that you should court small commercial business despite the low profit margins because one of your small business clients could mature into a bigger company whose account you will inherit. But this doesn’t happen often enough to make it the sole basis of your small commercial strategy.
(more…)