Portals Are the New Common Sense

We love inevitability. And we love portals.

For instance, it’s often said that insurance is sold, not bought. That means many consumers don’t think of insurance as a necessity and tend to purchase it only when it’s sold to them. (Hence, the classic scene from Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run in which Woody’s character is sentenced to 10 years in the hole with an insurance salesman.) But there’s something about natural disasters and other catastrophes that makes the importance of insurance evident and the need to buy its protection inevitable.

Connecting Dots

The same logic might be applied to portals. Portals used to be considered just tools. They used to be nice-to-have marketing gizmos with which insurers could tout customer focus and self-service. We don’t know if the coronavirus pandemic caused their sudden inevitability. But we do know it sped up its realization considerably. It was … well … inevitable.

Think about it: Most insurance company employees can’t be in their offices. Many policyholders are less likely to visit their local agents in person. Still fewer folks are likely to engage in the painstaking drudgery of filling out paper forms for insurance applications and claims notices. Given the number of people we now have to call everyday — to verify their health and safety if nothing else — most of us find our time at a premium. Under those circumstances, a portal that can be accessed from anywhere — on a computer, on a tablet, on a smartphone — has become more than a tool. It’s evolved to a point at which it’s a common-sense necessity for insurers, saving them and their policyholder time, energy, and headaches.

Perfecting the Art

With or without the coronavirus pandemic, our portal technology is so important to our customers we’ve branded it and applied for a trademark for it: Customer Engagement Portal. We didn’t know portals were inevitable when we developed the technology. But we did recognize its contributions to efficiency and customer service. And we try to make a habit of staying ahead of the curve.

Software development is a science. Our Customer Engagement Portal reflects our commitment to its art.

Our approach to both seems like common sense.

—
City photo created by vanitjan – www.freepik.com