Is your mobile app optimized to keep customers engaged?

Topics
Mobile
Author
Brian Levine
Publication Date
6 February 2020

Is your mobile app optimized to keep customers engaged?

Gone are the days when auto insurance premiums were based simply on demographics like age, gender, and geography. Today, insurers have access to much more personalized data about their customers in the form of data collected via mobile phones. Customers are encouraged to download mobile apps, provided by their insurance company to track their driving habits. These apps share telematic data back to the insurer to help more accurately access risk and recommend the appropriate premium. But the growth and desire for these apps is outpacing the technology and customers aren’t as excited to provide this data as insurers are to collect it. Our research has shown that the average rating for a telematics app is 3 stars, which is below our recommended threshold of 4 stars or more for an effective app. Customers seeing a 3-star or lower app are 50-80% less likely to download, making your telematics program significantly less valuable than it could become.

Why aren’t customers as excited about telematics as insurance companies?

Our team analyzed 10,000 customer reviews over a 6-month period for the following top 10 auto insurance telematic mobile apps:

  1. Company: AllState Mobile App: Drivewise
  2. Company: Farmers Mobile App: Signal
  3. Company: Esurance Mobile App: DriveSense
  4. Company: The Hartford Mobile App: TrueLane
  5. Company: Liberty Mutual Mobile App: RightTrack
  6. Company: Nationwide Mobile App: SmartRide
  7. Company: Progressive Mobile App: Snapshot
  8. Company: Safeco Mobile App: RightTrack
  9. Company: StateFarm Mobile App: Drive Safe & Save
  10. Company: Travelers Mobile App: IntelliDrive

What's driving engagement and customer experience down? We found 10 common problems in these apps, straight from consumers’ app reviews. Today, we’ll review the top 3 challenges. 

Top 3 Points of Friction in Telematic Apps

  1. Discounts: Not surprisingly, if your customers take the step of downloading an app that gives you more information about them, they want discounts and rewards in return. A large majority of the mobile app reviews that we analyzed listed a lack of discounts and rewards as their number one reason for giving the app less than 5 stars. And it makes sense, if you have an app on your phone dedicated to tracking your driving, and it has made you a better driver, you expect to be rewarded for making a positive change.

    Solution: The solution here is so simple - and it doesn’t need to cut into your profit margins. Adding more rewards into the app, such as an achievement reward for reaching certain milestones, can make all the difference. Consider making these actual rewards and not discounts. Giving your customers something new will call less attention than offering a discount that highlights how much money they are currently spending. 

  2. Distracted Driving: Lots of users explained that they were getting penalized for ‘distracted driving,’ even when they were simply doing things that everyone does, like listening to music connected into their car’s audio system. Additionally, using Siri was also reported as distractful and impacted users premiums.

    Solution: Think about integrating a voice agent into your app. If implemented successfully, the app would know the difference between someone who is truly distracted and someone doing harmless things like listening to music to keep themselves alert while driving. Additionally, allowing the driver to use their voice to make commands further reduces the amount of distractions they have when operating their vehicle.

  3. Hard Braking: We’ve all been there. You’re driving along and suddenly the car in front of you stops out of nowhere, forcing you to slam on the brakes. This unfair assessment of the driver’s abilities is something that users were being penalized for and an additional  reason they were giving low app ratings. Another component reported in association with hard braking was related to stop signs. If a person stopped at a stop sign, and the app didn’t realize the stop sign is there, users were being penalized for hard braking. 

    Solution: Incorporating one-time stop forgiveness could allow users to be forgiven when the person in front of them stops out of nowhere; while still keeping them on the hook for repeated hard stops that more likely indicate a behavioral pattern. It also gives them less to complain about in the app. Another option would be to allow users to submit information back through the app, to explain if a new stop sign has been established. An ongoing analysis could easily alert the company if multiple people are reporting new stop signs or changes in roadways.

These top 3 frictions only scratch the surface on common issues found in telematics apps. In today’s evolving digital world, it’s important for companies to make their apps user friendly, especially if customer loyalty depends on it.

Would you like access to the full list of common issues found in telematics apps? Contact us today to have a chat and get free access to the information. You can also request your own, free mobile app evaluation from Mobiquity at any time.

Do you have a telematics app that you’d like to evaluate and improve? Don’t wait for the competition to outpace you – let’s make improvements on your app today.

Brian Levine

Brian Levine serves as Mobiquity's VP of Strategy & Analytics, in addition to running Mobiquity's insurance vertical in the United States. At Mobiquity, he has developed digital strategies for multiple insurers, including Amica, Arbella, Mercury, and Travelers. In addition to his work in this vertical, Brian has pioneered research products at Mobiquity that look at clients through new lenses, including developing the Mobiquity Friction Report (tm) which uses large sets of consumer sentiment data to prioritize digital development based on consumer interest. Prior to his role at Mobiquity, Brian founded a consumer research company acquired by Nielsen in 2015 and lead the development of Audible on Alexa for Amazon.

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