Mediaboss Marketing

RSA Insurance Group is aiming to be "the world's first truly social insurer" by eschewing the standard practice of using social media tools as yet another channel for advertising, and instead looking to build communities among its customers.

"Being a social insurer is more about how social enables everything we do, and allows us to be better at engaging with the customer," says new group head of social media Ian Simons.

Simons adds that his vision is not to see social networking as just another way to send out messages to customers, but to interact with them; it's a two-way channel.

"Previously, it was all one-way traffic, but now we're trying to build communities. People expect a complaint to be dealt with over Twitter, but what about help and advice? If you have a burst pipe, we could send someone out to fix it, or talk you through it, and put you in touch with others who have had similar issues in your area."

He gives a further example around pet owners, explaining that many pet illnesses relate to pet obesity, so the insurer would like to build communities for pet owners to discuss the issues and help one another.

"But people don't necessarily want a community governed by their insurer," admits Simons. "So at most we'd be there purely to develop and support it. The outcome is that it's good for us and our customers if their pets are healthier."

Although this is still just a concept at present, the current plans extend to creating apps for dog walkers to help them track progress and perhaps provide rewards, although what precisely that might be is still very much in the development stage.

"So we want to improve customer service, but we're also looking to reduce costs. What can we do more cheaply using social technologies which we can then pass on to our customers with reduced premiums? For example, it's quicker to point people to answers like a relevant FAQ, or a discussion group, than making them sit on the phone for 10 minutes."

This may sound obvious for some industries, but it's somewhat suprising for a large insurer to be talking in this way, with the insurance industry in particular often viewed as slow in the extreme to adopt new technologies.

Simons admits that there is a cultural hill to climb as much as a technological one.

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RSA Insurance Group: 'We want to be the world's first truly social insurer'