OAI: Accurate, Reliable Website Tools Drive Auto Insurance Websites

    RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA, June 12, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Recent studies delving into the industry's online presence found that reliable online tools, like search functions and quote forms, can keep customers coming back while dense navigation is a quick turn-off to consumers who are very likely to take their business elsewhere, underscoring the importance of making website functions easy to use for insurers seeking to retain customers, according to Online Auto Insurance.

The latest study, from consulting firm Customer Respect Group (CRG), rated the websites of 20 insurers and ranked Esurance on the top of the list for its content and a search tool that answered queries precisely. Esurance was the only insurer the study found to have a consistently accurate search function.

While Web surfers appear to be turned off by hard-to-use tools, they can be especially frustrated with the dense navigation that is prevalent on many insurers' websites, according to the study, which added that policyholders seeking answers to simple questions like "how much is auto insurance" can find repetitive, incomplete or even inconsistent information across several portions of a single website.

"Frustrating customers is never a good thing, and with the rise of online comparative information, wall-to-wall marketing and social media, the brand loyalty glue is at a breaking point, especially with the elusive Gen-Y and millennials," the CRG said in a statement about its study.

A separate study from J.D. Power & Associates released last month echoed that sentiment, finding that dissatisfied web browsers are highly unlikely to return to that insurer for more business, with only 14 percent of online shoppers who were labeled as "disappointed" with an insurer's website reporting that they'd likely shop with that company again.

In that study, websites were judged using five factors: appearance, ease of navigation, clarity of information, range of online services and the speed of the website.

Shoppers highlighted an easy-to-use quote process as a major factor in their determination of a website's quality. Fast quotes and accurate automatic forms played into how easy a quote process was. Esurance's website was noted for performing "particularly well" in the J.D. Power study.

"Sites are expecting consumers to pick through various pages, blog posts, content from irrelevant site sections, and any seemingly random occurrence of any of the keywords used," the authors of the CRG study said when critiquing the sites' search functions.

On a 10-point scale rating different aspects of website quality, search functions rated the lowest among all insurers in the study. Three websites had no search tool at all.

For more on this and insurance-related issues, head to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/quotes/how-much-car-insurance-costs.htm for access to an easy-to-use quote-comparison generator and informative resource pages.

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