An Interview with Robin Ingle, CEO of Ingle International

Robin Ingle is a brilliant marketer and a really interesting guy. He's the founder of Ingle Life & Health, a then $100 million insurance company that he built from a small brokerage and sold to BMO Nesbitt Burns Equity Partners and a group of investors in 1998. His goal is to revolutionize the insurance and financial services business with his newest venture, Ingle International and consumer brand, Imagine Financial. I talked to him about the role loyalty groups play in his company, the importance of a CRM strategy, and why he feels the insurance business needs to change.

You’ve been in the insurance and financial business for a long time. Why have you decided to launch this new brand, Ingle Insurance, in a highly competetive and, what some people might think, an over saturated market?

Well, for two reasons. In my past life I’ve been a manufacturer of insurance products and as a manufacturer there were limits to the products we were taking to market. Our new approach removes those barriers, offering the customer the best possible solution. We’re more concerned today with making sure that the consumer, the end user of our products, gets the product that fits their needs, and that we can provide them all the financial services they need—from insurance products to banking services.

So the Imagine Financial brand concept is to be "one face, one voice" to the consumer for all their insurance and financial needs?

Right, and an information source too. One of our competitive advantages is to actually communicate our message to our customers in a better way than our competitors. We also know that the more information a consumer has in this space, the better it is for them to be able to buy or purchase product. I believe that the Web can help us do that very well. And coupling that with the real world makes it much more dynamic.

You mentioned the Web. What kind of role do you see the Internet playing in the Ingle International business model?

The Internet is a definite additional communication piece for us. It’s a great information source for consumers, especially in the fact that you can provide a wide range of information in one place, more information than a call centre representative, insurance agent or financial services representative could ever provide. And it allows the customer to search through the information at their own pace. They can do it in the middle of the night, they can do it when they really feel like they want to look up this information. And it acts as “back-up” for our product lines. We have, for example, group health insurance as one of our product lines. We come across situations where in small to medium size businesses the HR person is actually the bookkeeper or the owner of the company. If that’s the case they don’t have a lot of time to be able to provide services to their staff but they would like to. So the Web allows us to provide them the HR information they need. We can provide the information on how to use the benefits and also provide enhancements to those benefits. It becomes a powerful tool and a competitive advantage for Imagine International.

What do “loyalty groups” mean to you and how important are they to the Imagine brand concept?

Well, the whole idea behind Imagine is that we create loyalty within our customer base and between our customers’ intermediaries. We don’t just sell product, we actually create loyalty and a huge amount of cross marketing potential through our ability to co-brand and partner between providers, manufactures and agents. Take a client like Walmart for example. With Walmart we are providing a range of products and services that will benefit the entire staff, especially the unique needs of Walmart employees, and then we also design a product line for, and have access to Walmart’s customer base. The whole idea here is that we’re giving them what they would normally need to purchase in their every day life—products like life insurance, health insurance, and home owners insurance—and then providing them a way of getting these products at a better price. We’re giving them more information, and a wider product offering, so they can make an educated choice.

How important will database marketing and Customer Relationship Management be to Ingle Insurance?

That’s an interesting question. CRM is key to our business strategy. First of all I’ll tell you about the way we structure dealing with the client before we start dealing with their customers. We have a customer relationship representative specified for each one of our clients. Once the deal has been designed and the agreement struck, we put the representative in charge of that particular client regardless of whether it’s Walmart or the Canadian Education Centre. That representative is in charge of making sure that the client is satisfied and that the business plan, and business model, is executed properly and that all of the cross-marketing potential is exploited. We then look at the customers—the relationship with the end user is very important. We have to make sure that their experience is a positive experience and that they will come back to purchase further products.

And that positive experience stems from the ease of the process that they have experienced—whether it’s the call centre, the Web site or an individual agent, an insurance agent, that goes and visits the customer, the experience is the same. Each of the people involved in those contact points has to make sure that they listen to the customer, that they fully understand the customer's needs and that they control the conversation so the right product is presented to the customer and that we can deal with any objections right up front. That way we minimize any negative relationship problems in the future. We also want to reinforce that they have an easy process that they can go through if they want to purchase additional products and, by using the database, we are able to maintain important information on the customer so that the customer doesn’t have to keep giving the same information over and over again. This is permission-based, but it’s also something the customer doesn’t really understand. If they go to an insurance company to buy home insurance, they’ve already got basic information about you. Then, (and I think everybody’s been through it) they go to buy another product and have to repeat all that information. So if we can make the process easier, if we can look at individual preferences and push back products to them, and if we can use the Web appropriately, we can create a positive customer experience unlike any other insurance company.

For instance, we will know if a customer has a medical condition and be able to make product suggestions to best meet the customer's needs. Here we also are trying to be good corporate citizens—we come back to the customer and say “You need coverage for your pre-existing medical condition.” We’re not allowing the customer to give a half truth, to get a cheaper price, and get themselves into trouble when they aren’t covered appropriately when they have a claim. We’re able to turn to them and explain that it is inexpensive to get the right coverage—you just have to know how to ask for it and we’re going to help you because we truly understand what you need. This is totally unique to the insurance industry.

Your planned Internet strategy is to develop one of the first North American Web sites where consumers can compare insurance products from different insurance companies but also purchase these products in real-time. How much of a benefit do you think that’s going to be to the Imagine brand coming out of the gate?

We’ve actually bitten off a large amount but we don’t want to lose sight of the goal. The goal is to provide a complete range of services. Out of the gate we will be able to provide health insurance, travel insurance, life insurance, home, auto and business insurance. We’ll be able to provide that additional information for the client and the customer will be able to purchase many of those products directly on the Web. That’s something that no one else has offered. Consumers just don’t have the complete range of accessibility of both the information sources and the actual range of products. We are dealing with the clients that we are because of our ability to offer this. When we’ve gone in to bid on a client's project we’ve actually been able to come in and enhance the client's ideas and concepts which the competitors just can’t offer. They aren’t structured to do what Imagine can do.

What methods of communication are you going to use to reach new customers with the Ingle brand message?

Well, with our strategic marketing partner, JWA Group, we’re going to use all avenues open to us to indicate that message. It comes down to getting your biggest bang for your buck and we’re going to use our clients themselves to help us in our marketing. We’ve built it into our contracts that they actually communicate this message to their customers in a co-branding format. We are also using consumer-based marketing which includes a combination of radio and print coupled with Internet advertising. We feel that this approach will enhance our clients own marketing programs. It’s also beneficial for an individual that listens to the radio to know that they could go to a Walmart and pick up one of our products or they can go to www.imagineinsurance.com and check out what we have to offer of if they’re a member of Aeroplan they can get preferred rates. This is what Ingle International is all about.

Jeff Roach is a marketer, consultant, speaker and writer and is a partner in the JWA Group. Jeff helps North American corporations generate Business Results through sales and marketing communications solutions. He can be reached at jeff.roach@jwagroup.com.