There is an old saying, “children should be seen and not heard.” I often wonder whether the insurance industry has expanded that concept, because they often act as if their customers should be seen but not heard. To invite feedback and establish more trust with consumers, perhaps it's time for carriers to launch social media sites.

That was the theme at one fascinating session during last month's ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in Las Vegas.

At first, I rolled my eyes when I heard the keynote topic–”Going From Me To We”–figuring I was in for some new-age nonsense about how we all need to sing “Kumbaya.” Even the name of the speaker's firm–Mzinga, or “beehive” in Swahili–sounded pretentious.

Instead, I was introduced to an intriguing philosophy about how creating interactive communities–both internally (with employees) and externally (with clients and prospects)–can help boost sales and improve customer loyalty at a time when it's getting harder to differentiate yourselves on products alone.

Sitting next to me was someone from an insurance company I met only because the speaker–Barry Libert, chairman of Mzinga, a consulting firm in Burlington, Mass.–insisted everyone introduce themselves to their neighbors to start the community-building process. His title had just changed to “customer experience manager,” making him a living example of what all insurers should do–focus on service quality.

One way to go is to set up Web sites for stakeholders to vent so insurers can pinpoint what they're doing wrong and do better next time. It's also a great forum to solicit new product and service proposals.

Mr. Libert's main point is people would rather do business with companies that listen to them–especially their criticism. “Establishing such communities allows you to mitigate risk,” he said. Since insurers are in the business of risk mitigation, this should be right up their alley, except they are usually too thin-skinned.

In establishing social media sites, the goal should not be to control the dialogue but to encourage, monitor and, most importantly, respond to complaints filed and ideas floated. Even if the feedback is negative, it's better to be part of the conversation than the butt of it.

Before long, you're not going to have a choice about this, with the tidal wave of MySpace and Facebook users pouring into the market–both as consumers and workers. They love to talk among themselves online on just about everything in their lives. Their experience in the world of insurance won't be an exception.

ACORD–already the United Nations of the insurance world–is exploring additional community-building options and is inviting everyone to brainstorm with them. Go to their Web site (www.acord.org) to learn more about that effort.

Are you ready to take the plunge at your organization? Why not set up an online “suggestion box,” a bulletin board, a blog or some other Web option to tap the collective wisdom of stakeholders? What have you got to lose? You might even come up with some profitable initiatives and new prospects.

Or you could just continue acting like the actors in a commercial running in the New York area for a satellite TV service that captures this situation perfectly.

The board of a cable company, confronted with the problem of mounting complaints, concludes that the best solution is to get rid of their customers and seek all new ones–specifically, those who won't gripe so much!

There! Problem solved, right?

If it was only that simple!

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