"Online community" may seem like a concept that is half buzzword, half powerful potential. The very idea of using a community in a business context is exciting for some, groundbreaking for others, and downright frightening to a few. The key is to uncover the right social media tools to support a strategy. Here is an under-the-hood look at how an online community can be built and used to enhance the auto claim process.

An online community is a group of people interacting via communication media rather than face-to-face. Thanks to the exploding use of the Internet by consumers for everything from gaming to holiday shopping to finding a plumber, virtual communities have spread widely. Almost everyone has heard an anecdote about a friend or family member who received help/reviews/advice from the Internet and online communities.

Individuals interact in communities in a variety of ways. They may simply observe and view content, they can contribute, and some eventually become considered a veteran participant — a contributor worth watching. Many communities are marked by their high cooperation levels and the eventual establishment of a unique culture.

There are also various motivations for contributing in online communities. According to researchers, they fall into the four categories: anticipated reciprocity (participants contribute with the expectation that they will receive useful information in return), increased recognition by others online, a sense of efficacy (participants believe they can have an effect on the group or environment at large), and a sense of community.

An online community has the ability to bring people together in ways that are far more robust than traditional push marketing backed by call center-style support. The online conversations can help identify trends, assist in obtaining feedback, and even field questions, all without a call center, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Users can even assist each other, answering each other's questions, and sharing information with one another. A car crash is upsetting. Even if there is no personal injury, it is distressing to have a valuable possession banged up and out of service. What better time for the insurer to harness the power of a supportive online community?

Plan Carefully for Success

Any claim organization looking to develop an online community model needs to engage in careful planning. Insurers and third-party administrators need to focus on the value an online community can provide to their customers, not themselves. Be sure to avoid several common blunders.

The first mistake is that concentrating on bells and whistles can lead to an overreliance on technology to carry the day. Firms should instead focus on identifying and reaching out to potential community members. Second, there must be someone with experience in charge of the project. One part-time staffer isn't enough to run an online community that strives to be truly vibrant. Finally, measures for success need to be consistent with goals. Businesses often say that their primary objective is to generate brand loyalty and increase word-of-mouth buzz, yet they measure success by the number of visits to their sites. What businesses want and what they are measuring are often disconnected.

Overspending to try to force results just doesn't work online. Money cannot buy human relationships and interactions, which is exactly what successful online communities require. When taking a process, such as auto claims, and mapping it to an online solution, you must take these challenges into account.

Build It So They Will Come

Auto claims is well suited to an online community model. Key points for success are clarity, communication, and accountability.

Clarity comes into play in the following manner. If your insured has been in an accident and does not have a repair shop in mind, an established online community can be an unbiased place to go for reviews, information, and shop feedback. By allowing insureds to tap into such a powerful system, they can feel more comfortable and in control of any shop selection they make. The ability to look at other users' comments, service metrics, and additional shop information — such as certifications — can give a more robust picture than just reading a shop name off a list.

Communication is also strengthened through an online system. Everything can be posted directly on a central site — all notes, questions, comments, and other information are now documented and archived at a central hub. Each stakeholder in the repair — insured, carrier, and repair shop — has the ability to gain access to the ongoing conversation about the repair. In addition, if one party is not online, e-mail or text message notifications can help keep all parties in the loop. This is a useful way to track the repair cycle as well as keeping tabs on cycle time.

Accountability becomes almost self-regulating. Shops with poor performance will drop out of the community or be forced to examine why they are performing at a lower standard than community norms. It also builds in accountability for the carrier. Each adjuster's interactions are documented for reference and future training. Carriers can spot good trends and replicate them and nip bad trends in the bud.

These points are especially important, as summarized in the findings of the J.D. Power and Associates' "2008 Auto Claims Satisfaction Study," which noted that managing expectations, showing empathy, ensuring convenient service, and communicating effectively are hallmarks of an enhanced claim experience. Each of these practices is enhanced through the addition of an online community acting as an information hub during the claim process.

Putting Users First

An online community can include much more than ratings and reviews. It can incorporate moderated forums and video, photos, blogs, and wikis where customers can contribute information. Conversations about almost every insurer are taking place all over the web right now, and an online community can help move things in a positive direction. It can be an ideal channel for building long-term customer satisfaction.

For example, if a participant airs a complaint, an online forum can be a place to publicly address the issue — or use it as a jumping-off point to take things up one-on-one. In this format, a company has the opportunity to hear things firsthand from customers. The conversations can help identify trends, assist in obtaining feedback, and even field questions, 24 hours a day, seven days a week — without a call center. Users can even assist each other, answering each other's questions and sharing information with each other.

How can insurers harness this collective energy and use it to provide benefits for customers with claims? An active community has the potential to develop an enormous amount of resident knowledge to which others can gain access. The quantity and quality of knowledge is improved with every participant. Consider the example of ratings for insureds to review: the more reviews, the stronger the information that can be gained quickly.

This creates a kind of mutual productivity on all sides. The shop doesn't need to sell its services as it might if someone walked in the door cold. The carrier can feel confident about the quality of the shops in the system because low performers will be edged out due to poor ratings. For insureds, the community puts deep information at their fingertips. The increase in customer satisfaction as well as time and cost-savings for the carrier and shop makes an online community well worth the effort.

The human factors are what really determine how people interact in a community. The boundaries can be as wide or narrow as a company determines. A claim community can be limited just to bodyshop ratings, or it can be a completely open forum. Either can be very effective, depending upon ways insureds wish to communicate with both companies and their peers. Setting boundaries is a very important step. Doing due diligence by profiling potential users and talking to customers, checking out the competition and their offerings, and researching social media trends can be the difference between success and an expensive cyber ghost town.

Once this information has been gathered, the next step is to select the technologies and features that can meet your customers' needs. The right tools will enable activities and conversations seamlessly and facilitate overall site goals. Once everything technological is in place, then the real building of a community falls to the humans. It is up to the company to make sure that people know the site exists, as well as what the expectations are for using it. In the auto example, if people neglect to leave shop feedback, the power of the group is diminished. That is why any system will keep evolving according to the needs of both companies and insureds.

The Power of Community

Just like the town square of old, online communities offer the benefit of collective opinion and wisdom. According to Deloitte's "2008 Tribalization of Business Survey," companies that sponsor online communities can use them to generate ideas, discover or fine-tune products, and discuss brands. They are also able to provide a forum for ratings, opinions, and rankings to help in consumer selection, as Amazon.com and eBay demonstrate.

Communities can help transform the ways carriers settle claims as well as strengthen customer loyalty and increase brand building. Insurers would be wise to nurture and leverage online communities to realize real business gain.

Chrisa Hickey is director of product management with Scene Genesis in Pittsford, N.Y., which sponsors SceneExchange, an online auto claim community connecting insurers, insureds, and repair shops. She can be reached at chickey@scenegenesis.com.

Special Reports /

Online Communities and Auto Claims

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