Case Study: BizCover responds to dramatic shifts in customer behaviour

Insurtech BizCover saw its SME customers change drastically throughout the pandemic, and responded to their changing needs using digital channels.

According to Sharon Kenny, head of marketing and partnerships at BizCover, the types of businesses that required their services shifted due to nationwide lockdowns impacting some sectors more than others.

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“Clearly you weren't getting any of the beauticians or the personal trainers or people who were working a lot less, that area of business really declined,” says Kenny.

“What we did find though, was using analytics, was really being able to mine in the areas where we could see that industry was still thriving. And we could still go out and get new business in these areas. So you know, plumbers, and handyman and cleaners.”

Kenny says that BizCover relied on analytics from their marketing campaigns to better target customers and understand their needs on a day to day basis, especially considering reduced marketing budgets.

Brad Hoyle, operational excellence manager at BizCover told Digital Nation that the business saw efficiency gains in the last two years which he pins down largely to the investment in technology.

According to Hoyle, “I think a lot of people might have been an auto pilot in the years past and always thought this is what's achievable. And when you're presented with a fresh challenge, you have to come up with fresh solutions. So we actually pushed further ahead than we would have.”

“We got further into our technology. So we really made sure we had the best technology and processes and really thought about how you know, when you have to move everyone to work from home, we've really thought about all the technical issues, the best processes, kind of rethink optimal strategies.

Pre-COVID, the business had already invested in digital marketing technologies, says Kenny, which assisted with the communication flow in a remote workforce environment.

We were quite lucky that pre-COVID all our marketing systems have been set up. So you know, we had our integration with Salesforce and Marketing Cloud, Ad Studio and Social Studio set up. So we really just had the tech that everyone could do their job from home, we could interact and talk to each other, and there just was no reliance on us to be in the office to get things done,” says Kenny.

Despite these tools allowing the business to transition to a remote setup, that’s not without acknowledging the loss experienced from a lack of in person contact.

“We couldn't have that flow of communication, like you normally do in a marketing team. You don't need to have 100 meetings, because you're all sitting there and you're chatting over the desk. And I thought that was one of the biggest things we started to miss,” she says.

According to Hoyle, despite the gains made from early investments in technology, the disruption still meant that success was largely dependent on the agility of the team.

“We had to really rely on the team to be really proactive and, but also responsive to different things. So you know, as soon as we started seeing small businesses being financially affected, we had to change marketing strategies and try to get journeys out there to assist them and offer COVID assistance plans.”