Independent insurance agents exercise that power every day, but it may be limited if they have difficulty communicating with customers whose primary language isn’t the same as their own.
Having access to comprehensive language support is no longer a "nice to have" if business expansion is the goal. Eliminating language barriers is essential to a great customer experience.
About one in five Americans speaks a language other than English at home, and they’re likely an untapped or underutilized market for the independent agents working with your insurance company. By partnering with a language services provider (LSP) that offers interpreting and translation, you can help agents reach and sell to these millions of potential customers. Here are just a few of the ways independent agents can benefit from a language services provider.
How Language Services Benefits Independent Agents
Marketing
The first step is to get your brand and the agent’s name out there in the language that potential customers speak. A LSP can translate ads, educational materials, and the agent’s website and localize them, so they resonate within a particular culture.
Involving a LSP in your marketing can help independent agents better connect with the multicultural communities they serve and attract new audiences.
Customer Engagement
As independent agents interact with multicultural customers, they will need assistance with interpreting.
Having access to high-quality interpreting helps both agents and their customers feel more comfortable discussing complex insurance products and understanding policies. The most comprehensive LSPs provide a variety of interpreting solutions, from On-demand phone interpreting and video remote interpreting to onsite interpreting.
Document Translation
Selling and managing insurance policies involves a lot of paperwork, and document translation and localization helps agents ensure customers understand what they are signing. A document translation provider can assist with applications, policy documents, quoting materials, disclosures, and other legal compliance materials. Aside from translating these documents into another language, a translation provider may also assist with converting complex sections of text into plain language so it can be more easily understood.
On the other side, the customer may submit identification documents originating in another country or information they’ve written in their native language relating to a claim. The translation division of a LSP can process any of the paperwork an agent handles, making sense of it for everyone involved.
Building Trust
Independent insurance agents can be more confident reaching out to and serving customers who speak another language if they know that the company whose products they’re selling can support them with language resources when needed. By making language services an aspect of marketing and customer service that agents can rely on without devoting extensive thought or effort to it, an insurance company can free up those agents to leverage their skills and experience.
Insurance companies can also take the guesswork out of language services for their direct employees by partnering with a single provider. A comprehensive LSP can handle all of the services an insurance company needs, from translation to on-site interpreting to call-center support. Partnering with a single LSP that can serve hundreds or thousands of independent agents is also far more cost-effective than relying on individual agents to hire interpreters or translators when needed.
About LanguageLine®
LanguageLine Solutions supports the language services needs of 73 Fortune 100 companies, including most of the largest insurance companies in the United States.
LanguageLine has been the world leader in innovative language-access solutions since 1982. The company sets the global standard for phone, video, and onsite interpreting, as well as translation of the written word. LanguageLine is trusted by more than 30,000 clients to enable communication with the limited English proficient, Deaf, and Hard of Hearing communities. LanguageLine provides the industry’s fastest and most dependable access to more than 35,000 professional linguists in 290-plus languages — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. To learn more about how we can be an agent for your agents, contact us today.