Waterdrop Explores Offline Insurance Brokerage

Since 2022, Waterdrop has stepped up offline brokerage, and offered offline brokers with multiple development directions including organization development mode, independent agent mode, and community outlet mode, in an effort to build an elite service team.

It has also launched WFind (Waterdrop Family Insurance Needs Diagnosis) to drive professional operation by brokers. These moves indicate a clear new direction for Waterdrop, i.e. further integrating online and offline insurance business, making the work easier and more efficient for brokers with the aid of technologies, and driving the professionalism of brokers across the industry, the firm explained in a press release.

Implementing Offline Business Requires Empowering Brokers in Sales Leads, IP and Technology

Waterdrop spent two years exploring offline brokerage and launched the business after mode validation in 2021. Besides traditional offline brokerage, it also set up outlets. In June 2022, its first community outlet staffed by independent insurance agents opened in Wuhan. The community outlet mode is built on independent agents in which customer traffic and operating cost are replaced by rent costs. Each outlet is supplied with an independent agent, providing customers with risk diagnosis, insurance planning, product recommendation, claims aid, and some other services. The outlet mode makes it easier for brokers to enhance customer stickiness and build trust through neighborhood effects.

Ms. Jia Li, Waterdrop Vice President, commented, "Besides considering major and educational backgrounds, Waterdrop focuses more on the learning ability, self-motivation, and entrepreneurship of broker candidates in recruitment, because customers pay greater attention to the professionalism of insurance brokers. Brokers need to have a broad vision, an overall idea of industrial and product trends, and a deep insight into the updates of industrial peers. Only in that way can they act openly and transparently, and select products adapted to customer needs out of hundreds of products."

Li Jia said, compared with the traditional offline mode, instead of putting excessive emphasis on social networking, Waterdrop works to empower brokers in leads, IP, and technologies to make the job easier for brokers. For example, it helps brokers build personal IP and private domain traffic pools through community operation, live-streaming, and mini videos. During the IP building process, with the growth of customers who come for advice, brokers will also enter a growth loop step by step.

What Are the Critical Factors That Empower Offline Brokers to Acquire Targeted Customers?

How to precisely match leads is a longstanding issue in the industry. Previously, offline brokers received complex leads and had to screen manually; currently, with the help of technologies, offline brokers can match leads precisely and thus increase operating efficiency.

First, Waterdrop will group customers according to their willingness to purchase insurance. For example, Waterdrop will automatically identify the customers who have purchased short-term insurance and retained for more than six months as those with a higher level of purchase intention, and view the customers who seek for advice actively as having a higher level of intention. Then, the CRM system will match them with brokers based on locations, customer needs, and brokers' backgrounds and track records, etc.

After customer allocation, Waterdrop has SOPs in place for each link of the following process, having customers' WeChat, visiting customers, interpreting insurance terms, sorting customer policies, assessing risks, developing support plans, comparing products, and providing follow-up services.

TWaterdrop also launched the "Waterdrop Insurer" APP to help brokers improve working efficiency and experience. The APP offers tools like marketing content creation, customer needs analysis, family insurance plan, product comparison, request for proposal, same-screen interaction, and AI video generation, leading in the industry in helping brokers enhance customer acquisition and management efficiency.

Li Jia said, "In addition to tools, long-term persistence is most important to brokers. Tools shall be fully leveraged to learn about customer preferences. Waterdrop highlights brokers' input in content platforms like Zhihu, Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat Channels, and Xiaohongshu. It pushes various communication materials to brokers every day, who can modify them as they like and post them on social media platforms. This is a great process of popularizing insurance knowledge among customers. But it's noteworthy that IP building requires long-term self-motivation of brokers. In the short run, the private domain built by brokers may produce little effect. But through repeating day by day, the private domain traffic will see network expansion in the long run."

According to Li Jia, the Company's offline team recorded a per capita production capacity of RMB43,000 in September. An outlet in Wuhan even signed 36 policies in August 2022.

Building the System Valuable to Brokers and Customers Is the Core of Offline Business

Li Jia said, "Our brokers are supposed to be professional, which requires long-term accumulation. Besides technologies and tools, we also empower them with a standard operation methodology named WFind."

WFind is the family insurance needs diagnosis system recently launched by Waterdrop. It differs from the product-oriented operation mode in the market, as it's a customer-oriented methodology that empowers brokers to diagnose customer needs like doctors based on customers' family population, income and expenditure gap, and future expectation and thus ensures the delivery of scientific insurance solutions.

The WFind system includes six steps, i.e. analyzing family income and expenditure and financial conditions, identifying family insurance needs, learning about risk exposure, designing insurance portfolio solutions for customers, comparing products from multiple perspectives, and helping customers find the solutions that suit them best.

The system not only helps brokers complete the upgrade from product sellers to professional brokers, but also promotes customer-centric delivery of services by brokers in a more professional, objective and neutral manner.

Based on the gaps in family income and expenditure, pension, and educational fund, the WFind system recommends insurance content correspondingly to help customers make well-informed purchase choices. That will also improve customers' perception of the professional quality of brokers and enhance trust between both sides.

Based on the WFind system, Waterdrop requires all brokers to provide 3-5 products in each category based on customer needs for them to choose from. That will give play to customers' initiative and maximize the value of independent choices.

Generally speaking, Waterdrop and the whole insurance industry are confronted with challenges. But the harder the time is, the more patient and confident the industry as a whole should be to find the solution together. Waterdrop's innovation and exploration in offline channels also serve as a fresh example of revolutionary significance for the insurance industry in its efforts to integrate online and offline operations and expand service boundaries.