Have you ever taken the time to actually buy the best home insurance that you can? I don't just mean obtaining a quote from one, two or three price comparison sites and then maybe even a few direct insurers. Have you actually taken the time to look into what you're buying and making an informed decision? And what does best even mean?

The most likely answer is that you haven't, even if you've worked in the industry for years. Why? Well again, the most likely answer is that you place a degree of trust in the companies that you are obtaining quotes from and you expect them to all be relatively similar, so ultimately price and potentially reputation have the biggest influence in your buying decision. You only have so many hours in the day, and for the sake of £20 or £30, you'll do some research but not necessarily as much as you could.

However, if you decide one wet Sunday afternoon to conduct the exercise thoroughly and have a spare hour to kill then you may be surprised.

Conducting the exercise

I'd recommend creating a spreadsheet, or you'll alternatively need a very big piece of paper. Secondly, I'd suggest by starting the process by using your preferred price comparison website. For the top 3 prices returned, you'll need to start recording the cover that's included, so you'll need to add a separate row to your spreadsheet for each category. Some sites display this under the 'More Info' button. You'll find that there are over 30 variables for home insurance cover, some that's included as standard, some that's available at an additional cost, some that's not available at all and some that quite frankly isn't worth the cover because the excess amount means that you are highly unlikely to make a claim in the first place.

Once you've logged all the cover options for the first quote, add a second column to your spreadsheet and repeat the exercise recording the cover levels for the second insurer. You may already start to see a difference in the cover levels that weren't perhaps immediately obvious when the information was held on separate screens. Add in new rows where additional cover is identified if necessary. Repeat again for the third quote and if you are really bored you could repeat a 4th and 5th quote to the spreadsheet.

What you'll notice is that the biggest difference is typically found between the coverage levels of the add-on products. It's very evident that not all add-ons are equal and offer the same level of coverage. If you deselect the add-ons in the coverage the standard policies are likely to be more closely aligned, but there are still some big differences. If you haven't experienced this then it could be an example of brand stacking where one insurer/broker is behind multiple brands.

If you've deselected add-ons and then clicked through to the insurance site you'll then be faced with a plethora of add-on options prior to making a payment. This is the insurer's second opportunity to sell you the add-on products that perhaps you had left off your requirements. Some sites are much better at selling and convincing you that it's worth paying extra to include the additional cover compared to others. You may be tempted to start selecting the add-ons but when you get to the payments page the final premium can be very different to that quoted on the initial price comparison site.

What if you clicked through on a different insurer site and selected the same add-ons, would the price be higher or lower? Therefore, once you've established which add-on products you really want to buy, go back to the original price comparison site and make sure you only have these selected. However, to complicate matters further some insurers offer add-ons products that aren't available on the main price comparison sites, so doing a like for like comparison can be almost impossible.

So what's your overall conclusion?

Hopefully, this rather dull and laborious exercise has enhanced your knowledge of home insurance and the add-on products available, but also highlighted the differences in cover. I'd recommend any senior managers involved in the distribution of insurance to conduct this exercise. Ultimately ask yourself, is this the experience that we should be offering the general public aged from 18 – 100, ranging from the most intelligent to the most vulnerable?

I think not, it needs improving and that's where Small Print Compare can help. Contact us today to arrange a demo of our solution, suitable for price comparison sites, insurers, and brokers.

Are the things that you regularly buy reducing in size or having other things removed without you noticing?

There's nothing more frustrating than making a purchase only to find that it didn't meet your expectations. For example, upgrading to the latest mobile phone expecting improvements on the last model, only to then discover not all of the new features are that exciting and they've actually removed some of the features that you've become accustomed to, making it less user friendly than your previous model.

If we draw a similar comparison to the insurance sector and consider the purchase of car insurance only to later discover that the fully comprehensive cover didn't actually include windscreen cover. With some windscreen replacements costing up to £500, its going to leave you feeling a little frustrated should you attempt to make a claim. Alternatively, purchasing mobile phone cover only to drop your phone in water to discover that water damage is on the exclusion list. Yes, in both circumstances the policy wording should have been read fully to ensure that the cover met their needs, but who in reality ever does this?

At Small Print Compare we believe the purchase of any product should be simple and straightforward. Customers should be able to easily understand the difference between the options they are presented with and make an informed decision. Our solution allows businesses to do just that, either directly interacting with customers or for use in a call centre.

Over the coming weeks we are going to dive into the huge differences in cover spanning a number of different insurance products to highlight the issue that customers are making insurance purchases without actually understanding what they are buying. Watch this space to find out more. www.smallprintcompare.com

Have you ever tried to describe something to someone over the phone? Perhaps you have a superior product that is more expensive than that offered by your competition, and you regularly attempt to explain and ultimately justify why the price may be higher than alternatives.

It can be a challenge to describe anything too complex, often you'll end up loosing the other person because they're unable to digest the information that you are trying to share.

If you consider most presentations are often conducted with both a visual image on a screen and then someone explaining what you can see in front of you. The ability to view and listen at the same time is proven to be better learning experience. Ultimately, it's about your customers learning about your offering and digesting the information that you are trying to pass on.

What if you were able to share your screen with your customers, so they have the same view, making it easier to digest the content that you are trying to share when talking with them on the phone.

At Small Print Compare we enable call centre staff to easily compare the difference between the various products and services that they are selling. This enables them to easily explain the advantages of buying one product over another. And what's even better is that you can send your customers a link via SMS, WhatsApp or email so they can launch your screen on their own device, so you don't have to just explain the differences, they can view it for themselves.

By providing a comparison screen to your customers to view whilst you talk them through the differences will allow your sales team to cover both options. Contact us today to find out more www.smallprintcompare.com

Whilst price is important, it's clearly not the only factor when making a buying decision, otherwise we'd all be eating economy bread, buying our clothes from Primark and spending our holidays in a tent in a farmer's field.

We have a vast array of choice in our everyday lives from cars, to homes, to dozens of varieties of bread.

But when trying to sell a premium product, how easy is it to highlight why your product or service is better than the competition?

When customer knowledge is limited or non-existent it's very difficult for a customer to make an informed decision, especially when there may be the perception that all items are the same.

If you are selling your product or service direct to customers then you may have more control in the marketing methods used, but if you sell through retailers or agents how can you ensure they are aware of what makes your offering great?

What if you are trying to sell something over the phone, is it hard for the sales message to be relayed to customer?

At Small Print Compare, our solutions can be deployed via a number of different channels:

• On a website allowing customers to view the difference between various products/services
• In a call centre setting, providing call handlers access to the latest product information
• Sent via SMS to a customer's phone, allowing them to view the differences on their own device

By providing customers with a clear and informed picture of what they are buying helps to improve conversion rates, whilst boosting customer satisfaction and reducing cancelations/returns.

If you are selling or manufacturing a premium product/service and would like help in ensuring that your sales channels can maximise the chances of selling the most appropriate products/services to your customers then don't hesitate to get in touch.

Contact us today to find out more about how we can help.

Have you ever been to a restaurant and been handed what looks like the world's longest menu? With hundreds of options presented to you, you drift between conversation and trying to make sense of the extensive menu. When the waiter arrives to take your order, you have to ask for more time because you've not really digested any of the content, only attempted to review the options but not really made any progress. Ultimately, you force yourself to make a decision because you are in a restaurant, but it can be a painful exercise and you may be left feeling anxious as to whether you've chosen the right dish, but pressure from the waiter visiting to take your order for the third time forces your decision.

In restaurants where a much simpler menu is prepared, the decision is normally much quicker, unless two of your favourite dishes are displayed, but it's still a quicker decision and adds to a more enjoyable experience.

Those interested in the psychology of choice will already be aware that by presenting people with too many options can delay and, in some circumstances, put off the buying decision altogether. There is the fine balance between providing customers with choice vs overwhelming them with a plethora of options. Conversely, the same applies when too few options are presented, and customers can be left in doubt over their purchase, feeling that they don't have adequate choice or information before making an informed purchase.

What some customers may prefer is a recommendation or some form of guidance to help with their buying decision. This could be in the form of asking questions to ascertain their wants and needs, an option to apply filters or advising on the most popular options purchased.

When it comes to financially regulated products such as insurance or mortgages, how can you offer customers choice without either mis-selling or overwhelming customers? With more and more retailers being reluctant to provide advice due to the potential liability for getting it wrong, instead retailers make the customer take responsibility for their own choice. This is often re-enforced by getting them to confirm that they've read all the T&Cs and/or pushing them towards the policy wording expecting the customer to fully digest 10,000 words before making their purchase.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if retailers in the financial markets took on the responsibility of making recommendations and suggesting suitable products that meet the needs of the customer. In some markets this is being done better than others.

At Small Print Compare our solution makes the information accessible to whoever requires it. It's in your company's best interest to make the buying decision process as easy as possible for customers whilst ensuring that the purchase meets the wants and needs of the customer. There's no secret answer, and often the visitor to sale conversion maximisation point is only known through experimentation, either by making small changes and monitoring the results, or running two versions of the same site through A/B testing.

What's clear though, is by getting it right:

• Sale conversions increase
• Customer service improves
• Customer satisfaction improves
• Cancellations and complaints decrease

Contact us today to find out more on how we can help.

I had an interesting conversation with a broker recently, about our solution at Small Print Compare. I asked if their system allowed them to easily compare the difference between the differences in cover. The conversation went a little like this....

Me: "So when you have a customer on the phone, how do your call centre staff view the differences in cover between the products that you are selling? Is it possible on your system?"

Broker: "Well, not really. We have a section on the screen which provides limited notes against a given product, but its not easy to compare across products all on the one screen."

Me: "Would you be interested in a solution that worked alongside your existing system, to allow your staff to do just that? It would give you the ability to select up to three different products, to then view a list of features and how each product compares?"

Broker: "Not really, our customers don't really care about the minor differences in cover, they only care about buying the cheapest insurance."

Me: "How do you know that? Have you asked them?"

Broker: "No we haven't, because that would then make our calls longer, and we are more focussed on making a sale without over complicating the issue."

Me: "Oh.. what about ensuring that the product meets their needs?"

Broker: "Well we don't get many complaints, so it's not really an issue for us."

In a regulated industry such as the insurance sector, brokers are supposed to ensure that the products they are selling meet the demands and needs of the customer. Unless, all the products they are selling are identical, they have an obligation to highlight the differences, without making it overly confusing. The regulator is already starting to address the issue with the publication of the Consumer Duty back in 2023, but I would encourage brokers to change their perspective and rather than viewing it as a regulatory issue, instead see it as an opportunity to do the following:

1. Improve the level of service offered to your customer, improving brand loyalty and renewal retention rates.
2. An opportunity to upsell, moving the focus away from just price and instead focusing on quality products. Not all customers are focused on price alone, otherwise we'd all be driving around in a Citroen Ami (one of the cheapest cars to buy in the UK). This can extend to both the core insurance products, but also if they sell a range of add-ons.
3. Reducing the number of complaints, which in turn reduces all costs associated with handling complaints.
4. Improve lead to sale conversation rates, by providing the customer with the level of confidence they need to make the purchase.

Whether you are selling a range of insurance products, televisions, holidays, mobile phone contracts or even funeral plans, either over the phone or via your website, embrace the functionality for customers to compare products. If your customers aren't bothered, then they won't use the feature. However, don't loose out on those that are, and are willing to spend more money in order to choose the right product for them.