The consulting world is changing fundamentally. Clients are becoming more demanding and young people in particular are turning away from the traditional consulting firm. At the same time, new technology is bringing unprecedented opportunities to the advisory profession - if used properly. What does all this mean for the intermediary of tomorrow? How do you increase customer value with AI and marketing as the new growth engine? Will the classic intermediary remain relevant? Four marketing thinkers from the sector share their vision. 

Sitting at the table on a sunny day in Loosdrecht are: Marcel van Dijk, director of strategic advice at MarshBerry, specializing in merger and acquisition advice to intermediaries. Next to him: Christian Mulder, head of marketing, communications and customer experience at Fidus, Nationale-Nederlanden's intermediary company. Also present: Milco Poppe, director of marketing and communications at fast-growing financial advisory organization Yellow Hive. Finally: Erik de Voogd, former top executive at Voogd & Voogd (now part of Alpina Group) and back in business as sparring partner of Onesurance.ai, the platform that helps intermediaries and insurers with turnkey AI solutions. 

At the invitation of Onesurance Jack Vos, the four marketing thinkers came together. In their roles of 'strategist' (Van Dijk), 'director' (Mulder), 'challenger' (Poppe) and 'visionary' (De Voogd), they discussed how the advisory profession is changing under the influence of technology and new customer expectations. (See also box text 'The four perspectives'.) There is broad agreement around the table: both the operating model and the distribution channels as well as the customer are transforming. As a result, marketing - often underused until now - is taking on a much more central role. 

Data analytics and AI 

To begin with the operating model: all four are experimenting in their companies with data analysis and artificial intelligence. With an optimally functioning system, the data analyst will soon see what needs a business customer has and what stage of life a private customer is in. As a result, it will no longer be the advisor alone who determines to contact a customer because it's time again, but the system will proactively support the advisor and signal when attention is required.  

"I think the role of marketing has never been greater than it is now," says Erik de Voogd. "Add to that the possibilities of artificial intelligence, and I expect that soon about seventy percent of all advice can soon be given using AI agents. Which will allow us to provide advice to clients two to three times more often."  

He gives an example from his own home. "My daughter is about to turn eighteen. That's a great time for an advisor to send me an e-mail: is she already working on her driver's license? And what car will she drive? With your BMW? Then keep in mind that she has an increased deductible. Or is she planning to buy her own car? And so on."  

Co-creation 

Working with data requires a culture change in the company. All agree that you cannot impose this from above. Christian Mulder of Fidus: "We started small, with a few pioneers. That way we could show that it works. Gradually the role of our marketing changed completely: from lead generation to director of the whole game, where the product is no longer central, but the customer." 

The question is whether advisors will go along with this way of working. Milco Poppe: "It does indeed require a certain type of, proactive advisors. That's why at Yellow Hive we actively involve advisors in the development of new operating concepts. We put everything they have in terms of experience into it. Marketing links to this the insights that data provides. In this way, co-creation creates a natural movement: advisors automatically start thinking more and more from the customer's perspective and less from the product's perspective." 

"But it sometimes happens that an advisor says: last week I already visited that customer, everything was fine, he is super satisfied, while the marketing department comes to a different conclusion based on the data. Then it is very important to have a conversation with each other: why is it that our insights differ?"

Who watches over customer satisfaction? 

Right now, a lot of power lies with the individual advisor," De Voogd observes. "The customer experience often depends on his or her mood and priorities. That can produce a variable customer experience. The question is who will soon be watching over the quality of the customer experience." 

Christian Mulder: "We have made everyone responsible for customer satisfaction, and we also measure it regularly. Poppe adds: "We regularly celebrate successes with each other." "But this transition will not be a battle between man and machine," Mulder nuances. "The goal is that consultants can use their time more efficiently. And some soft aspects are indeed harder to capture in data: such as risk appetite, or the extent to which emotion plays a role in the client's needs. For things like that, you continue to need advice from an empathetic advisor." 

Customer value increases 

Mulder sees data analysis primarily as enriching the consulting profession. "Advisors will soon no longer have to keep an agenda, but only do what they are good at: the advisory conversation. It also means greater customer value. Now an advisor may serve a few hundred clients, but soon that could be a thousand satisfied clients. That also makes earnings higher. And a satisfied customer automatically leads to lower churn, which increases the value of the portfolio anyway." 

Younger customer goes for convenience 

Marcel van Dijk of MarshBerry touches on another development: the changing customer. "The way and the speed with which customers orient themselves to an insurance product is evolving enormously. This is mainly due to AI. People no longer search Google or click through pages. They ask one question to AI and they're done. This "one-click generation" wants to be able to complete every purchase and every decision with one action. So high positions in Google no longer matter. That's going to have a lot of impact on how customers arrive at an insurance product." 

Figures show that younger people are less likely to find their way to the insurance advisor. "The average age of insurance advisors as well as their clients is already over fifty and that average is getting slightly higher every year. Young people are no longer interested in the paperwork, long conversations and slow processes of an advisory office. Their preference is more for platforms, affiliates, they take out policies through their banking app or they go for convenience with embedded insurance. To reach young people again, advisor must adopt new marketing methods. Some are already fully engaged in this, others are still in the denial phase." 

However, car, travel or phone insurance purchased from the supplier does not provide a lasting bond with the customer. De Voogd: "Your car dealer is never going to give you broad advice. And you won't build a relationship with the Mediamarkt employee. We as intermediary can do that better. The trick is, if you have a customer through his car or moped insurance, for example, that you build a relationship with him. You have to 'hug him to death'." 

Customer Satisfaction 

Poppe agrees: "Marketing is not a sprint, it is a marathon. With an acquisition and the subsequent name change of an office, the bond of trust between client and advisor is always slightly damaged. Therefore, after an acquisition, we deliberately take time for clients to get used to the new situation. We organize targeted contact moments to give extra attention to that client. Moreover, our labels still position themselves as regional offices, fed with all the extras they have from the larger group. They keep repeating: it's the same branch, with the same advisors, we're close to you." 

Not every company works this way. Christian Mulder: "I see that we are in a playing field in which a number of large parties want to make a lot of acquisitions quickly. Some - especially foreign - parties do not pay as much attention to the client. That means there are great opportunities for the intermediaries who do address the customer." 

Intermediaries as winners in AI era 

Back to operating models. "AI is going to radically change insurance distribution," warns Marcel van Dijk. "The developments follow each other so quickly that we can hardly oversee the impact yet. Yet insurance intermediaries are better positioned than insurers to take advantage of this. They can put together hyper-personalized products and make smart combinations of different providers. If the intermediary plays this well, the carrier will be increasingly reduced to a pure capacity provider in the coming years. AI may well create a new 'middle man' economy, but it will not be the same as before. It will be digital, data-driven 'intermediaries' that will dominate the market." 

'It doesn't come to blows' 

How far along are parties actually with the transition to data analytics and AI? Attendees estimate that no company is yet fully ready with the transformation. "It doesn't come easy. You have to put a dedicated team on it," warns De Voogd. "Even though you have so much data, you have to be able to leverage it. In other words, you can have all the ingredients, but that doesn't mean you can make a beautiful dish out of it." 

Knowing exactly in time which customers are in danger of leaving, what to offer each customer and which customers are actually unprofitable: it sounds like future music, but at Onesurance these analyses are already running daily for large intermediaries, says De Voogd. "Thanks to the rapid advances in AI, this is becoming increasingly sophisticated; data-driven advice will then become the new standard for customer-focused work." 

The four perspectives 

Strategist - Marcel van Dijk (MarshBerry)
Sees the intermediary profession through the lens of consolidation and growth: how mergers, acquisitions and economies of scale are changing the consulting industry and how new technology is accelerating. 

Director - Christian Mulder (Fidus)
Believes in marketing as the hub of the customer experience and data as a steering tool: from lead generator to director of the entire customer process. 

Challenger - Milco Poppe (Yellow Hive)
Challenges the traditional model with co-creation, proactive consultants and customer-driven concepts that are continuously tested and improved. 

Visionary - Erik de Voogd (former Voogd & Voogd, now Onesurance sparring partner)
Sees AI and automation as a lever to scale the advisory profession, increase customer value and give advisors more time for human contact.