Last week we could go on television and the press, radio, social networks, etc …. all the controversy that has been created with the company UBER (App by which individuals exercise of pseudopodia)

In particular, I have to admit that know this APP and / or company, now at least, most of the country knows that it is, and even operate only in Barcelona (at the moment), the free advertising campaign that have achieved priceless .

Who can put him “the tide”?

It is the phrase that came to mind when I started to learn more or less than it was, and why the strike of taxi drivers, not only in Barcelona, “solidarity” were also other strikes in the same sector in other cities.

I will not enter this post on the legality or I-legality of these businesses, without doubt, that technology is a few steps ahead, and these businesses typically arise precisely to take advantage of “holes” and possible ideas business mainly related to the digital world, which often even regulation, has arrived.

If you ask a taxi driver as is logical it will defend his position ….. and if you ask a user, perhaps his vision of the film is another … very different. But what these businesses, ideas, new businesses are showing us is the speed with which everything changes, and faster and faster.

Businesses or companies that only last 2 or 3 years was unthinkable, today they are a reality, a reality that creates jobs, creates wealth. And every time you advance faster, which directly influences RADICAL CHANGES IN CUSTOMERS ALSO, changes affecting:

• YOUR WAY TO ACQUIRE INFORMATION acquire what they think.
• the way they analyze and share that information
• their way of making your final decision
• In short … your way to shop.

Does this only affects certain services and / or products? DO NOT. Let us remember … How and where most PLANE TICKETS or train were bought 10 years ago or 15? Do you remember those places that were on almost every street, or at least the main, the most pedestrian passage “TRAVEL AGENCY” called? Are just two examples of 100 or 200 that could put, and lead us to a very simple conclusion: “It is the customer to buy now mostly” other products and / or services “it is that it has changed the way to reach them and purchase “.

We are one of the countries with the highest number of smartphones, and is growing the% of people who daily use for most everyday activities:

• Social networks
• Information product / service
• Buy products / services
• Mail
• etc….

There productive that has affected them most directly, and in which also the trend is clearly growing sectors, consider the consumption of music, ebook, tickets, travel, transport in general … But in “other” sectors has just begun, timidly but with clear thinking to stay ….

financial / insurance sector is undoubtedly an area where there is much to advance, and speed of these changes, will no longer make financial institutions, but mainly customers and users of these services / products.

Focusing a little in these sectors, undoubtedly they have been two of the sectors that has cost more take decisive steps for example in terms of their presence in social networks, but today, this is already a reality. “It makes no sense not to be in those physical or virtual places where customers and non-customers are reviewing you, your products, your service, and unable to comment about it.”

Thinking only of the “value” that provides all the information of “active listening” of those conversations between customers and compensates be there, is longer need to be there. If we can also “interact with them,” we better do that “others” do it for us, would control the message would get them?

Still, much remains to be done, we find a sector (finance and insurance), in which “traditional” way to get information about your products / services, and also finish the buying process (the insurance, financial products , …) it is started and ended mostly in a “commercial office”.

Today, not only have to consider the entry of “other actors”:

• Comparators insurance and other financial products
• Insurance companies and financial institutions specializing in the Internet channel
• Insurance Intermediaries, Financial Agents, mediation EAFI’sy other figures using internet as your vehicle or natural path to reach more customers.

In addition, new players, which provide a greater supply potential customer, this has changed in essence their traditional way of information also about these products, because if a few years ago the client who wanted to get several offers must allocate a time important to go from one office to request quotes, now you have “other options” in the palm of the hand, so that the first “pre-selection” of these “more digital” customers can leave you out before playing the match .. .

And this applies equally to all?

Currently no, because there are other factors also sociological moment that mark a difference between the “urban” client and the client a more “rural” environment. In more “rural” environments can have greater confidence weight of the closeness of the insurance broker, your bank office, his “advisor” factor is a little outside in a more urban setting.

This does not mean that within not too distant time, and always in relation to the development of the technology we use in our daily lives, we can see how the “proximity” factor ever going to be less important at least in the early stages of the buying process:

• Getting information on what I want to buy
• Exchange opinions with other users
• Preselect some alternatives
• Contrast end what face to face? and final decision – BUY
• After sales, customer future development

Idea or final thought

Do not pretend to put “the tide” if our industry, our business, our customers change, we have to adapt, change and take advantage of those changes, because otherwise, sooner rather than later, we realize that all experience and all the good work of many years, in the end, be the same level as a PPP magnified.

We do not lose sight that customers will “aging” at the same pace as us, then all client portfolios in any sector and / or company’s own customer turnover, forcing you to adapt your business to the characteristics of the new additions, and these new additions belong to “new” generations for whom the digital environment is not a supplement, is the essence of his day.

And you? Do you adapt to that mark the times? Do you think your industry is not so influenced by new technologies and progress in recent years?