<h1><strong>Bennett Christmas uses its 'real people' to drive new online presence  </strong></h1>
Regional insurance broker Bennett Christmas has launched a new website that puts its staff firmly at the heart of its marketing.

The firm, which has grown substantially over the past eight years to become one of Sussex’s leading personal and commercial insurance experts, set out to carve a distinct niche in the market for its people-driven approach.

Adopting the straplines ‘Our people make the difference’ and ‘Redefining care’ to sum up its distinctive proposition, the website had to convey the values and advantages of its unique insurance brokering service in an online world dominated by impersonal, digital aggregators.

“Our award-winning reputation has been built on offering exceptional levels of service – we always go the extra mile for our customers,” explained Marketing Manager, Helen Sundaram. “We needed an improved online presence to reflect that.

“We know that insurance can be a dull purchase - it can be confusing and it's a hassle if you need to claim. It's also very important that you get the right level of cover, so you know you can rely on it if ever you need to. The real purpose of insurance, after all, is in the claim.

“So, our ethos of caring for our customers, doing all the work for them – from filling in the forms, ensuring they've got the right cover, and helping them make a claim – has always been at the heart of what we do, delivered by our superb team of people.  They are very friendly and personable, get to know our customers and genuinely care for them in the work they do.”

Staff take centre stage on the new <a href="http://www.bennettchristmas.com">www.bennettchristmas.com</a> website.

“Given our culture and values, we felt it was very important that the website showcased our people, as it is these individuals who set us apart from other brokers. It’s about going above and beyond what people expect from an insurance broker.”

The firm worked with Broker Network on developing the new online branding.

“We've valued the work of Broker Network throughout,” said Helen. “They took us from planning and initial designs through development, copywriting and launch. We liked their creative ideas and the style of photography which we think is unique. We employed local photographer, Toby Smedley from Exposure Photography, who's cleverly translated the brief into reality. None of it would have been possible, of course, without the support of our great teams, who agreed to be photographed. They were fabulous sports, relaxing into the shoots to show their personalities, and we're delighted with the results, which we think illustrate our approachable, trustworthy, expert service from real people - the cornerstones of our offering.”

The entire leadership team worked with an external facilitator on key messaging.

“Insurance is a crowded industry, characterised online by a lot of noisy websites competing on price for customers. We are always competitive but we are emphatically not an online broker – in many ways we are the antithesis of that style of brokerage. It’s no good getting a cheap deal if it leaves you underinsured,” said Chief Executive Officer, Mark Bennett. “The challenge was to fix on an online presence that translated our values and reflected our client-centric, personal approach. We think we’ve achieved that with our straplines, ‘about us’ messaging and photography, so people feel they know our company before they’ve even picked up the phone to us.”

...end...  7 June 2018

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