Sep 1, 2018
Kelly and Dave’s topic on this month’s episode of the
Ridiculously Amazing Insurance Podcast is ways that agencies can
become more efficient and effective, from service to sales. These
tactics will probably work about 80% of the time, while your
traditional methods will be more effective the other 20% of the
time, depending on the client and their preferences.
Service team members tend to fall into 3 main inefficient and
ineffective habits:
- Automatically remarketing to a client just because it is time
for them to renew. By avoiding having a phone conversation with the
client, you do not understand any new life events or circumstances
that may have arisen that could impact their quote, so by sending
them an inaccurate remarketing, you are wasting your time and
theirs. This also insinuates to the client that their policy is
primarily about price, when you’ve spent months or years asserting
that it is about overall value.
- If a frustrated client calls you, you listen to their
complaints and then tell them that you will look into the specifics
and then get back to them. In the meantime, other calls are coming
in and it takes you a week or two to get back to them, by which
time they may have already begun shopping around to other
agencies.
- Sending a quote over email may be giving the client exactly
what they asked for, but it also gives them the opportunity to just
look at the bottom line and make a decision without the benefit of
your explanation and expertise.
Three alternative habits that service team members can
immediately pick up instead are:
- Do not send any more automatic remarkets. Be proactive and call
every client every year to discuss any changes that may affect
their coverage.
- If you can’t give them a quote or resolve their issue over the
phone, schedule a phone call on their calendar to follow up.
- After providing the quote in person or over the phone, send
them an email application using Electronic Signature to save both
of you time and effort.
On the sales team side of things, here are 3 ineffective and
inefficient practices:
- Having no sales process to follow with clients which includes a
system and follow up tactics and methods. This process helps you
develop rapport and trust through your expertise.
- Creating a deck page to build a quote. Most of the time, this
is an unnecessary step and it would be better for you and the
client to just move on to the quote.
- Sending quotes over email, which relinquishes your ability to
engage with the client to build their preferred coverage.
Alternative habits for sales team members are:
- Develop a sales process and stick with it.
- Experiment with skipping the deck page step.
- Present the quote in person or over the phone.
Some of these ideas may work for you and some may not, but it is
important to try new things and see how technology can help your
traditional methods along.
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