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 Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 10:47 am Post subject: Client Retention for insurance agents.. |
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What are the best ways to improve your client retention scheme as an insurance agent?
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CoolAgentRod
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| Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:58 am Post subject: client retention |
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| An occasional phone call or e mail to see if they are satisfied with their policy or if there are any problems. A birthday, anniversary, christmas card ect. |
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jsd1239
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| Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 6:33 am Post subject: |
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I guess you're talking about maintaining a good relationship with your clients. But I'm asking about ways to retain irate clients..
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CoolAgentRod
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| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:17 am Post subject: |
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| You didn't say that in your first post. It depends on what they are irate about. If it's the company they have a policy with, see if they are willing to change companies, or help them with the problem. If it's you they are irate with, try working out your difference's. |
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jsd1239
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| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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| If you have irate customers, why do you want them as clients? |
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InsuranceExpert
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| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:59 pm Post subject: client retention |
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| Insurance Expert Amen to that. Although sometimes I will try to work with them to a point, depending on what they are irate about. If they remain irate then I don't need them. I'm sure not going to lose sleep over losing them. |
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jsd1239
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| Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 10:35 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | If you have irate customers, why do you want them as clients? |
I'm sorry, but I guess under the current economic downturn no small businesses would like to lose on their clients. Most of us have come across bad patches wherein we have had lack of clients. Hence it becomes all the more important to maintain good relationship with our existing clients.
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CoolAgentRod
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| Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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There are so many ways to tackle retention. Now, if only all of them were just as easy to implement as they are to discuss. 
EFT! If you sell personal lines (or even small commercial insurance) encourage auto-bill through EFT. In flow businesses, this helps retention dramatically...so long as the insured has money in their bank account. You will pretty much never have to deal with a non-pay cancellation or ugly lapse.
Some other folks mentioned sending cards for their renewal, birthday, Christmas, etc. Great ideas! Develop a "touch" program so that you're staying in front of your customers with thank you's and updates. You may even develop a semi-annual newsletter with seasonal safety tips.
Using your carriers' customer centers for small commercial and personal lines can free you up to sell. Smaller BOPs that don't need to be touched too much as a great fit for Customer Centers. Retention seems to be high in the Centers as well. If you have a "warm transfer" method, even better! They know you're the agent, but they trust the Center for their certificates, ID cards, vehicle changes, waivers of subrogation, etc. It frees you up to concentrate on new business.
Sadly, I have seen some very large agencies' revenues plummet this year because they had a policy to *not* shop any account that was less than $5,000 in premium. They might book them up front, but if the customer asked for a requote, they'd just let them go down the street. But these days, their big [construction] accounts' payrolls are down 70%, which means that their revenues are down commensurately. Now, they're looking at those "bread and butter" BOPs in a different light! Some are even tapping into personal lines. This can be a premium retention play by booking more flow business where your big accounts are suffering. Also, account rounding never hurt anyone's retention figures. |
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smartyknickers
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | They might book them up front, but if the customer asked for a requote, they'd just let them go down the street. |
You may only think of holding them back if your team is capable of studying and analyzing the market conditions and figuring out the odds. The underwriters have to take the new challenges posed by the global downturn.
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anonymous00
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| Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:30 am Post subject: |
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Hi,
| Quote: | | If you have a "warm transfer" method, even better! |
Under the recent global crisis even up-selling things have become a lot more challenging!
It is thus important to do a careful study of the customers potential before nurturing his needs.
Steven |
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steven
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| Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:48 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Develop a "touch" program so that you're staying in front of your customers with thank you's and updates |
Some of them would just walk the extra mile to check if their client is enjoying the service even when the cooling-off period is over. Pinkfloydfan
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Pinkfloydfan
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| Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:02 pm Post subject: |
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Everybody seems to do this in an automated way but this can be a turn off. Just make sure you call everyone on your book of business every once and awhile to make sure they are satisfied with what they got. You want to continue to build trust and let them know that you are easily accessible if they have any problems or their needs suddenly change. Just be friendly, personable and caring an you will be surprised at not only how well this works with keeping current customers but also getting referrals.
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beatuplunchbox
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:38 am Post subject: |
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smartyknickers...great post. Welcome to the forum and keep it up.
I can't agree with the few of you who don't think that irate clients are worth the time and energy to retain. When I owned my agency, some of our best referrals came from formerly irate customers. Normally, with the proper approach, an irate client can be turned into a walking billboard for your agency. The GOOD kind of billboard, btw. 
Commonly, clients are upset for the same basic few reasons. Producer, carrier, claims or premiums. Always seems to be one of those four. The typical insurance client is at times confused, commonly misunderstands policy terms and coverage, and really just (this is gonna sound lame) wants to "be taken care of." (told ya). I would venture to say that is was truly rare that we lost a client due to other than premium concerns, and that was rare as well.
You cannot afford, in this day and age, to lose clients. They're too hard to come by in the first place and require a lot of hand holding at times. On the other hand- that's what you signed on for when you got your license and decided to get into this game.
As far as "touching your client," that's tremendous advice. I used to require my producers to spend at least 1-2 days a month in the office to do NOTHING but call their clients just to see how they were. They weren't allowed to try and sell anything to the customer; they were only allowed to see how things were at the house/business, etc., see how "little Jimmie's birthday went," how the "baby is" or "the new addition to the house worked out" or "how did that last build turn out" or something along those lines.
There are so many sales technique books out there that a person could get a migraine just looking at the google hits. But really, it just comes down to taking care of your client. Oh, and good companies to work with, and good management, and a good work ethic, and industry knowledge, and good support, and.....
InsTeacher 
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InsTeacher
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| Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 5:04 am Post subject: Insurance Customer Contacting Option |
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securecorp.net
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newuser
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| Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 5:42 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | They weren't allowed to try and sell anything to the customer; they were only allowed to see how things were at the house/business, etc., see how "little Jimmie's birthday went," how the "baby is" or "the new addition to the house worked out" or "how did that last build turn out" or something along those lines. |
Under the global downturn that's often not a possibility with organizations who don't have a sound financial base. With plans to cut down the volume of outsourcing projects, it's just not possible for many of us to pay for courtesy calls anymore.
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