Boost Retention And Referrals In Your Insurance Agency

Boost Retention And Referrals In Your Insurance Agency
Copyright © 2007 Stephanie Cunningham

If you have ever stayed at a nice hotel, then you have probably seen the hotel's Concierge. The role of the Concierge is to assist guests with information and service to enhance their stay. What would happen if you took the idea of the Concierge and applied it to the way you service your agency clients?

I have no doubt that you currently provide excellent customer service to your clients. If you are reading this article, then it must be important to you as an agency owner. As you read this special report, you'll discover some techniques that will have your clients exclaiming praises such as "You are by far the best agency I have ever worked with!" more than they already are.

It goes without saying that the stronger your relationships are with your clients, the less price-sensitive they will be when the company that you represent endures a price increase. Since increasing client retention and referral business are some of the key ingredients for agency growth, it makes sense to make an effort to nurture your existing client relationships with some kind of dependable and automated process.

Gone are the days that you have only snail mail and outbound phone communication as options to stay in touch with your clients. In fact, email marketing has become more popular than ever across most industries. With good reason. It works. It allows businesses of all sizes to stay in front of their customers. The good news is that there are some programs that allow you to create your own client email communication. The bad news is that it takes considerable time and energy to keep up with the demands of publishing email communications on a consistent schedule to yield the results that you are looking for.

With email marketing, you now have the command of a tool that provides your clients with email marketing campaigns that look as if they have come directly from you. Best of all, there are services that do 98% of the work for you. All you do is input your agency's contact information and upload your pictures. From there, simply add your client's email addresses and first names to your account as you collect them. Over time, you will find that you will continue to broaden your reach to more and more of your book of business. In essence, it becomes more valuable to you as times goes by.

Here are some ways that you will have your clients earnestly giving you their email addresses while at the same time providing your clients a Concierge Agency Experience. Keep in mind that everyone operates from the mindset of "what's in it for me?" That is simply human nature. The secret to creating the Concierge Agency Experience is by using your customer's email account to make their interactions with your agency more effective and efficient. Here are some examples.

Your customer calls your agency to add a car to his policy. Even though you know that he will receive a new ID in the mail, you offer to email him one right away.

Your customer calls to make a payment over the phone with her credit card. Rather than give her the reference number for the transaction over the phone, you offer to email the confirmation information to her so it is stored in her email account where she can easily find it if she needs it.

Your customer calls to get a quote on a cross line policy. You offer to email the quote for him to view.

You get the idea. The point is to identify the requests that your customers make and think of ways to provide it to them with the use of their email address. This makes their agency experience a Concierge Agency Experience.

Once you tailor this to your agency, you will find that it is rewarding to see your agency's email contact list growing quickly. This will fuel your account list to automatically keep you in front of your clients each month so that you can continue to create value for your clients.

In the end, clients who feel like they are getting value from your agency will stay and they will send you their friends and family.



About The Author:

Stephanie Cunningham is an insurance agent in Kent, Washington and the creator of the Agent Contact Wizard. Learn more about affordable, automated ways to grow your insurance agency at http://www.agentcontactwizard.com

Article Source: thePhantomWriters Article Submission Service

Action-Oriented Individuals

Have you ever been around someone that was inclined to take action immediately and always? It can be a great experience, but at the same time an embarrassing one.

It's a great thing because these people have an energy about them. They have an air of making things happen, simply because that's exactly what they are doing. They don't necessarily take action without giving things sufficient thought, but they certainly don't waste time by postponing the action any longer than they should.

It's as if these action-oriented individuals have no procrastination filter in place. As if it doesn't even dawn on them that they could postpone taking action. They just go ahead as if it were the only logical thing to do. Of course in many cases that's exactly what moving into action is: the only logical thing to do. Yet how many times have you found yourself in a situation where, for some strange reason, you didn't shift into gear immediately? Instead you thought about it for a while and then you decided to make a mental note and pick it up somewhere later in the day or perhaps later in the week. Only to find that whatever it was you intended to do, you never came around to doing it.

Being around an individual that's action oriented can also be quite embarrassing because it often confronts us with our own habits of procrastinating. Most of us put off many things for a variety of reasons. Actually the word 'reason' isn't really correct in this context. The word 'excuse' comes much closer to the truth. Sometimes the excuses are obvious. Making a phone call to someone can be painful if you have to deliver bad news or, perhaps worse, if you expect to be on the receiving end of bad news. However many times people tend to put off little things that really aren't worth fussing over. Things like setting an appointment with the local car repair shop to get your windshield fixed or cleaning out a desk drawer; actions that would be over and done with in a couple of minutes that we sometimes put off for weeks for no apparent reason.

Without getting into any specific actions it can be said that the tendency to take action leads to better results in business and in life in general. Samuel Golden, a well-known Hollywood motion picture producer stated, "The harder I work, the luckier I get". Early in the twentieth century he was at the cradle of the company that later evolved into Paramount Pictures. A decade later he joined forces with two other Broadway producers to found the Golden Pictures Corporation. This company was eventually purchased by Metro Pictures Corporation forming the well-known Metro-Golden-Mayer.

Samuels statement on the correlation between taking action and good fortune sure rang true for him and it still does to this day for many other people. It just seems that successful people are more inclined to take action. And of course this is no coincidence. Empirical evidence supports the theory that lady luck really does favor the action-oriented man. The more actions you will undertake the more successes you can expect to encounter. Of course you will also encounter your share of so-called failures, but failures are part and parcel of becoming a success.

Anyone that is considered a successful person can tell you that they have undertaken more actions than the average person, probably many more. But somehow they don't think of it as a chore. Many of them just do it and as a result of that doing they get all the rewards.

Taking action

Have you ever been around someone that was inclined to take action immediately and always? It can be a great experience, but at the same time an embarrassing one.

It's a great thing because these people have an energy about them. They have an air of making things happen, simply because that's exactly what they are doing. They don't necessarily take action without giving things sufficient thought, but they certainly don't waste time by postponing the action any longer than they should.

It's as if these action oriented individuals have no procrastination filter in place. As if it doesn't even dawn on them that they could postpone taking action. They just go ahead as if it were the only logical thing to do. Of course in many cases that's exactly what moving into action is: the only logical thing to do. Yet how many times have you found yourself in a situation where, for some strange reason, you didn't shift into gear immediately. Instead you thought about it for a while and then you decided to make a mental note and pick it up somewhere later in the day. Or perhaps later in the week. Only to find that whatever it was you intended to do, you never came around to doing it.

Being around an individual that's action oriented can also be quite embarrassing because it often confronts us with our own habits of procrastinating. Most of us put off many things for a variety of reasons. Actually the word 'reason' isn't really correct in this context. The word 'excuse' comes much closer to the truth. Sometimes the excuses are obvious. Making a phone call to someone can be painful if you have to deliver bad news or, perhaps worse, if you expect to be on the receiving end of bad news. However many times people tend to put off little things that really aren't worth fussing over. Things like setting an appointment with the local car repair shop to get your windshield fixed of cleaning out a desk drawer. Actions that would be over and done with in a couple of minutes that we sometimes put off for weeks for no apparent reason.

Without getting into any specific actions it can be said that the tendency to take action leads to better results in business and in life in general. Samuel Golden, a well-known Hollywood motion picture producer stated "The harder I work, the luckier I get". Early in the twentieth century he was at the cradle of the company that later evolved into Paramount Pictures. A decade later he joined forces with two other Broadway producers to found the Golden Pictures Corporation. This company was eventually purchased by Metro Pictures Corporation forming the well-known Metro-Golden-Mayer.

Samuels statement on the correlation between taking action and good fortune sure rang true for him and it still does to this day for many other people. It just seems that successful people are more inclined to take action. And of course this is no coincidence. Empirical evidence supports the theory that lady luck really does favor the action oriented man. The more actions you will undertake the more successes you can expect to encounter. Of course you will also encounter your share of so-called failures, but failures are part and parcel of becoming a success.

Anyone that is considered a successful person can tell you that they have undertaken more actions than the average person, probably many more. But somehow they don't think of it as a chore. Many of them just do it and as a result of that doing they get all the rewards.

Affiliate Marketing with a Twist - The Free Way to Easy Money

Article marketing is nothing new. But applied to affiliate marketing it is the easiest way to make money online. And best of all, you can do it without spending a dime using only free tools available online.

This is all you will need :

- A free keyword research tool,
- A free text editor,
- A free Clickbank account,
- A free Blogger account.

Do a quick search on your favorite search engine and you will find these free tools very easily.

Quick cash blue print :

1 - Keyword research :

Using your keyword research tool, search for low competition keywords. Those are keywords that have at least 300 searches a month and that have less than 5000 competing pages in Google (when entered between quotation marks like this "keyword"). Try to find 5 to 10 good keywords related to the same topic.

The idea is to focus on keywords for which you can get a first page ranking in Google, Msn and Yahoo.

Hint : If you have no idea of which market to target, start by checking popular phrases like : how to, purchase, get rid of, help, cure, tips, etc.

2 - Find a digital product to promote

Go to Clickbank.com and find a product related to your topic. Choose one that pays at least $15 to $20. Generate your affiliate link and write it down or save it in a text file on your computer.

3 - Article writing :

Write an informative article (approximately 400 words) focused on each of your keywords. Put your keyword in the title and in the first and last paragraph of your article. Also sprinkle it throughout your copy. You can also throw in a few other keywords related to your topic. This will help you rank well.

Most important, write a great bio box that will make people want to learn more and click on the link to your blog. Put your keyword in your bio box as an anchor text link to your blog.

4 – Set up your blog.

More and more article directories will not let you put your affiliate link in your bio box. So your blog is going to be your landing page. The idea here is to put up a simple blog that will presell (not sell) your product and make people click on your Clickbank affiliate link to go to the sales page.

Hint : set up a blog for every product you promote and give it a keyword focused name.

5 – Submit your articles to article directories.

You will need to find article directories with a PR of 5 or more. These are the ones Google likes and it will help you get a first page ranking in the search engines and drive tons of free traffic to your blog.

Post one article a day on each article directory and do not post the exact same article to more than one directory.

Hint : Your best choice is Ezinearticles.com. You will need good quality articles, but it is the most powerful directory online. Alternatively you can use Goarticles.com.

6 – Rinse and repeat !

Article marketing is a game of numbers. The more articles your submit, the more money you will earn. But every product is not going to be a winner. Some will do well, some will not. So test a new product every week putting up 5 to 10 focused articles each time.

That is all there is to it. This may seem to good to be true, but it really does work. Off course it will take a couple of weeks for money to start rolling in on a regular basis but the magic of this method is that once you write a money making article it will generate residual income for months and maybe even years -- without ever costing you a single dime.

Four Ways to Immediately Improve the Quality of Your Writing

Writing is not really an art. It is a craft, and crafts can be learned. Here are four techniques you can use to immediately improve the quality of any writing you do, from business letters to web site articles:

1. After you run your spell checking software, go back and reread your writing. Very few people are good spellers, which is why spell checking software became popular years ago. Unfortunately, reliance on the software leads to silly errors. For example, the words "form" and "from" are both good, legitimate words. But if you wrote a business letter that said, "We will be taking $200 form your checking account to cover the payment," would your spell check software catch the error? Yet a simple typo changed "from your checking account" to the silly "form your checking account. Spell checkers are a convenience, but they are neither authoritative nor infallible. Always read through your writing at least once after you spell check -- and keep a dictionary handy.

2. Use that famous "KISS" principle for your punctuation. You know the rule, don't you? "Keep It Simple, Stupid" is the rule regarding punctuation. If you don't know how or when to use a semicolon, then avoid semicolons; you'll only display ignorance if you get it wrong. In keeping with that KISS principle, limit your use of commas. Far too many people use far too many commas. Just because a sentence is long does not mean it needs a comma. Well-placed commas make reading easier and are appropriate. Commas thrown in simply to break up the words are incorrect and distracting. Another important rule of punctuation is to avoid using exclamation marks almost always. If your choice of words, sentence structure, and overall prose don't convey the sense of excitement you are seeking, an exclamation mark won't do it. If your writing conveys your sense of excitement, an exclamation point is, well, pointless.

3. Make sure your writing is grammatically correct. You don't have to be an English teacher to get the grammar correct. You simply need to learn the basics -- verbs and subjects agree in number, for example. That is, "he was" is correct; "they were" is correct. To say "they was" is incorrect. If you aren't sure about using grammar, especially if English isn't your "first" language, go to some good reference sites for fundamental English grammar and usage. (If you are writing in another language, the same advice holds true for that language.) Invest in a good, basic grammar book or style manual. Check with any bookstore, online or offline, and you can find one.

4. When you finish some writing, put it aside for a couple of hours or days (if possible), then reread it before you let go of it. Of course, if you're writing or dictating a business letter or other "time sensitive" document, this may not be possible. If you set your article or story aside for even a day, then reread it, you may be surprised at glaring errors or significant changes you will want to make. And you thought before that it was finished. Many writers and teachers have commented that all true writing is done in the rewriting. Take that advice to heart and you will significantly improve your writing.

These four steps, rechecking your spelling, taking care with punctuation, watching for fundamental grammar errors, and rewriting, will improve your writing. They are proven tools used by every word craftsman.